PM says not all feeds are in yet...
I say what about fill and derating...
I'm told they make extentions for gutters... Has anyone ever heard of such a thing?

Wow....that's a mess of spaghetti. How are you going to strap that within 12 inches of the gutter?

This is your brain:


This is your brain on drugs:


Any questions? :P

While I'm sure you can get an extension for a gutter I've never seen one.

A gutter extension would not make this meet code.
Any more than 30 conductors in a cross section, and you have to derate the conductors. 31 conductors will get you 40%.
An extension would be like putting a band-aid on a shotgun wound.

Too bad they had to splice all those wires.


Derating does not seem to be a problem there. After all no one derates in a panel which might have as many wires.

Some of you may know that I just started at a new company... Who from outward additute, take pride in thier work. I haven't done any rough with them yet, just trim and changes on current projects, which all seem to be a little like this. Fast and sloppy.

When I mention things like cable supports, fill, derating, how many conductors wirenuts are rated for... I get a blank stare, and comments like "What do mean, it's fine?" So am I just a neurotic code geek, or a premidanna? FYI that thing is just as hard to work in, as it is to look at!

Dmattox,
I laughted so hard I almost didn't see all of the picture.
Made me spill my beer.
"If you build it they will come."
Just call 911.
Alan--

I know the fight you are going through e57, it’s tough to convince people that there should be a certain level of professionalism in their work.

While I think the other picture I linked to is a bit too much, it does allow some points to be made.

Ask your guys how long it would take to troubleshoot a problem in each picture. If they don't say their work would take 4-10x longer gently smack them upside the head

Another point that is often harder to get across to the guys in the trenches is the business perspective. The owner who has a friend down the street that is building his house, which electrician would he recommend? Or which picture would you put on your website/flyer to promote your work?

Like I said, I feel your pain. The attitude, it works and it was fast to install is a hard one to fight.

I suspect that on the issue of derating, there really is not a problem. Looking at the DIN rail terminal strips, these are probably lighting and control circuits operated at well below their ampacity. There is almost certainly a violation of the code in terms of cross section fill and derating, but IMHO there is probably not a significant conductor heating issue here.

On the shear messiness and difficulty of debugging....arrrrrrgh.

This particular issue has been discussed several times, usually with respect to a trough feeding a bunch of emt and several panels. There might be hundereds of conductors in the trough. With any complex system, you either have to spend lots of time making sure that all of your breakers are in order relative to your incoming emt, or you have to have some sort of 'crossbar' where you can match the innies and the outies.

I've though that this presents a market for some sort of 'matrix trough'. Imagine a trough say 24" high by as long as necessary, with insulating pillars or bridle rings, say on 2" centers. Each row or column would define a 'wireway' that would be tested and _listed_ as having a capacity for (say) 20 current carrying conductors without derating. (No, I've not done the physics, and don't know what the capacity would be.) Wires would be separated throughout the entire 'trough', and so easy to get at, heat could be dissipated, etc. Complete circuits would be required to sit in the same 'wireway', to reduce loop area, and there would probably need to be some limits on the number of splices.

Another approach (this one suggested by the picture of the panel with the neatly bundled wires) is some sort of 'stacker' where individual conductors are held in neat _separated_ rows, where each conductor can be easily found and traced.

-Jon

Labor intensive and sloppy....

It would have been wise to use a single fat 2.5" chase nipple instead of trippled offset nipples.

Instead of the gutter, it would have been wise to use twinned 10 x 10 x 6 NEMA1 cans.

A short connecting nipple of 2.5" EMT would provied a cross path.

Many of these cables would bypass these cans and run straight through to their panel.

Circuits that require complications would pass through the cans.

This way this 'gutter trash' is eliminated along with devious routing for most of the circuits.

This install wasted labor and looks terrible.

In piped systems, it can be hard for an inspector to spot an over stuffed gutter or can. But these cables ought to catch any inspector's eye.

There are no excuses, this is a mess!!!