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#108872 01/06/04 09:18 PM
Joined: Oct 2000
Posts: 3,682
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I am a Master Electrician that has moved into engineering as an electrical designer. I am currently involved with an overhead to underground conversion project for our local utility. During the course of my work, I have to visit each location, look at the service, the panel board, etc, and document everything for the construction package. I have really run into some things that make you cringe. Here are a few.


This is an apartment building. The disconnect is 600 amp and fused to the max. The apartments have small children playing outside. The disconnect door does not have any interlocking capabilities on it, and the bottom is gone. What if a small child ran his arm into this or pulled the door open?

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The following two are an old electrical room used for storage............
notice in the second picture the wire wired to the disconnect handle.......

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Here is a beauty. The tenant built a room inside a room and left approximately two feet of clearance. The panel is in the back. I had to get on my knees and crawl under the water pipe riser.

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Here is some do it yourself wiring in the back of a jewelry store.

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Joined: Oct 2000
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more:

More do it your self wiring. notice the sink, the two wire extension cords, etc. By the way, there are no light switches in this business, to cut lights on or off, you have to screw in or un screw the fuses in the panel.

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And here we have a service mast hanging loose, with some broken conduits behind it.

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Here is a 400 amp disconnect with no door interlocking... I just pulled it open. When I opened it, I noticed the Clip-Clamps, I don't care for them, but that's what they were designed for. But I don't think that the beams clamps on the lower jaws were designed for this type of usage ................

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Some more do it your self wiring

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- Paul Miller

Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 7,520
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Different style devices over here in England, but the untidy wiring in many of these photos is all too familiar.

Is that disco in the top pics particularly old, or is this in a very humid location to cause such bad deterioration?

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 7
M
Junior Member
The disconnect in the top picture is in Florida. The actual building is located less than 1/4 mile from a river. After looking at approximately 80+ services, this is the only one that is rusted/corroded out like this one........... It is probably a late 50's early 60's disconnect. Regardless of the age or type, it definately needs replacing

Paul

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 141
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Someone from a utility had to read the meters shown. Why didn't (s)he notify the local AHJ of the situation?

Joined: Aug 2002
Posts: 7
M
Junior Member
The utility has meter readers that are subcontractors. They only know how to read a meter, and don't concern themselves with anything else. They tend to have the mindset of "It's not my job". That's the biggest problem I have seen in this environment. If it is reported to their supervisor, who is an actual employee of the utility, he or she says not to worry about it. So what's a person to do?

To make matters worse, the utility is installing remote reading capabilities for it's entire service area. This means that the meter readers will be far and few. As for recognizing violations, I have personally seen persons within the utility company not recognize violations either because they don't have the working knowledge of the electrical code, which is common for the last 3 utility companies I have done work for, or they are just ignoring it.


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