Getting It Done, New Main Panel

[William McCormick]

I think he means how are they going to do a nice job and install the siding properly and easily with the riser and straps in the way.

Even the LB and all that I also would have thought you would want to do after the siding. So you can hole saw through it and it be nice and neat.

That won't make it a lot more difficult to do a proper job on the siding ?

Are you just trying to get power released to new service without a final so you can use it for temp power ?

There are 1 1/4" thick blocks of stainless steel bolted into the counterbored surface into the house and then the two hole straps bolt to the threaded holes in the stainless steel blocks. At the top, I chiseled in a quarter inch stainless steel plate and there is another on the inside as well to sandwich the three timbers together. I made the blocks with my son on a drill press, using a counterbore, drills and a tap for the lower blocks. The top block has two half inch through holes right through the house.







It is an easy thing to jay channel around the blocks, and we can have power until we are ready to side.


Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

This is a picture of the top mount it is chiseled into the wood.



Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

The lower blocks are 1 1/4" thick, and the lowest block is 1 7/8" thick. The hub exits the meter pan at a different level than at the top of the meter pan.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[danielplace]

I was already checking out your strapping blocks you made. Nice job.
Thanks for showing full detail.
I have a lot of appreciation for a job well done.

[danielplace]

That number one aluminum wire is not current limited, that is why it works. If you put a 200 amp circuit breaker at the pole it would not work.

I do not know if you have ever seen an old drop do the bandolero firecracker thing. But it is pretty impressive it can go for hours. The snap you get is not like the snap you get after a 200 amp breaker. After the breaker can be bad, but different from before the breaker.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

Oh definitely unfused anything is capable of putting on a show. The #1 aluminum is the current limiter and that is precisely why it is used. Rather than have load side protection they use wire that doesn't have enough in it to take out the transformer if something goes to ground or phase to phase. The protection for that is the transformers primary fuse that would be blown if the fault didn't clear itself from the excessive current available.

Not being current limited does nothing to keep the voltage at 240 when/if you ever had a 200 amp draw.

It all depends on how long the drop is and if it is even going straight to a transformer and not just lines strung on the poles with the transformer several doors down that will determine just how bad the voltage will drop under a full load.

[William McCormick]

Oh definitely unfused anything is capable of putting on a show. The #1 aluminum is the current limiter and that is precisely why it is used. Rather than have load side protection they use wire that doesn't have enough in it to take out the transformer if something goes to ground or phase to phase. The protection for that is the transformers primary fuse that would be blown if the fault didn't clear itself from the excessive current available.

Not being current limited does nothing to keep the voltage at 240 when/if you ever had a 200 amp draw.

It all depends on how long the drop is and if it is even going straight to a transformer and not just lines strung on the poles with the transformer several doors down that will determine just how bad the voltage will drop under a full load.

I believe the service drop is 1/0 or 0 wire. That wire will deliver a minimum sustained amperage up over 14,000 amps at 240 volts, if the transformer could deliver it. The resistance on that wire is not even a tenth of an ohm more like 1/100th of an ohm at that distance. That means it can deliver serious power. But put that same wire after a breaker and you cannot go too far because of the voltage drop created by the current limiting device, the breaker or fuse. Once you combine the two resistances, the amperage draw allowed through that wire actually adds to voltage drop caused by the breaker or fuse.

Wire is a capacitor and a conductor. If your wire is too large after a breaker or fuse, and it is powering an inductive load, you can pop your breaker or fuse. We fooled around with this a lot because I have hooked up so many of my friend's welders, compressors, and heavy machinery over the years I have gotten to see first hand the too large a wire phenomena. Many an electrician did not know this is possible. After they see it and think about it, it makes sense. The same is true of too small a wire, amperage draw goes up in both cases while powering an induction load.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

Connected up the new panel today, and my son then made quick work of the old breaker box, wire, and mast. We are ready to side the house now. My son and daughter in law took me out for a great breakfast, then we worked and then my daughter in law who is seven months pregnant, had dinner waiting for us when we were done. What a great day. God was good to me today.







Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

Finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel.


That is me doing some framing, I just do not remember it hurting so much the next day, haha.





It is coming along nicely. How is everyone here doing?

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[N2 Welding]

The face lift looks nice.

[Virgil5]

What's the manhole and vent in front of the house? Sewage pump?

[William McCormick]

What's the manhole and vent in front of the house? Sewage pump?

That is where it ties into the city sewage line.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

We got the rough inspection and waiting on an insulation inspection for the downstairs. Then we will make quick work of the rest of it. We really did away with a lot of the rework on this house and the "I wish we would have"

They come this week I believe for the insulation inspection.





We put in rough house boxes for the switch boxes, so nice to wire in there. You can almost climb in there, haha.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

So glad I put the 1/4" steel plate behind the panel, these breakers get warm, I do not want to say hot, but very warm. The steel plate eats up the heat nicely as well as protects the back of the box.

All the twenty amp circuits in the house are ARC fault and ground fault.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

You can see in the picture under the rough house box, that we used a plastic bag to suck the dragline, it worked really well. We could have snaked it but that is a lot of work.





Sincerely,

William McCormick

[bigb]

Wow hospital grade MC??

[bigb]

Did you just install a few switches for convenience or are you planning to trim the whole house before drywall?

[danielplace]

Did you just install a few switches for convenience or are you planning to trim the whole house before drywall?

Saw that. He must have a plan.
Usually a mistake putting anything in for sure.
You may install a few $.50 switches or plugs to turn on a circuit if you get early power release but never the final devices as they will ruin the job. You can't cut and install the drywall tight to the ring with device ears you want on the surface of the wall with their ears in the way. They would all be loose and no support behind anything.
Surely they will get drywall mud and paint on them somehow.

[William McCormick]

Saw that. He must have a plan.
Usually a mistake putting anything in for sure.
You may install a few $.50 switches or plugs to turn on a circuit if you get early power release but never the final devices as they will ruin the job. You can't cut and install the drywall tight to the ring with device ears you want on the surface of the wall with their ears in the way. They would all be loose and no support behind anything.
Surely they will get drywall mud and paint on them somehow.

They will run the screws out and then put the outlets and switches back. It is all ARC and ground fault what could go wrong?

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[bigb]

They will run the screws out and then put the outlets and switches back. It is all ARC and ground fault what could go wrong?

Sincerely,

William McCormick

They will have a tough time texturing/finishing around them and it will show. With no devices in the way they can make a nice smooth swipe over the entire box with the blade, and the surface will be flat and even and the devices and wall plates will sit nicely against the finished product. With the devices and wiring in the way they won't be able to swipe a blade across the box, not only will your wall plates and devices not sit flat to the wall, but your devices will get slopped up with mud and the finish around the boxes will suffer.

Also most drywallers put the sheet up first then they cut the openings, usually with a Rotozip.

[William McCormick]

Wow hospital grade MC??

Yea it is all HCF (Health Care Facileities) cable and greanfield. We used to call it Hospital Care Facility cable but now they call it Health care Facility cable but healthcare is one word, haha.

And I got the 20 amp devices with the grounding clip so there is a double ground.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

Saw that. He must have a plan.
Usually a mistake putting anything in for sure.
You may install a few $.50 switches or plugs to turn on a circuit if you get early power release but never the final devices as they will ruin the job. You can't cut and install the drywall tight to the ring with device ears you want on the surface of the wall with their ears in the way. They would all be loose and no support behind anything.
Surely they will get drywall mud and paint on them somehow.

There are a lot of three ways and a couple four way switches so we wanted to wire everything and install all the devies as a test run. We will just run out the screws and then put them right back. I do not think you could get a shock in that house with the ARC fault ground fault breakers.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[ronsii]

They will run the screws out and then put the outlets and switches back. It is all ARC and ground fault what could go wrong?

Sincerely,

William McCormick

This is the smart way to do it Been on quite a few jobs trying to isolate wiring problems cause someone wanted to make it 'easier' for hose-a and hose-b to slap up the rock cause all they know how to run is a rotozip as for the mud people we just go to the grocery store and buy a box of sandwich baggies and we're good to go!!!

Now you have a house that everything works in without having to start hacking holes in the walls!!!

[William McCormick]

They will have a tough time texturing/finishing around them and it will show. With no devices in the way they can make a nice smooth swipe over the entire box with the blade, and the surface will be flat and even and the devices and wall plates will sit nicely against the finished product. With the devices and wiring in the way they won't be able to swipe a blade across the box, not only will your wall plates and devices not sit flat to the wall, but your devices will get slopped up with mud and the finish around the boxes will suffer.

Also most drywallers put the sheet up first then they cut the openings, usually with a Rotozip.

It is 5/8" sheetrock they will cut the holes first, everything is nice and square. Having done so much sheetrock myself during Super Storm Sandy in police stations and or courts I am sure it can be done easily.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[William McCormick]

This is the smart way to do it Been on quite a few jobs trying to isolate wiring problems cause someone wanted to make it 'easier' for hose-a and hose-b to slap up the rock cause all they know how to run is a rotozip as for the mud people we just go to the grocery store and buy a box of sandwich baggies and we're good to go!!!

Now you have a house that everything works in without having to start hacking holes in the walls!!!

Yea that was the-think pretty much, seen that a few times as the electrician came in with that your mom just died on the table look and said "we can run conduit outside the house", haha.

I only caught two errors, but they would have been very disheartening errors later on.

Sincerely,

William McCormick

[ronsii]

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'