Hi Everyone, I am dealing with a double house with two existing services and two different owners (two drops from power co. one to each side)and wondered how long 230.2 has been in the NEC ?
If I up grade one of these services the power co will require me to group them on one side to meet 230.2. However property owners do not get along and will not allow the neighbors meter and disconnect on their side of the house let alone the feeder thru their basement.
What do you do in situations like this ?
P.S. Power co has hundreds of buildings with more than one service drop with the same characteristics and no fire wall to a multi occupancy building.

It sounds to me like two separate buildings that happen to touch.

I would expect to maintain the two drops.

If each person owns their half neither has any obligation to allow the others electrical equipment on their property.

Iwire,Thank's for your reply.
Double house looks like one house with two front and rear doors with a common center wall.
I can't find any thing in the NEC to get around this situation,the power co and AHJ are standing strong on 230.2.
Any thoughts or code refrences would be a great help.
Thank's Dave

I am not sure I understand what you need to get around.

IMO you have two buildings that share a common wall.

But if the AHJ does not see it that way there is 230.2(B)(1).

Iwire, The power co and AHJ think I need to group the services on one half of the building,and install a disconnect out side and feed thru neighbors basement to the other half of the building.Neither property owner will allow the neighbors equipment on or in their 1/2 of the building.
All in all the AHJ is saying there is available space (on neighbors half) and be accessible if I set a disconnect (on neighbors half) and run feeder through neighbors basement to customers panel.
I hope this clears up what I am trying to say.
Thank's Dave

The situation described is one building. Building code refers to them as "multiple single family dwellings". In order to be considered 2 buildings, they would need to have a fire wall between them. i.e. block wall. Not a fire partition which would be 5/8 gypsum, etc.

As far as how to deal with it with utility and inspector, I don't know. I'd fight with the utility. Ask to talk to a supervisor, and then their supervisor. Send a registered letter and get a written response. Tell them your attorney will be fighting them. Often, I get different answers from different people in the same utility. In MA, you would have some ground to stand on with inspector as there is a provision for not increasing the magnitude of an existing violation. Separate ownership makes this situation difficult. If neither owner will cooperate, there is no way to make this completely legal. You can't group the disconnects if one party resists.

As far as service drops are concerned, the local utility rules trump the NEC. They are the "AHJ."

Just as important, there is already substantial law on the matter. The utility has right of "eminent domain;" if they order the stuff grouped together, the parties will not be allowed to "forbid" anything!
Likewise, neither neighbor would have the 'right' to deny the other access to the disconnect.

Now, it's the job of the town, and the PoCo, to solve this mess. You're just the contractor. If there's a problem, it will be up to them to take the necessary steps..

I am not sure how anyone could compel owner A to have owner B's feeder in his house. It would certainly make stealing power easy tho.
Can you say Kupltap?
The easy, if ugly answer, is to put the metering and service equipment on the front of the house where the property lines meet.

Hey what are you doing in my yard......
I can go see my meter...
Get out I dont dont like you in my yard.

What a mess.

good luck.

If I own one side, (depending on how property is deeded) and I do not want the other guy's equipment on it, good luck. Much will depend on how the property is deeded. Some are "checkerboarded" while others have property line down the middle. If proprty line is down the middle, there will be a trespassing issue. The town can not "make" you do anything. I used to do a lot of work for a utility, and did a lot of work where they would pay to correct an existing situation where there was a trespassing issue. I don't believe that anyone could make the owner of one side give an easement to the other party if he were opposed.

If however, commion area were checkerboarded, one owner would probably be able to install his meter on the other side of the duplex, and pipe around the building to his side. Still might be a code violation if you can't group the 2 disconnects, but inspector might be inclined to overlook it.

I still think this issue is complex at best.

Forget about the deed. Look up "eminent domain". The PoCo, ultimately, has the powers of government to place their stuff whereve they want to. If that means sticking a pole in the middle of your drive, too bad.

That's the state of the law. To be fair, PoCo's bring out this 'heavy club' only when absolutely necessary.

Likewise, one property owner cannot deny another access to his property. If that means adding a gate, digging a ditch, whatever... the legal history is there.

Think about it a moment ... do you know where your sewer and water lines are? Gas lines? Petroleum pipelines? Airport landing light feeders? And so on. For any of these, a property owner may not prevent the installation and maintenance.

As I mentioned before, this is an issue to be decided, in each circumstance, by different parties. The electrician is but a bystander.

Indeed, I'd say that the odds are that the PoCo will decide that two drops is acceptable in this instance- but it's their call to make.

Eminent domain is a little more complicated than the PoCo simply dropping a pole wherever they like. If this is your driveway and they have an easement they have a lot of latitude but if there is no easement on the deed they will have to get the government involved and in most cases you can get compensation for that easement if you are willing to fight it. Easements for individual service to a dwelling may be harder to get.
You should be aware of any easements before you buy a piece of property, assuming you are doing due dilligence.

Looking at the job again today,on the same street there are 14 houses 2 are single houses 2 are duplex(1 apt on 1st floor and 1 on 2nd floor) each of these have 1 power co drop.There are 10 duplex (left side and right side) with 2 power co drops per duplex, some of them have had upgrades at some point not to many years ago. (Hmmmmm why weren't they grouped or at least follow the 3ft clearance from the window ?)

Just blowing off.
Later Dave

Townhouses/rowhouses in this area (Northern Virginia) have not been built with block "party" or "common" walls since at least before 1983.

The standard now is two 1" thick sheets of drywall. And nothing is supposed to penetrate that wall--not pipes, not cables, not the neighbor's electrical service...

Point is, there does not necessarily need to be a block wall for them to be considered two buildings (or 10 buildings, in the case of a typical row of townhouses).



[This message has been edited by brianl703 (edited 12-18-2006).]

There is a big difference between a fire partition and a fire wall. 10 units with double 5/8 drywall between units is one building. Check the building code for definition of a building. The MA building code clearly defines it. I'm not sure exactly what ICC definition is.

It's a double layer of 1" drywall with H-studs, not 5/8" of drywall. Described here:
http://www.nationalgypsum.com/resources/codereports/90-26.01.pdf

The units are completely independent of each other, sharing only the common wall. One of them across the street caught fire and had to be torn down to the ground. The units on either side continued to stand and were safe (they were not condemned) (although the common wall had to be protected with a tarp to prevent exposure to rain).

Virginia uses the IBC as I recall.

Each unit has it's own electrical service, if that wasn't clear.


[This message has been edited by brianl703 (edited 12-18-2006).]

[This message has been edited by brianl703 (edited 12-18-2006).]

Brian,

I misunderstood, what you described is a fire wall. At least here in MA, though, that wall needs to extend 18" above the roof. All of the multi units here that I see are not separated by a fire wall, though. They are separated by a fire partition with a 2 hour rating.

John

Here, instead of extending the wall through the roof, they just put 5/8" Type X drywall under the roof sheating for about 4 feet on each side of the party wall--prior to that they used FRT plywood for the roof sheating which had this unfortunate tendency to FALL APART over time. My mom had to get the roof redone on her townhouse because the FRT was failing.

Are those multi-units you see condominiums? Townhouses here are NOT usually condominiums(I don't know of any that are)--you own the house and the land.


[This message has been edited by brianl703 (edited 12-18-2006).]

The correct legal term is an easement or servitude. Usually they work quite well. The POCO would request an easement from owner A through owner A's building to owner B. If owner A won't cooperate POCO can decide not to supply power to either owner, that usually makes owner A very cooperative. Utility easements are usually much more flexible than access or right-of-way easements as the easement is usually for the benefit of the person granting the easement.

I still doubt the PoCo can force the first landowner to allow the 2d landowner's feeder to enter their home. The 2d landowner needs the service disconnect to be on HIS property. Otherwise the 1st landowner could make it unaccessible (fence, big dog or simply a "prosecute all trespassers" policy) They *might* be able to trench around the house and bury the SE to a farside disconnect but if there is ever a wet basement I bet the PoCo would get sued. An exposed SE running on the surface looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen. As long as the neighbors get along well it is no problem but when they start fighting it could really get ugly.

Yes, usually condo's but not always.

Hmmm If this were in the city I live in the meter(s) would have to be on the portion of the building that is supplied by that meter.

This is based on the assumption that this is a "duplex", with two independent owners, with the yards owned by each, separated and not common area.

[This message has been edited by russ m (edited 12-25-2006).]

The real power player in this whole scenario is the electric utility. Your first step should be an on-site, face to face meeting with your utility’s service planner. The utility has the right to deny power to either property owner if they don’t conform to practices that your State’s Public Service Commission has authorized the electrical utility to use. While this may not allow feeders to be run through another persons building, it would certainly allow other options you may not have preferred to keep costs down. Even as electrical inspectors, we still have to bow to the electrical utilities while they have State approved jurisdiction and this is defiantly the case here. I hope this helps.