ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion NEC & other Code issues Apartment building Panels (Main required???)

Apartment building with meter stack, Each meter has Main to feed each apartment. I feel main is Not required in each apartment . Your comments Please.
Yoopersup

That's how it's done all the time for condos around here, then just pull 4-wire to each unit.
one large main for the entire stack and the individual units mains all grouped and accessible at the outside the building.

As long as the disconnect for each apartment is accessible to each tenant, I don't see a problem but if this is locked up and they don't have a key, it would be troubling to me.

Most Apartments I ran into most useally have main breaker right below or next to the meter socket however you have to watch out the numbers of meters if more than 6 then you must installed a master or super main breaker / fuse before meter stacks or meter bank.

Once you have main breaker at the meter location and run 4 conductor to the apartment load center you don't need the main breaker at that location unless you got riser system now that is diffrent game to deal with it.

Merci,Marc

Yeah Greg,
I would certainly have mis-givings about a situation like that as well.
See, over here a Main switch is defined as the switch that gives a consumer the greatest degree of control over the supply to their installation.

Now, if you need to have to switch your power off in a hurry, you don't really want to be looking around for the main switch and most non-electrical people would in fact assume that it was in the panel in their apartment, that could end in tears.

I've always been of the idea that the main switch should be installed in the same "building compartment" as the actual installation.
I mean, if you had a house, you wouldn't put your main switch out on the front fence, would you? (or would you??)


Just my $0.02 worth

If it came in on wheels you would. (a post next to the home)

The condo I had on the beach in Pinellas County had all the meters and disconnects in the laundry room with MLO panels in each unit. They decided the laundry room would be locked overnight but I pointed out that each tenant needed a key so they could get to the disco, unless the management had someone on site and available 24 hours a day. Originally they thought that would be OK because there was a rule against "night laundry" and this would be a way to enforce it.

Our NEC only requires the branch circuit breakers be accessible to the occupants. Nothing is said about the mains.

Indeed. we commonly mount the main on the outside of the building, with the branch circuit panel inside. In apartment complexes, the main breakers and electric meters are often locked up, inaccessible to the tenants at all. Meter readers and firemen have 'key boxes' that let them have access at will.

Another common scenario, expecially in commercial locations, is for the main to literally be padlocked in the "power on" position. many of these locks are so rusty, I doubt they would open, even if a key could be found.

I don't see the issue; the tenant / occupant can kill everything but the panel feed from the panel.

Thank you, Greg, for the citation.

My 99 NEC has the same requirement. Yet, considering the rarity of this ability in the places I work on, I wonder: When was this added?

It said the same thing in 1975, my oldest book