I just recently viewed a new service that I am very puzzled about. This contractor installed a 60' wide 96' tall hoffman box outdoor to feed a multi field sports complex. Inside he built the service, he took two 400 amp panel board MCB interiors placed them on a back plate made of a sheet of plywood. Now here is the puzzling part, there are two 4" pvc pipes underground going back to the pad mount transformer. Each pipe has four 500 mcm conductors one for each phase, plus one for the neutral. He placed the phases on the 400 MCB's, but then he mounted only one neutral buss assembly and landed both neutrals on the one buss. So basically he paralleled the neutral part of the service, but separated the panel feeders. There are many code issue at this complex, and the owner wants me to give them the code book articles for each of these problems. I have made a list of the other items, but I can not find anywhere that what he did here is wrong. Does anyone know where this may be addressed in the code book? I've spent hours trying to find it. This is brand new complex with many problems other than code issues, and the owner is just trying to get it working.
Puzzling Sevice
- Thread starter groundlug
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Service Puzzle
Service Puzzle
It seems that there are UL problems with his shop fabricated service panel. There is a code article that requires all service equipment to be listed and marked "for use as service" or something like that.
As far as the neutrals not being separated I don't think that is a big deal just so he establishes equipment grounding conductors and installs a main bonding jumper down to the grounding electrode system.
Service Puzzle
It seems that there are UL problems with his shop fabricated service panel. There is a code article that requires all service equipment to be listed and marked "for use as service" or something like that.
As far as the neutrals not being separated I don't think that is a big deal just so he establishes equipment grounding conductors and installs a main bonding jumper down to the grounding electrode system.
As far as the neutral I think billyzee and OTT2 covered it. The question I have is the hoffman box. You seem to indicate that the 2 400 amp panels are for indoor use. Is the enclosure weather proof such that it protects the panels? The panel is not part of the service is it? just an enclosure.
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