Number of breakers in panel

Status
Not open for further replies.
In Washington there was a proposal from the State Home Inspector association to allow HI to removed the electrical panel to do an inspection. There was a long discussion about it by the electrical board and the rule was not adopted.
 
Let's do the same with plumbing. Two bathtubs, each with a hot and hold, ½" pipe for all for. That's 2 inches total. 2 vanities... another 2 inches. Now the washing machine.... again, ½". Two ½" for the kitchen sink. So far, I'm up to 5½". Not counting the dishwasher and two outside hydrants, I can see I need at least an 8" water line brought in from the street.
 
dm9289 said:
A home inspector told a home seller that they needed a new service because if you added up the numbers on the individual breakers they were more than the main.
Click to expand...


480sparky said:
FWIW, home inspectors rarely have the 'authority' to demand any work be done. They're simply pointing out issues that can be used for negotiation.
Click to expand...


How about this: you tell the buyer sure, no problem I can do a new service. Let me get some prices so I'll know how much to increase the selling price. :p

-Hal
 
Seems to me if the 200 amp main breaker has never tripped, it probably is not overloaded.

I can think of one place where I have installed a 200 amp panel that has six 90 amp breakers installed in it. Each one supplying a motor load, but there is never more than two of them running at any time.
 
hbiss said:
How about this: you tell the buyer sure, no problem I can do a new service. Let me get some prices so I'll know how much to increase the selling price. :p

-Hal
Click to expand...

I'd rather tell the HO "Sure, I could charge you $18k for a panel upgrade (along with the required updated house wiring)..... however, this HI is flat-out wrong. I can write up a response for you, replete with all the necessary code references and service calculations, toss in my experience and credentials, email it to you as a PDF, and you can use that instead."

For that, I'd probably end up with a lifetime customer.
 
The HI did do a "load Calc", the only problem is that it's the idiots load calculation, because you can forgive a non-trades person for adding the sum of the rating of the individual breakers to determine the load but for a so-called "expert" to do so is idiotic.
 
A lot of them were carpenters originally, and found it easier to make a living as a HI, they know enough to be dangerous! LOL! But I have ran across “electricians” the same way. We had a large job many years ago where our job superintendent told the customers engineers the panel feed was too small. The boss sent me out there to find out what was going on, when I talked to the superintendent, he said there was 840 amps worth of breakers in a 225 amp panel! He too was counting breakers. Yeah, we sent him fishing! LOL!
 
I had an "exploratory conversation" (I won't call it an "interview") a decade or two ago with a company who did "high end" home inspections. It was the inspection that was high end, not the houses they inspected. Every inspector was a licensed professional engineer. So far, so good. But they did not send out a team of inspectors for each project, with team members including engineers of various disciplines. They sent one inspector to each house. That inspector had to learn enough about the other disciplines, and about architecture and building codes, in order to be allowed to perform inspections for that company. I chose not to pursue a job offer from that company. The learning curve was more than I wanted to take on. By the way, their inspections were not cheap, as you might imagine.
 
480sparky said:
I'd rather tell the HO "Sure, I could charge you $18k for a panel upgrade (along with the required updated house wiring)..... however, this HI is flat-out wrong. I can write up a response for you, replete with all the necessary code references and service calculations, toss in my experience and credentials, email it to you as a PDF, and you can use that instead."

For that, I'd probably end up with a lifetime customer.
Click to expand...
For a bargain price of only $10k instead of 18 :cool:
 
So this HI is saying a 200A panel can only have 8 20 amp breakers, if he uses the 80% rule. Wonder what he would say to a full 60 space panel or one that is full of tandem breakers? HI should really know what the codes are so home buyers or even sellers do not have to foot a unnecessary bill. I would provide a load cal. to the seller and buyer and show them in the code how you’ve come up with that to put their minds at ease over the false info this HI as given. Would not even bother with showing this to the HI he will lose his business by the reputation he will get by giving out false/dumb info


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
McLintock said:
So this HI is saying a 200A panel can only have 8 20 amp breakers, if he uses the 80% rule. Wonder what he would say to a full 60 space panel or one that is full of tandem breakers? HI should really know what the codes are so home buyers or even sellers do not have to foot a unnecessary bill. I would provide a load cal. to the seller and buyer and show them in the code how you’ve come up with that to put their minds at ease over the false info this HI as given. Would not even bother with showing this to the HI he will lose his business by the reputation he will get by giving out false/dumb info


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
My house alone would make his head spin on just the 2 pole breakers in the main panel.
Range 40
Water heater 30
Dryer 30
Heat pump 45
Aux heat 50
Aux heat 25
well 15
sub panel 100

That is 235 and we haven't even considered the single pole breakers yet.
POCO only supplies me with a 25 KVA transformer which rated output would be about 105 amps, and there are a couple other buildings being supplied on top of that as well.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top