Grandfathering An Off-Grid House Getting Hooked Up To The Grid? AFCI? Ontario

[OntarioAgain]

Hi,



An off-grid solar summer camp/cottage is planning on getting hooked up to the grid. They wired everything for 120V back in the 90's. Does everything need to be brought up to code before getting hooked up? I'm thinking mainly about those expensive AFCI outlets.

I've asked 2 electricians and got opposite answers.

 

[Eddie702]

I guess it might depend on if it was inspected at the original install. If not, it will probably need to be wired to today's code

 

[jmellc]

Curious, why only 120 volt? No stove or HVAC at all? Lights & receptacles only? Factory wired or on site? What kind of breaker panel? Any meter base?

 

[jaggedben]

Curious, why only 120 volt? No stove or HVAC at all? Lights & receptacles only? Factory wired or on site? What kind of breaker panel? Any meter base?

Off-grid solar is generally not going to power a stove or HVAC.

 

[jmellc]

Off-grid solar is generally not going to power a stove or HVAC.

Is it even wired for a grid connection? It would need a meter base and ATS or MTS

 

[tallgirl]

Curious, why only 120 volt? No stove or HVAC at all? Lights & receptacles only? Factory wired or on site? What kind of breaker panel? Any meter base?

Off-grid homes under about 3KW tend to have a single inverter producing 120VAC, rather than multiple inverters producing 120/240.

The off-grid houses I worked on back in the day either used various tricks to avoid needing A/C, or in some cases they used something like a swamp cooler. Cooking and heating is typically propane.

 

[jaggedben]

Is it even wired for a grid connection? It would need a meter base and ATS or MTS

It would presumably need a meter socket, and perhaps service equipment. I don't see why it would need an ATS without further info about whether they are keeping the solar and how.

 

[jmellc]

It would presumably need a meter socket, and perhaps service equipment. I don't see why it would need an ATS without further info about whether they are keeping the solar and how.

They made no mention of doing away with solar; called it a solar house?

 

[jmellc]

Off-grid homes under about 3KW tend to have a single inverter producing 120VAC, rather than multiple inverters producing 120/240.

The off-grid houses I worked on back in the day either used various tricks to avoid needing A/C, or in some cases they used something like a swamp cooler. Cooking and heating is typically propane.

Propane makes sense.

 

[tallgirl]

They made no mention of doing away with solar; called it a solar house?

It's possible they are going to feed the inverters with the grid and do away with whatever they were using as a standby generator. Depending on the Code up there, and whatever is going on with the interconnect requirements, that the only change is adding some kind of service, then connecting the inverters as the only load.

There was a thing a while back where people who moved off grid when younger were wanting to add more solar, or even grid connections, as they got older was a thing.