Water Soaked Equipment

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Westchester/Rockland 4

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A very importantant question. In the aftermath of the flooding in Mamaroneck, NY. The flood waters rose to over 10 ft, submerging the meters, and much of the electrical wiring and equipment, including panels and breakers. What is the ruling on submerged wiring and equipment? The water is considered contaminated by overflowing sewers and such. Should all the equipment and wiring be replaced or is it acceptable to just clean out the enclosure amd replace the breakers and wiring that is not rated water resistant. This is creating much chaos, as there are 4 inspection agencies here. Each one has a differant view. Some are telling property owners they only need to clean the enclosure and replace the breakers, while others are saying take everything out and replace it all. case in point: one property owner pays $10,000 to replace his entire service, because one inspector says to replace everything, while a multi family dwelling next door only replaces the breakers and feeders and cleans out the enclosures with an oil based solvent, as another inspector requests. There has to be some sort of norm in this type of flooding condition... Should the state make a ruling as there is nothing on the code that covers flooded equipment. The property owners are in an uproar....HEEEEEELPP!!!!!
 
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I have seen several cases where equipment was submerged in water due to flooding. 600 volt systems up to 35kv systems including Dry type tansformers, entire switchgear, switchboards, bus duct, and panelboards.

We would dry out everything with portable heaters, do a visual check and test all the equipment according to NETA specs.

Suggest hiring a NETA certified company to come in and test to prove the equipment works properly.
 
Typically we have salvage equipment in emergency situations, but FSS, CB's etc should be replaced as components will rust. A switchboard stripped of the OCP's can be meggered and salvage. But the AHJ should be consulted.

We have taken switchboards completely submerged and when properly cleaned insulating paper replaced and insulators cleaned achieved megger readings that exceeded 2000 megohms at 1000VDC.

We have under very special circumstances dried and meggered transformers, but this took days and days.

There is a certain level of experience necessary with trying to re-utilize existing equipment and IMO replacement is the better option except in special circumstances.
 
Regarding breakers, IMO they're no longer any good once submerged. I wouldn't want them in my house.
 
Mdshunk - thanks for that link. We've also got flooding up in our area (southern NH), and there are various opinions. I'm meeting with the AHJ early this week, and I'll share a copy of this with him.
 
Might try the U.S. Navy for recovery methods...if it's not easily found on the net, I'll bet a stop by the local recruiter's office for military language interpetation may provide some help (don't let him lead you astray, you're still fixxing your community), just some brainstorming, hope it might help.
 
Here's an article for you:
Necdigest ?, April 2007
By Jim Pauley

water_damage_graphic_600.gif
 
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