Getting It Done, New Main Panel

[William McCormick]

The last 'errors' I found and had to fix(by hacking holes in the finished walls) were caused by speedy gonzales the cable guy great guy!!!, fast!!!! and only charged the home owner 500 buck$ to 'completely wire the house for video what could go wrong???? Well I'm glad you asked ... for starters the guy was so fast he didn't even have to check the back side of studs he drilled through to see how many wires got skinned/cut by the bit Some of the 'errors' were neutrals severed by the nice cable guy one was a hot... and these were the only ones I found because things would not work... who knows how many others were nicked or grounds severed... and no I wasn't going to meter check every friggen wire in the place. And to top it all off the home owner is all over me complaining that he is going to see the patches!!! after I fix the wires...


Oh!!!! and there's more to the story once I get all the errors fixed and working he has the dish company come out to install his tv system.... and they can't put his dish or receivers where he wants them because the 'cable guy' wired the house cable style(big loop) instead of dish style(multi homed run) so he calls me over to see if I can fix it??? all this after he even told the guy he was putting in satellite dish and the 'expert' cable guy said 'no problemO'

There are the people that work like it is their home and the other guys.

They know you are the guy to call, but they try anyone else because the other guys tell them what they want to hear.

So many times I am hit with "the other guy was so much faster," and I almost buy it, but then I think, I am here because he screwed up or would not come back to face it. I am first figuring out what and why he did what he did, then I am undoing what would have been a tit job if he did it right, and then I am redoing it the right way. So yea it is going to take twice as long. I do not want to just condemn someone else and his work without figuring out why he did something; maybe there was a reason he did what he did.

Or they group you in with the guys that just screwed them as if now you have to make up for it. People are strange, often lazy, and just plain greedy. But I notice that if people like the personality of the guy it is more important than what he does. When I am working, I am not mister friendly I am not there to talk about your kids or drink beer with you I would just like to stay focused on what needs to be done and get the heck out. When I am all done, and you have something to say, I am happy to listen. But because of my personality I have gotten "the other guy even though he messed up was so nice, we both have boats, we both coach our kids." Meanwhile, they are not happy with me
because I do not want to stand around and gab.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

The face lift looks nice.

Thanks it took a lot of work.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

My son really finished it up nicely.




Sincerely,

William McCormick

[Willie B]

I was by myself, but I was able to push the 4/0 XLP up the mast. I took out the guts of the meter pan, and it went pretty smooth. They had wound the wire on a four inch spool I could not believe it when I saw it. It took me an hour to straighten out the wire. I laid down a big furniture pad so I would not damage the wire on the cement as I was wrestling with it, haha.

Attachment 1687629Attachment 1687630Attachment 1687631

Sincerely,

William McCormick

I make it 20' above grade to the top of the mast. Why did you need a mast at all?

I find no adequate hardware on the market to secure the mast. I don't do a lot of masts, but those I do I get DOM tubing, square tubing & 1/2 X 4" plate to fabricate a top support. I'm aware I'm supposed to use "listed" materials, but adequate stuff is just not manufactured.

Ground to your copper incoming water line with a jumper to connect at both sides of the water meter.

[John T]

My son really finished it up nicely.




Sincerely,

William McCormick

Nice turf.

Is that KBG ?

[MinnesotaDave]

Really excellent work, attention to detail is top notch.

[William McCormick]

I make it 20' above grade to the top of the mast. Why did you need a mast at all?

I find no adequate hardware on the market to secure the mast. I don't do a lot of masts, but those I do I get DOM tubing, square tubing & 1/2 X 4" plate to fabricate a top support. I'm aware I'm supposed to use "listed" materials, but adequate stuff is just not manufactured.

Ground to your copper incoming water line with a jumper to connect at both sides of the water meter.

The drop from the poll goes over the roof and no wire is supposed to be closer than 18 inches from any part of the house or roof, so that is the height I needed to pull it off 2" was looking a little thin at that extension.




Yea, I see some pretty scary stuff out there. I went with the Ocal-Blue pipe in grey because it is a listed galvanized Ridged electrical conduit coated in PVC and it matched the house. It comes in black and white as well, we use it in Sewage treatment plants, it is pretty cool and rather watertight. Threading it is hard you need special jaws in the pipe vise and special threading heads, or you can machine out a standard threading head, but you should cut off some of the PVC first if you do it like that. You need special protection when using the Ridgid monster head as well, but I only needed to make two threads on the 2 1/2” pipe with the monster head. All the connectors are designed to seal watertight as well as the couplings. The two-hole straps are galvanized and then PVC coated listed straps. It was not easy finding and rounding all this stuff up though. It was almost like a quest, haha. I also had to bend a jog in it which was like wrestling a python. That LB was pretty costly but hey I was into that far already. All and all doing it like that with 4/0 XLP wire was less than a thousand more than doing it with something else.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[Willie B]

Sure..........why not hit the other gable? From the pictures, it looks like the other gable would be a better choice.

[William McCormick]

Sure..........why not hit the other gable? From the pictures, it looks like the other gable would be a better choice.

About the other side of the house being a better choice, for sure, you are totally correct. But the way they wanted the house that would put the panel box right in the living room. As it is now, the panel box is in the walk-in closet right where it won't be a bother. I built out the wall where it is mounted to make all that wiring a lot easier. That is where the panel box was, to begin with, not that we couldn't have moved it, because there was no old electrical wiring left, but at the same time, it would have been a whole new problem, and we had so much to do as it was. We gutted that house completely. Cut through the cement floors, took all the old plumbing out from under the cement, poured a yard of cement around a rebar cage for the footing for the lolly column to hold up the steel flitch plate and the top of the stairs. Probably the deciding factor was that we had the temporary power run from that spot to the panel so we just left it the way it was and used the old mast until the day we switched.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

Sure..........why not hit the other gable? From the pictures, it looks like the other gable would be a better choice.

The utility pole that feeds the house, is very low, that might be why they went to the top of the peak originally. So the wire is not ten feet off the ground in the back yard. We started on this topic once and we finally just said let's leave it the way it is. The wire actually slopes down to the utility pole rather drastically.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[Willie B]

The utility pole that feeds the house, is very low, that might be why they went to the top of the peak originally. So the wire is not ten feet off the ground in the back yard. We started on this topic once and we finally just said let's leave it the way it is. The wire actually slopes down to the utility pole rather drastically.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

I do hope the panel isn't in a clothes closet;

240.24(D)
Not in Vicinity of Easily Ignitable Material. Overcurrent devices shall not be located in the vicinity of easily ignitable material, such as in clothes closets.

Also, there are pages of text about free space I'll summarize as 30" wide, 36" deep from the face of the panel, & 6-1/2' High.

Even mobile home manufacturers are no longer placing panels in closets.

[William McCormick]

I do hope the panel isn't in a clothes closet;

240.24(D)
Not in Vicinity of Easily Ignitable Material. Overcurrent devices shall not be located in the vicinity of easily ignitable material, such as in clothes closets.

Also, there are pages of text about free space I'll summarize as 30" wide, 36" deep from the face of the panel, & 6-1/2' High.

Even mobile home manufacturers are no longer placing panels in closets.

Yea, the closet is very wide and very long women haha, the panel is in the back and more than 36" away from anything. I had the licensee of the company helping me out, he was on the code. I bought the 2017 NEC codebook before I did anything. We had it rough inspected and it was all good. Thanks for looking out though.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

I do hope the panel isn't in a clothes closet;

240.24(D)
Not in Vicinity of Easily Ignitable Material. Overcurrent devices shall not be located in the vicinity of easily ignitable material, such as in clothes closets.

Also, there are pages of text about free space I'll summarize as 30" wide, 36" deep from the face of the panel, & 6-1/2' High.

Even mobile home manufacturers are no longer placing panels in closets.

If needed we could put a wall between the panel and the rest of the closet but to be honest that would probably be more of a hazard than the way it is making it less accessible in an emergency.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

I do hope the panel isn't in a clothes closet;

240.24(D)
Not in Vicinity of Easily Ignitable Material. Overcurrent devices shall not be located in the vicinity of easily ignitable material, such as in clothes closets.

Also, there are pages of text about free space I'll summarize as 30" wide, 36" deep from the face of the panel, & 6-1/2' High.

Even mobile home manufacturers are no longer placing panels in closets.

The other choice or spot would have been the bedroom and to me that is worse than the closet. It would have had to have gone over the bed which would be much worse.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[danielplace]

The other choice or spot would have been the bedroom and to me that is worse than the closet. It would have had to have gone over the bed which would be much worse.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

3R outside. Not any ones 1st choice but solves the problem with some installations.

[William McCormick]

3R outside. Not any ones 1st choice but solves the problem with some installations.

If the panel melts down to a point that it sends molten metal from the cabinet, a sealed cabinet would blow open from the expansion of the air. They are for waterproofing not containing a major event.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[danielplace]

If the panel melts down to a point that it sends molten metal from the cabinet, a sealed cabinet would blow open from the expansion of the air. They are for waterproofing not containing a major event.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

Oh boy !!! That was surely thinking outside the box. Certainly I wasn't referring to fixing the problem with a 3R Panel INSIDE. LMAO !!

I meant put a 3R panel OUTSIDE next to the meter because you have no decent legal place INSIDE.

[Willie B]

If the panel melts down to a point that it sends molten metal from the cabinet, a sealed cabinet would blow open from the expansion of the air. They are for waterproofing not containing a major event.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

To be honest, except in lightning events, I've never seen a residential panel explode. My greater concern is accessibility, and safe working space.

I see some disgracefull obstructions to access of breaker panels. The most extreme being in my family; My sister divorced after 33 years married, sold her house to her daughter, and built a "mother in law apartment in part of the large walk out basement. The basement garage remained unfinished.

I lobbied for the new breaker panel to be in the garage. I was told no, "Brenna won't allow it".

After negotiation of where in the cramped apartment this panel could have dedicated space, we settled on a small alcove beside the stairs.

Move in day, she decided a 7' tall antique glass china cabinet was perfect in front of the panel. Then of course, having small grandchildren, she screwed it to the wall, so it couldn't tip over. Now, to access the panel, one must unload the 200 LB cabinet of hundreds of fragile glass gee gaws, unscrew it from the wall, & move the@#$*())_ thing! All this in a space so crowded with buckets filled with painted hay, ornamentation so crowded walls & floor can't be seen!!!!
I refuse to do it. My son has done it a few times.

Compared to that, an outdoor panel seems pretty smart!

[danielplace]

I am sure the install will be right where it is for many years to come without issue but no question the maintained access to it should be paramount for obvious reasons.

Nothing to loss sleep over.

I would hate to take a picture of mine right now. The gas cylinders are stacked in the closet where the panel is. Lol. I do have access though by merrily rolling the mig machine out from right in front of the panel.

I don't really like outdoor panels and would try to avoid them if/when possible.

[danielplace]

With the advent of AFCI and AFCI/GFI circuit breakers I think that panel accessibility will always be needed regularly.

[William McCormick]

With the advent of AFCI and AFCI/GFI circuit breakers I think that panel accessibility will always be needed regularly.

So far so good, the only thing that popped a breaker so far was an air fryer that had issues.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[danielplace]

So far so good, the only thing that popped a breaker so far was an air fryer that had issues.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

Hopefully you didn't do any wiring through devices or backstabbing them.
The problems will occur about 5 years after installation of back stabbed devices. Backstabbing is the single leading reason someone has issues with a residential installation.

[William McCormick]

Hopefully you didn't do any wiring through devices or backstabbing them.
The problems will occur about 5 years after installation of back stabbed devices. Backstabbing is the single leading reason someone has issues with a residential installation.

Oh no, when I wired the house I am living in now 35 years ago, a friend and a local three brother came and showed me how to pigtail through boxes and use the screws on the receptacles and light switches to land the wires. Even the screw-down stab type receptacles are for braided wire not solid #12. I was doing HVAC for years after that and one strange thing about my installations is that they just run until they are dead or need a part. Never faulty wiring or contaminants in the freon system. I do not get any callbacks but I sleep well. People often forget who installed their system because of that. Later I hear about how the guy couldn't remember who installed it and he found someone else and the job sucked. Usually most guys undersize wire if only by a little bit. It means a lot. It can cause the compressor to draw the maximum amps it can handle long before it is pumping the right amount of freon on a hot day. I have gone to fill systems properly and found that the amps are over the maximum amperage draw for the unit due to undersized wire. Usually, you do not have a problem till a week of really hot weather comes along, then it is too late.

Sincerely,

William McCormick