Temporary power for tenants

[Buck Parrish]

Like Infinity said, you're probably going to need to get the poco involved. They might want them outside. That's a lot of meters. Are you going to have to isolate the neutrals in each panel, too?
Below is what 65 would look like in one location. Generally, their broken up so theirs's not as many in one spot.

 

[augie47]

Unless you can place the new gear in another location and transfer the loads over a few at a time, the hotel might be the least expensive and most convenient.

 

[Tainted]

Like Infinity said, you're probably going to need to get the poco involved. They might want them outside. That's a lot of meters. Are you going to have to isolate the neutrals in each panel, too?
Below is what 65 would look like in one location. Generally, their broken up so theirs's not as many in one spot.

I don't think I would want to do a temporary meter bank I would just tell the client to pay for the electricity bill and put all the apartments in 1 main meter temporarily until everything is installed. I would just need to bring a single feed where the meter bank was installed

Unless you can place the new gear in another location and transfer the loads over a few at a time, the hotel might be the least expensive and most convenient.

I have space for temporary power, but no permanent space for new electrical equipment. I don't like the idea of moving everyone to a hotel, seems inconvenient and maybe they'll think I'm crazy for suggesting that lol

 

[LarryFine]

I don't like the idea of moving everyone to a hotel, seems inconvenient and maybe they'll think I'm crazy for suggesting that lol

What would your work hours be in each scenario? Day vs night? Weekdays vs weekends?

 

[zbang]

Count another for a single meter and temporary feeds, it's probably already costing the owners an arm and two legs to do this changeover so the added cost for a few days of electricity is probably less than a few of hotel rooms (and nobody is going to want to move into a hotel for this unless there's a substantial incentive).

 

[Tainted]

What would your work hours be in each scenario? Day vs night? Weekdays vs weekends?

Actually to early to determine work hours. I would say weekdays since I'm in the office the next following days to respond to issues and RFIs

 

[hillbilly1]

Unless it’s section 8 housing, it might be better to do it during the day while everyone is at work.

 

[Tainted]

Unless it’s section 8 housing, it might be better to do it during the day while everyone is at work.

I agree, and also I don't want there to be so much noise at night from banging, drilling, etc. it'll drive the people above the cellar nuts lol

 

[djd]

These are not stores, these are residential tenants. We want to re-use the old electrical room and remove everything in there so that there is space for new electrical equipment but the question is how can we provide temporary power to the tenants? We want the new meter bank to be in the same wall where the old meter bank was installed.

Do we just install a temporary meter bank in some other location to power tenants until the old meter bank is demolished and new meter bank is installed?

You could do this in a day , with right crew and planning , a day i mean 24 hours . That still is along time for tenants to be without power . I may be wrong on this 60 meter banks is a big service , this ie a good one . I would be thinking about temp power .

If those meters are provided by the POCO to individually bill each tenant then you probably cannot remove them even for a short period of time.

why do say that , you would need the utility company . I truly think the tenants are the biggest issue . this will take time .

 

[infinity]

why do say that , you would need the utility company . I truly think the tenants are the biggest issue . this will take time .

Someone mentioned not metering the temp feeders and having the landlord just assume the cost of the electricity for the time that there are no meters. The POCO will likely not let you temp out the tenant panels without electric meters. Now if the tenant meters are all sub-meters that may be a viable option because the POCO will already be billing the landlord for the overall use.

 

[zbang]

I'm not sure the poco would have much choice in the matter. Yes, they're losing the sale of power, but they're not delivering any, either (and they may still be selling it to the landlord anyway). Could happen, but I've never heard of a poco complaining about temp power during construction.

That said, if the meters are being touched, they may want to have a metering tech handle the meters themselves (pull & reinstall).

 

[hillbilly1]

I'm not sure the poco would have much choice in the matter. Yes, they're losing the sale of power, but they're not delivering any, either (and they may still be selling it to the landlord anyway). Could happen, but I've never heard of a poco complaining about temp power during construction.

That said, if the meters are being touched, they may want to have a metering tech handle the meters themselves (pull & reinstall).

I would not think the poco would be losing out on the sale of power, a temporary meter at the transformer could still register all of the power used, it would just be the owner of the building paying for it, and the tenants shouldn’t complain about free power to them for that time period, unless the landlord was a snake, and tried to charge the tenants an estimated usage, on top of being inconvenienced They will probably see their rent go up because of this anyway.

 

[hbiss]

It's not really the cost that I'm worried about, it's about making people angry that they don't have their precious electricity for a while

After reading through all of this, my first thought is why do you think it's your problem to keep the tenants happy? The tenants deal with the landlord, let him figure out how he's going to do this. Your responsibility is to just give him a reasonable estimate of how long power will have to be interrupted. If you can provide temporary power give him the extra cost for that as well as how long power will be interrupted to connect and disconnect that also but as far as I'm concerned, it's not worth the trouble.

People in NYC have had to deal with power outages that lasted for weeks. They survived.


-Hal

 

[mtnelect]

After reading through all of this, my first thought is why do you think it's your problem to keep the tenants happy? The tenants deal with the landlord, let him figure out how he's going to do this. Your responsibility is to just give him a reasonable estimate of how long power will have to be interrupted. If you can provide temporary power give him the extra cost for that as well as how long power will be interrupted to connect and disconnect that also but as far as I'm concerned, it's not worth the trouble.

People in NYC have had to deal with power outages that lasted for weeks. They survived.


-Hal

Do you have a good attorney(s) ?

 

[Tainted]

After reading through all of this, my first thought is why do you think it's your problem to keep the tenants happy? The tenants deal with the landlord, let him figure out how he's going to do this. Your responsibility is to just give him a reasonable estimate of how long power will have to be interrupted. If you can provide temporary power give him the extra cost for that as well as how long power will be interrupted to connect and disconnect that also but as far as I'm concerned, it's not worth the trouble.

People in NYC have had to deal with power outages that lasted for weeks. They survived.


-Hal

The problem is not knowing how long it would take to gut everything out in the electrical room and then re-fill it with clean new equipment, conduits, feeders, panels, etc. I don't even know how to estimate duration of power shut down. I'm not really a handy man. I design systems but I never actually ever built any of them. As an engineer, I never once pulled wire, installed a panel, installed a switchboard, raceways, etc. Heck, I never even installed a circuit breaker in my life. That's the reality of it.

 

[infinity]

The problem is not knowing how long it would take to gut everything out in the electrical room and then re-fill it with clean new equipment, conduits, feeders, panels, etc. I don't even know how to estimate duration of power shut down. I'm not really a handy man. I design systems but I never actually ever built any of them. As an engineer, I never once pulled wire, installed a panel, installed a switchboard, raceways, etc. Heck, I never even installed a circuit breaker in my life. That's the reality of it.

Just my 2 cents, no one is going to rip out the old service equipement and install the new stuff fast enough to leave the tenants without power until it's complete. If you need to maintain the metering then design for temp metering at a separate location and go from there. If you don't need to maintain the metering then you just need to temporarily feed each apartment panel.

 

[hbiss]

The problem is not knowing how long it would take to gut everything out in the electrical room and then re-fill it with clean new equipment, conduits, feeders, panels, etc. I don't even know how to estimate duration of power shut down. I'm not really a handy man. I design systems but I never actually ever built any of them. As an engineer, I never once pulled wire, installed a panel, installed a switchboard, raceways, etc. Heck, I never even installed a circuit breaker in my life. That's the reality of it.

Well that ain't good.

I suggest that you decide how to provide temp power then design it. Send it all out for bids. The contractors will be able to give you an idea of how long it will take them. Keep in mind that the times will vary from contractor to contractor, whether the landlord wants to pay premium time, contractor work load, etc.

Do you have a good attorney(s) ?

This is NYC. Everybody has an attorney. Doesn't mean it does them any good though.

-Hal

 

[mtnelect]

Well that ain't good.

I suggest that you decide how to provide temp power then design it. Send it all out for bids. The contractors will be able to give you an idea of how long it will take them. Keep in mind that the times will vary from contractor to contractor, whether the landlord wants to pay premium time, contractor work load, etc.


This is NYC. Everybody has an attorney. Doesn't mean it does them any good though.

-Hal

When you have 60 tenants in a building, and you are planning a major electrical service replacement that's a major problem. The building should be vacated before any service upgrade is started. Also, the AHJ should be contacted. and major pre-planning needs to be done before anything. This project is premature !

 

[infinity]

When you have 60 tenants in a building, and you are planning a major electrical service replacement that's a major problem. The building should be vacated before any service upgrade is started. Also, the AHJ should be contacted. and major pre-planning needs to be done before anything. This project is premature !

Really, vacate an entire apartment building in NYC? That's never going to happen without 60 lawsuits.

 

[hillbilly1]

If it’s NYC, it’s probably rent controlled from what I hear, so the landlord will probably not recoup the cost anyway. Probably the city forcing the upgrade.