Recent Home Inspection - ECN Electrical Forums

(submitted by Joe Tedesco)

Quote

Hi Joe,

It was a pleasure listening to you tonight in Portland. Thanks so much for coming to our meeting. I know the electrical inspection is probably the weakest area for me and where I need the most help. Anyway, I thought I'd send along some photos from an inspection that I did this week. A couple of things had me shaking my head like the 100 amp wires from the street connecting to 200 amp wires on the service masthead and protected by a 200 amp breaker! Why would a power company make that connection? I guess if it was a 100 amp breaker, it would be okay, but not a 200 amp breaker, right?

Also, the double tap at the bottom left of the panel, the red and the black wires are from the same conductor. What do you think that's about?

The wire in front of the water heater was actually depicting the connection of the shallow well pump to an extension cord coming from an outlet that was on the same circuit as the refrigerator.

Anyway, I recommended that the buyer have an electrician come in and re-evaluate the electrical system.

Thanks again,

Phil P

Just a non-critical response, in order:

Being exposed to free air, the wires can be smaller, but these do look a lot smaller. The POCO doesn't adhere to the NEC, and this was probably an upgrade.

The (what appears to be) old range cable is a big hint about this being an upgrade. Are there any obviously-older cables? The pic isn't clear at the top.

Other than most likely not being approved for two conductors (cured with a simple pigtail), the neutral will not be overloaded, since the two hots share a breaker.

My guess is that the black wire was on the breaker above the shared one; we can only wonder why. If the breaker nuisance-trips, you could try moving it back.

I'd have a bigger issue with the pump cable, whether it's hard-wired or connected through an extension cord. It should be on a dedicated, properly-wired circuit.

Don't be suprised if you have a problem with the lower phase of the stabbed-on main breaker some day. One last observation: they have a lot of baseboard heaters!

Dang, there's quite a few breakers stuffed in that panel. I see one or two that aren't wired but still, I thought that there was a requirement for a few extra spaces. If not a requirement per say, a good idea none the less.

I see 40 spaces which is ok under NEC. Also there's nothing in the NEC that would not allow the panel to be filled and max'd out. Actually you should be able to put in two tandem breakers to take things out to the allowable 42 breakers.

RSlater,
RSmike

[This message has been edited by RSmike (edited 08-17-2005).]

What I see is an awful lot of white wire that needs to be re-identified. I also see that the reds and blacks are swapped at the top left.

What I don't see is a grounding electrode conductor, or a bond at the service conduit.

Uhhh...what's with the piece of paper stuck between the plug and the extension cord tap in the last picture?

I remember those round things used to have a cardboard (nowadays it's grey plastic) insulator disk over the pins, but jeeze.

Also, how DID they manage to hook up Romex to such a small plug commonly used for lamps and small appliances? WOW! [Linked Image]

"I also see that the reds and blacks are swapped at the top left."

You're kidding, right? I've never seen anything that requires the black be on "phase A" (on the top, left, etc.). One of my guys even used to say this is supposed to be done.

For that matter, all of the hot wires could be the same color, except for different voltages or a high-leg. White and gray, and green, are the only specifed colors otherwise.

Not kidding, exactly. I know that NEC doesn't care whether the hots are turquoise or ochre. But black and red is such a widely used convention, and it's so easy to match 'em up, that it just bugs me to see the swap. Even the "B"-phase service wire has a red stripe!

A lot of man-hours get wasted every day troubleshooting "weird" installations, and I try not to contribute to the madness. Call it a quirk.