Fire

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iaov said:
A big part of our job is being able to find the answers. Some times the best way to do that is call the factory rep.
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As spoken by a very wise man "Aunt Bea call the man" I tell my guys this all of the time. Even though it seems more expensive to use the factory guys it usually comes out better in the long run.Also the liability falls on them
 
They have to have a third party since this is Westinghouse gear.

The reason I asked the first question is I talked to a factory rep for a different company and he told me that you get a fire going in that gear and every thing gets hot and then the FD comes in and sprays it with cold water and that could damage the bus or if they use dry chemicals there could be some dielectric issues. Also there was carbon dust all over everything including the spacers and the cobwebs that were in there and of course that could cause a fault path. Wires that need to be megged out because of the damage the heat can do to the insulation.

Theres just way more to it than "I replaced everything that looked bad".

I had one where the panel was on the garage and of course they had a fire iside the garage and they couldn't figure out why I would just heat the panel back up so that they could get started rebuilding it, they kept saying the panel looks fine. I had them get the panel checked out and sure enough the bake lite or plastic or whatever it was behind the bus bars had been damaged by the heat and had melted a hole in it.

Everyone just wants to put this thing back together and like everyone keeps asking we're not even sure why it went "boom" in the first place.

Like they say, sometimes you have to do what's right and not what's popular.
 
cowboyjwc said:
Had a big boom in a 2000A main switch board here in town. Melted most of the fused switches. They were going to replace the bus bar and the switches and then just try to clean it, but the more I checked into it, the more I was convinced that the whole panel needed to be recertified or replaced.

This is at a private school that also has day care and a lot of people are being put out and a lot of money is being spent. I wrestled with it for about a day before I made my decision, but I have to look at the bigger picture.

How many of you would just clean it and hope for the best and how many of you would replace it or have it recertified?
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Hard to tell without seeing the damage.

Sometimes stuff that looks really bad is not that hard to repair, and somethings stuff that looks easy to repair ends up being a real problem.

I would think their insurance company would want to have a say in things. They are the ones footing the bill.
 
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