Individual meters for an old apartment building

[davefoc]

Don't take this the wrong way but somebody has to say it.

You have to be more flexible here. If you want this done you are going to have to give up space somewhere to make it happen. There is no magic solution, the equipment is what it is and the code requires it to be installed with ver strict and clear workspace clearance requirements.

I won't take it the wrong way believe me. I need honest feedback on this issue and appreciate everybody who has taken the time to respond.

 

[wireguru]

ETA: I was just looking around for some information on high rise metering. It looked like there was one large access panel for lots of meters. The electrician I talked to suggested that one large access panel was required for every five or six meters. He also has a small box under the meter for a shutoff switch. Is he right about that or would one large box that feeds all the meters suffice? Could the large box also have shutoff switches in it?

i dont know why he has all these different seperate boxes (unless the guy is making this up out of parts from homedepot) installations like this usually use something like this http://ecatalog.squared.com/pubs/El...pment/Meter-Pak Multi Metering/4100BR9801.pdf where you have a main disconnect (if required) at one end, and enough meter stacks bolted on to give you enough meter sockets. each meter stack has meter sockets and individual main circuit breakers.

 

[davefoc]

Thanks wireguru,
It looks like I might not have picked the right guy. I'll be a little careful about that before proceeding much further with him. I think he's a good guy and he's been in business for awhile but his experience on buildings like mine might be too limited.

 

[mdshunk]

It looks like I might not have picked the right guy. I'll be a little careful about that before proceeding much further with him. I think he's a good guy and he's been in business for awhile but his experience on buildings like mine might be too limited.

I think you may have hit the nail on the head, right there. That's not necessarily a reason to not use him, however. If you get things sorted out with him and the power company engineer, as long as you have a contract in place with the electrician, he might give you a good price. The lack of experience can sometimes be tolerated if the price is sufficiently good. I'm gonna try to get some pictures of some of my more recent 16 and 20 stack meter setups, just so you know what a modern metering setup will look like.

 

[c2500]

Do they prohibit all submetering, or just in the residential end?

Well to loosely quote the guy I spoke with from The Public Service Commission, "I don't think you have enough money to be a utility". Here in South Carolina, you have to be a utility to bill. I concede it happens, but for those doing it they have no legal recourse of collection and the lawsuit potential is huge.

c2500

 

[c2500]

Well, maybe not exactly. You can submeter anything you want to. Trying to bill for it, however, is a different story.

Exactly....

 

[mdshunk]

I promised some pictures of some 16 stacks. The CH equipment is about the most compact you're going to be able to get your hands on. Here's a few, most 16 stacks with an owner meter:

 

[JohnJ0906]

Are those your installs, Marc?

 

[mdshunk]

Are those your installs, Marc?

In a manner of speaking. I only operated the camera on that job. :grin:

You can tell most of my work around my area by the CH meter stacks. I might be one of the very few who uses them.

 

[JohnJ0906]

You can tell most of my work around my area by the CH meter stacks. I might be one of the very few who uses them

I've used Seimens and Sq D, but never C-H.

In a manner of speaking. I only operated the camera on that job. :grin:

It's not easy, but someone had to do it! :grin:

 

[mdshunk]

I've used Seimens and Sq D, but never C-H.

I think the combinations are more limit-less with the CH modular components, or mabe I'm just prejiduced. Just look at the combinations in my few pics above, and in the other thread about a cell phone tower. I just think their stuff makes for a slick install when you've got weird amounts and combinations of metering to do with the same drop or lateral.

 

[JohnJ0906]

As memory serves, with Sq D, the main has to be centered. You need to install the meter stacks evenly on both sides.

I think your install looks better, with the main on one side.

 

[mdshunk]

As memory serves, with Sq D, the main has to be centered. You need to install the meter stacks evenly on both sides.

You're only allowed so much on each side. I forget what it is off the top of my head for CH stuff. For instance, even if it has an 800 amp main, the bus might only be rated at 600 amp on each side, so you'd have to put a little on each side. I normally do put 1/2 on each side when I do it myself, regardless of the load. Obviously, if the load is such that the bus can accomodate it, you can put them all on one side if you feel the need.

 

[davefoc]

Thanks again for the responses and especially for the pictures.

An update:

I asked the electrician to be present when PoCo guy came by. He agreed and we were scheduled to meet with him at 9am. I got there at 9am and the meeting was over. Did the electrician intentionally exclude me or did they both just get there early and finish before I got there? I don't know.

Anyway, individual metering sounds like a non-starter. According to the electrician, the PoCo guy said that we needed three phase power for eighteen meters and the nearest pole that had three phase power was too far from my building to even consider digging up the alley and burying the appropriate cable to get to my building.

Both the electrician and I came to the same conclusion as to where the meters needed to go if we were going to install them. We needed to recess them into the front wall of the shed (location on opposite wall of location 4 in my drawing). In defense of the electrician this was one of his first suggestions and I think I was a little closed to it because I didn't realize the problems with all the other solutions. There would have been almost no aesthetic problems and we would have just lost a little bit of shed space.

So right now I am waiting for an estimate from the electrician on just increasing the size of the service to the building. Right now, believe it or not, the service is only 100 amps at 220. The apartments are very small this has been close to adequate but it is also impossible to do any permitted renovations I suspect because the service size is so far from modern codes. He recommended 400 amps which doesn't seem to require to large a panel and the PoCo Rep has oked a location on the outside of the laundry room (location 2 in my drawing).

Over time as units are renovated the plan is to tie the new service into individual panels in the unit.

The only thing I don't like about this plan is that the one constraint on tenant over use of electricity that we have now is that they just can't run that much stuff until a circuit breaker blows. Once that constraint is done away with I expect the power consumption to go up. I sure wish that sub metering wasn't such an awkward solution. The electrician told me that in CA almost all the mobile home parks use sub metering. Of course they have a lot more units to spread the hassle over than we do.

 

[mdshunk]

Anyway, individual metering sounds like a non-starter. According to the electrician, the PoCo guy said that we needed three phase power for eighteen meters and the nearest pole that had three phase power was too far from my building to even consider digging up the alley and burying the appropriate cable to get to my building.

This is just so wrong in so many ways. They're sorely pulling the wool over your eyes, I guarantee you. Your load isn't really changing. You're just multimetering, which you can very easily do with single phase at any serving ampacity.

 

[wireguru]

the electrican telling you 9am meeting and it being over with when you arrived at am doesn't sit well. This is YOUR building.

Who is your power company? Is it SCE? If so, they have a rate schedule for submetering of apartments on older buildings. See here http://www.sce.com/CustomerService/...DwellingsMobileHomesandApartmentBuildings.htm

Earlier in this thread, there was some discussion about submetering being illegal. In california, you can submeter tenants BUT you cannot charge them more than they would pay the utility directly. The regulation is here http://law.onecle.com/california/utilities/739.5.html

the whole 3phase power thing seems wierd. I wonder if this electrican is trying to steer the job in a certain direction either for his own benefit or to keep the job within his abilities. You HAVE checked out this electricans licensing and insurance right?

 

[mdshunk]

the whole 3phase power thing seems wierd. I wonder if this electrican is trying to steer the job in a certain direction either for his own benefit or to keep the job within his abilities.

That's kinda my gut feeling. It's not like changing from one meter to 18 meters is going to effect the load at all. I can see a utility wanting to only serving loads over a certain ampacity with 3-phase maybe, but this load will not change much, if any. Some rookie electricians make the mistake of thinking that a minimum dwelling service size is 100 amps, multply that by 18, and you've got yourself an 1800 amp service. Wrong as can be. An apartment can be compliantly served with a 20 or 30 amp feeder, if you want to. This 400 amp service they seemed to originally recommend is quite do-able, since 400 amp single phase multimetering equipment is readily available. If you can upgrade your current single metering arrangement to 400 amp, you can just as easily install a 400 amp disconnect with the 18 meters you want. I think you've got the wrong electrician, if you ask me.

 

[JohnJ0906]

I've done a 1200 amp 120/240 1 ph service, with 20-some meters for a marina before.

I can't see why they would need 3 ph for this.

 

[davefoc]

Just a brief update: The electrician I contacted originally did not get back to us.

I decided to take that as an opportunity to meet with a different electrician.

I met with the two people from a new company today.

They were quite discouraging. They weren't sure about the idea that three phase power was necessary but when we looked at the pole near me it looked like it was available there, anyway. But they just felt that the effort to individually meter the place was just not going to be worth the money which they thought might exceed $100K.

They had doubts about the idea of just expanding the service to 400 amps as the first electrician had suggested. They didn't think we could recess a 400 amp panel and they weren't sure even if it was recessed that we could keep the parking space. They did think that a 200 amp panel might be recessed. So we might be able to put a 200 amp panel outside the laundry room recessed into the wall (if the PoCo and the city would allow it with a parking space right next to it) and maybe we could get a 100 amp panel installed for the two units in the building at the back. Given that we are getting by with a 100 amp panel now for everything that seems like a more than adequate solution.

But they felt that a meeting with the city and the PoCo would be required and possibly "stamped drawings" with the signature of a licensed engineer would be required and they pointed out a violation that I wasn't aware of that might cause us some grief if a city inspector came out. The main shutoff and two main fuses are in a separate box inside the laundry room and apparently you're supposed to have three feet of clearance in front of the fuse box and we have laundry machines in front of the fuse box.

 

[mdshunk]

But they just felt that the effort to individually meter the place was just not going to be worth the money which they thought might exceed $100K.

My gut tells me that number might end up being the price in the end, but shouldn't that be your decision? I still remain puzzled by contractors who exclude certain possibilities based on what they'd do if it were their building, financially. I typically offer "good", "better" and "best" options on estimates, and the number of people that pick "better" and "best" always surprises me. It's typically the people that I've have never thought would bite on anything better than "just good enough".

Maybe I'm unusual, or maybe you just got two bad contractors in a row. All I can say for sure is that when people approach me with a potential project, I'm going to try my best to figure out a way to make it happen. Not every job is "easy" and some people only want the gravy work, which is unfortunate.