what NEC should be used "in the county"

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difowler44

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What NEC should I use "in the county" (out of the city limits) in Texas? I do most of my work in Parker County. The city of Weatherford, and the Parker County office said they have no guidelines for houses in the county. Its hard to believe there are no rules for the electrical work on these houses.
 
I don't know all the in's and out's of the laws in Texas, but the link in post 3 apparently applies statewide if there is no other local jurisdiction that applies. There may or may not be an inspection required but the law likely still says you must be licensed to do said work and also says what code you should work in accordance with. Will you be in trouble if you don't follow those laws and there is no permit or inspection required? Likely not. But should there be a liability claim against you resulting from a failure of your installation the outcome of any litigation can be based on whether you followed the laws that are in place.
 
Since 2008 on residential they have added to the number of things that get gfci/arc fault protection, disconnects for the service must be on the outside of the house, and whole house surge protection is necessary now. Any other major changes I didn't mention?
 
difowler44 said:
Since 2008 on residential they have added to the number of things that get gfci/arc fault protection, disconnects for the service must be on the outside of the house, and whole house surge protection is necessary now. Any other major changes I didn't mention?
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required receptacles/placement in garages and kitchen islands/peninsulas, grounded conductor need be present at lighting switch locations.
 
One of my inspectors said on the 2023 NEC, the service disconnect needs to be on the outside of the house. On 230.70 a1 it looks like the service disconnect could still be a main breaker on a panel box on the inside of the house.
 
and then 230.85 & 225.41 says that an emergency disconnect must be installed on the outside or within sight of the dwelling unit. I wonder which one is correct?
 
I guess your saying that the service could be turned off from the inside of the house, but emergency services people would still need to be able to turn off the service from the outside of the house.
 
difowler44 said:
I guess your saying that the service could be turned off from the inside of the house, but emergency services people would still need to be able to turn off the service from the outside of the house.
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It is just based on what you call the disconnect on the outside. No matter what you call it, it must disconnect all power that serves the dwelling unit. What you call it determines if you need 3 or 4 wires to the inside panel.
 
difowler44 said:
I guess your saying that the service could be turned off from the inside of the house, but emergency services people would still need to be able to turn off the service from the outside of the house.
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I remember our code instructor, a long time inspector, who told about this coming into code. Fire marshalls had been requesting this for years. They no longer wanted to pull meters. I asked if any firefighter had ever been injured by pulling one. He hadn't heard of one. IMHO, it's 1 more added expense and 1 more place for intruders to kill power.
 
jmellc said:
IMHO, it's 1 more added expense and 1 more place for intruders to kill power.
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Most utilities can remotely disconnect their smart meters on request, without removing the meter.

Remote meter disconnect is much simpler with rust frozen, internally locked, or barrel-lock ring meters.
 
@difowler44 This is a wording game that allows some flexibility regarding the location of disconnection devices and the location of the service ground-neutral bond.

The power company supplies the hot(s) and the grounded circuit conductor. In the service equipment the roles of EGC (safety ground) and grounded circuit conductor (neutral) are separated out. In many ways the service equipment is the point where we switch from power company rules to NEC rules. Lots of other details, but the key factor is splitting the EGC and neutral at the service equipment.

An 'emergency disconnect' is a disconnect on the outside of the structure. If you put the service equipment on the outside of the building then it can qualify as the emergency disconnect.

However if you want to put the service equipment inside the building, then you may place an emergency disconnect outside, and continue with dual purpose grounded conductor inside to the service equipment.

Under the old rules, if you wanted a disconnect outside of the building it would have to be the service equipment, and you would have to run separate ground and neutral from this point into the building.

Jon
 
winnie said:
@difowler44 This is a wording game that allows some flexibility regarding the location of disconnection devices and the location of the service ground-neutral bond.

The power company supplies the hot(s) and the grounded circuit conductor. In the service equipment the roles of EGC (safety ground) and grounded circuit conductor (neutral) are separated out. In many ways the service equipment is the point where we switch from power company rules to NEC rules. Lots of other details, but the key factor is splitting the EGC and neutral at the service equipment.

An 'emergency disconnect' is a disconnect on the outside of the structure. If you put the service equipment on the outside of the building then it can qualify as the emergency disconnect.

However if you want to put the service equipment inside the building, then you may place an emergency disconnect outside, and continue with dual purpose grounded conductor inside to the service equipment.

Under the old rules, if you wanted a disconnect outside of the building it would have to be the service equipment, and you would have to run separate ground and neutral from this point into the building.

Jon
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Keep in mind if the outside disconnect is intended to be the emergency disconnect only, then there is still the long time not so clear rules (without local amendments) regarding how much length of service conductor can enter the building.
 
kwired said:
Keep in mind if the outside disconnect is intended to be the emergency disconnect only, then there is still the long time not so clear rules (without local amendments) regarding how much length of service conductor can enter the building.
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Yes, how that rule about nearest the point of entry is applied varies a lot. I read it as exactly what it says...you penetrate the inside of the building and go directly up, down, or into the back of the service equipment.

Our town has an amendment that say you can have 10' of service conductor between the point of entry and the service equipment but we also have an amendment that requires all service conductors to be in RMC or IMC.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Yes, how that rule about nearest the point of entry is applied varies a lot. I read it as exactly what it says...you penetrate the inside of the building and go directly up, down, or into the back of the service equipment.

Our town has an amendment that say you can have 10' of service conductor between the point of entry and the service equipment but we also have an amendment that requires all service conductors to be in RMC or IMC.
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Here it has kind of unofficially always been no more then 5 feet of conductor inside. No limitations on wiring method other than what NEC allows as written. I say unofficial because there is no actual amendment in any laws, yet that is generally what they have allowed over the past 30 years or so.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
Yes, how that rule about nearest the point of entry is applied varies a lot. I read it as exactly what it says...you penetrate the inside of the building and go directly up, down, or into the back of the service equipment.

Our town has an amendment that say you can have 10' of service conductor between the point of entry and the service equipment but we also have an amendment that requires all service conductors to be in RMC or IMC.
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WA allows 15 ft for this instance which is very generous but so long as there is a non fused disconnect outside I now don't think it is so generous but is now a practical number since you don't need to have the fireman run around trying to see which room in the basement it ended up in to find that it's actually 1 room over towards the middle in an equipment closet.
 
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