Anyone know how to calculate the bend radius of your service cable?

I've got an inspector who keeps failing my job even though he hasn't once taken out a tape measure. Funny...In addition to the wrong bend radius of the SEU inside and outside, the hot AND cold water not being bonded within 5' of the entrance (which is on the other side of the finished basement), and the fact that he couldn't look in the panel because HE didn't have a screw driver, he tells me I haven't met my 18" minimum over the roof coming out of the weatherhead. He told me that without a ladder or tape measure...I sent two guys to fix it and they got the conductors up to about 20". I rescheduled the inspection today and he didn't even go inside because he says we didn't fix the things he asked for outside (of course again, he didn't climb a ladder or pull out a tape measure to actually check). Apparently this guy has some sort of bionic tape measure built into his eyes...

What do you do about these kind of guys??? "Oh I didn't come prepared to perform and inspection so you fail" What the?

Get your video camera and document the items. Video the inspector when he shows. Then nail his a__ in court. It's been done several times in varied jurisdictions.
Rowdy

Is he a government(township, state, county) inspector, or from an independent agency? If independent, and you don't feel that he is being fair, call another inspector or agency.


As far as calculating the radius of the bend...

Picture a ball placed against the inner side of your bent cable. Depending how tight the bend is, a larger or smaller ball would fit snugly inside. If an 8" diameter ball would fit inside, the radius is 4". If a 6" ball would fit inside, the radius is 3", etc.
Assuming the thickness of the SE Cable is 3/4", the minimum radius(per 338.24) would be 5 x 3/4 = 3.75".



[This message has been edited by Redsy (edited 01-26-2004).]

Beautiful explanation. Thank you...

Let me ask you this...what would teh diameter of 4/0 SEU be? I mean - its an oval basically...so is it a 1 3/4" Diameter or a 3/4" diameter. Should I be measuring the thickness of the conductors or the thickness of the entire insulated cable?

BTW - here is the latest. We asked him if he actually got up there and measured the height of our conductors out of the weatherhead. His reply, "No, because you didn't supply a ladder..." Are you serious? Is it really my responsibility to supply the inspector with the tools he needs to do his job?

He also made a point to tell me that he left a reinspection fee notice...now tell me why he really won't pass it...

[This message has been edited by Happi_Man (edited 01-26-2004).]

I would be talking to this inspectors boss now. If the inspector does not have the tools to do his job, then he or his boss should supply them. I would not ask him to bring a ladder if I had one there, but I would not make a special trip to get one either.
I would take a tape measure, ladder and camera to get a picture of the 20" clearance and show it to the inspectors boss.
I would also hold a ball in the curve of the SER cable to show an appropate radius with the tape measure showing the balls diameter.
Pictures are worth a lot when it comes to these inspector's messes.
Just make sure all previously identified complaints are truely fixed then take the pictures and a trip to see the inspectors boss. Be truthful on what needed to be fixed and what did not and when.
You do need to diplomatic but not run over by an inspector not doing his job.

Happi,

I wonder about that myself. After all, the wide dimension is actually the combined diameter of 2 conductors.
Just to be safe though, if the cable is bent on the flat (which it probably is), I would use 3/4". If it is bent on edge, I would use 1 3/4". I'm not sure you could even bend it on edge that tightly.

Several things seem a little strange, 1) Where is the requirement for the hot/cold bonding within the first 5'? 2) Is the 18" measurement the exposed conductors out of the weatherhead? My POCO wants 3', but the connection crews sometime cut them down to 1'. If this is your case why would you need to measure. I would think that as long as you were close to the 18" it would be no big deal. I certainly wouldn't climb up there just to measure.

18" to the bottom of the drip loop?

I would like to know how you are supposed to bond the hot water within 5 feet of the entrance when it doesn't enter the building... or does it? Is this like a co-op complex where the hot water is distributed under ground between buildings?

After the first fail, I would've called the inspector if I wasn't excactly sure what he wanted. If I thought he was going to be problematic I would've met him on the job to go over the re-inspect. Now you're both pissed off and he's going to be a jerk. I'd try to correct the items as best possible and meet him, don't be confrontational, act like all you want to do is please him, in other words, kiss ass.

Rather than kiss his ass tell him to kiss yours. He should show you what he wants corrected. He should also give you code violations in writing with refrences to back them up.

UPDATE:

First of all, i do enough ass kissing trying to get jobs from contractors who think they are better than me...the SUB contractor...so no - not kissing inspector ass.

We called the guy's supervisor who met me at the job and performed the inspection himself. He pointed out that the other guy was obviously being very particular and that in the future if we disagree with the inspector to call him beofre calling it in for a reinspect.

Bottom line, the supervisor passed it off and I FINALLY got out an invoice for the final...

Hey, regardless, thanks for all the help. Until I posted this question I did not fully understand the bend radius thang, so thank you Redsy for the truly well defined explanation and thank you all for your support (no - I am not related to Bartles and/or James).