A coupleof years ago I was called to wire a hot tub at a 3 year old custom home. When I opened the 40 circuit 200A main breaker panel, I discovered 54 circuits via added tandems. This was done at the time of construction. My first thought was what other code rules did the electrician violate on this job. I started at the meter and looked at the whole system and soon found several. The metering was at the pad mount with a 320A meterbase feeding (2) 200A disconnects. One fed this house and one fed a 40'x100' workshop. Neither the house or the workshop had a grounding electrode system, just one ground rod driven at the meterbase/disconnects. The house and workshop were each fed with 4/0 URD triplex, no EGC. There is CATV, telephone and intercom wiring run between this house and workshop as well as metal water piping and copper LP gas line.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is when I see one basic NEC article disregarded, I automatically become suspicious of the rest of the job. This wasn't a must fix situation, this was wrong from the get-go on a $500,000.00 new construction project executed by a long established licensed electrical contractor in a county with no inspection program at the time.
