service dissconnect

[pierre]

Re: service dissconnect

Bennie
As far as the safety issue, I was thinking of firemen. As far as your comment on the CT's, etc.. I wholeheartily agree! Sometimes "less is more".

Pierre

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Re: service dissconnect

Bennie,
I can't ever see the metering equipment in the panel for small services. That would make the theft of electricity far too easy.
The use of an oustide disconnet, in a code compliant installation would not create a parallel path for normal grounded conductor current or fault current. The insides panel would require an isolated grounded conductor and an EGC.
Don

 

[electricmanscott]

Re: service dissconnect

What if a stray nail goes through the riser on the line side of the meter? Maybe a disconnect at the weatherhead would be a good idea too :roll: . In this area of Mass the standard answer seems to be about six feet.

 

[Guest]

Re: service dissconnect

I understand that in New England it's SOP in residential applications to run exterior super-surface SER out of the main-disconnect to the subpanels.

But I have to assume that on the line side it's all in rigid pipe? That should stop a 16D unless you're using a plate gun (one that will shoot through the bottom plate into a slab).

[ September 13, 2003, 03:03 PM: Message edited by: awwt ]

 

[iwire]

Re: service dissconnect

Originally posted by awwt:
But I have to assume that on the line side it's all in rigid pipe?

Wayne always bad to assume , my old service as well as the new one I am installing is 100% SE from the point of attachment to the panel, this is SOP in this area.

 

[iwire]

Re: service dissconnect

Wayne (awwt) asked me to post a picture of an all SE service so here is a very bad example of one near my house.

The height of this meter 8' or 9' feet to the top one is very unusually and thats why I took this photo.

But the use of SE down to the meters and most likely into the basement panels is very typical.

This one has parallel 2/0 or 3/0 AL SE to run the 3 meters.

Bob

[ September 13, 2003, 06:39 PM: Message edited by: iwire ]

 

[electricmanscott]

Re: service dissconnect

In a related story I went on a call where a catv guy drilled out through the side of the house and directly through the service pipe which was rigid conduit. Lights in the neighborhood dimmed for a second and the house had a nice burn on the side but the guy wasn't hurt.

 

[iwire]

Re: service dissconnect

Originally posted by electricmanscott:
a catv guy drilled out through the side of the house and directly through the service pipe which was rigid conduit.

Not that I doubt this for a minute, but you would think the guy would have wondered what he was drilling through. :roll:

At a exam prep class the teacher had a piece of AL SE that the same thing happened to, about 6" of one conductor was gone.

Bob

 

[Guest]

Re: service dissconnect

OK, straying off topic a little here. On an underground residential service USA (Underground Service Alert) came out and spotted their underground utility feeders. They spotted the underground primary on the other side of the street, and the underground secondary on my side. It was early in my electrical career. This new residence under construction was in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Dug down with a shovel until the dirt got really hard. Had to switch to a digging bar. I found the secondary. The utility came out and said yep, it's right here and they finished off the dig to their satisfaction with a metal bar. They nicked up the cabling a bit but nothing exposed. When they went to hookup they found out it was the primary. I asked what would have happened if we'd hit the primary with our metal bar when we were digging. Their reply, "It would have sound like a nest of rattlesnakes". They chuckled as they dug up the street to the other side and made up the newly placed Christie box.

Keep in mind this was over 25-years ago and my details may be fuzzy but the gist is they mis-spotted the primary and we came close to banging our digging bars in to it. There was no sand backfill; no warning tape; nobody got hurt; the story is true. Protection on the line side is a good thing.

Now, back to your local station. This has been an unsolicited news break from station awwt.

../Wayne C.

[ September 13, 2003, 11:59 PM: Message edited by: awwt ]

 

[rickg]

Re: service dissconnect

That reminds me of an incident about 20 years ago. We were completing the finish on a new house in a large (for this part of the country) development. I was walking to the truck to get a switch plate or something, I saw one of the builders handymen with a metal digging bar working at the side of the road. I asked (from a distance) what he was doing, he replied " I am installing a mailbox and have got this ******* root to get out". Well, there isn't a tree around for 1/4 mile, and it is an underground utility community. Before I could yell STOP,he took a long jab at the root. BOOM, dirt blew out of the hole! he had a dazed look about him. He took out a primary that fed a substantial portion of the development. Fortunately he was not injured, (probably needed new shorts). If that wasn't enough, we started teasing him about the electric cops will be around to get him (from the old WKRP in Cincinatti TV show about the phone cops). He jumped into his truck an fled the scene. The reality of it was he could have been responsible for the damage for not calling Dig Safe, but, the primary conductors were only 11" (thats ELEVEN INCHES)below finish grade in a new development. The utility made the repair, and that was the end of it. I pass this site almost daily & often think how lucky he was.
Rick

 

[hurk27]

Re: service dissconnect

Rick we could start a whole new thread with horror storys you said that one was 11" I hit one at 6" with the Hp gas line just 2' away in the same trench also got the secondarys to boot. the POCO hauld us in court But we had photo's the judge through it out and made the POCO pay for the damage to my back hoe bucket. about a 8" nick in the side of it. couldn't get them to pay for the shorts though. LOL
And I'm not talking about the ones in the cable eather.

 

[gregory]

Re: service dissconnect

Outside Disconnect
The Village that I work for requires outside disconnects at the meter. some years ago a fireman was in a flooded basement and got electrocuted. The electrical commission decided that there should be outside disconnects so that this would not happen again. The disconnects must be lockable so that persons can't disconnect the power. We also have passed an ordinance requiring inside disconnects as well because of the locking of the outside disconnect the commission did not think that the locked disconnect was readily accessible in an emergency. no problem for the fire dept. they just cut the lock off. The grounding electrode conductor must go to the outside disconnect. On larger commercial services we allow a shunt trip to be installed on the outside of the bldg. in a Hoffman box. It has a special round fire dept. lock installed on it with labeling.

 

[wire nut]

Re: service dissconnect

I recently installed two 200 amp services/loadcenters in a duplex. The wire length between the point of entry to the nearest loadcenter is about 5 feet. The wire length between the point of entry to the farthest loadcenter is about 8 feet. The 5 foot gap between the nearest load center and the wire point of entry has a wall area ideal for mounting the loadcenters but can easily be a safty problem since that would be directly at the base of the cellar steps. I "boxed in" the wires between the point of entry and the load centers too.

When the inspector inspected the job, I could see him pause for a few seconds while looking at the wall space between the load centers and the wire point of entry. The inspector is known to be very strict and I thought the job was going to fail and would require a moving the loadcenters or installing disconnects. However, I believe he relized it would be a safty issue if I had to move the loadcenters closer to the point of entry due to the base of the cellar steps and not worthy of disconnects so he passed me.


Point of the story is I believe