Douglas Hansen

The IRC quotation is only half the story. If you look at the source of that text that was extracted from 210.8 in the NEC, you see a fine-print note directing you to also look at sections 760.41(B) and 760.121(B) in the article on fire alarm systems. Those sections tell us that the branch circuit for the fire alarm has to be an individual circuit with no other loads, that the circuit disconnecting means shall have red identification, that it shall be accessible only to qualified personnel, and that it shall not be supplied through a GFCI. The IRC does not have a section on fire alarms, so they did not bring in this language. The idea is that they do not want someone testing it since these are central station alarms. The fire alarm company and fire marshal can have a key to the fire alarm control; the homeowner can't. The last thing the fire department needs is to get a false alarm because someone pressed a GFCI test button that said "test monthly." Keep up the good work.

I agree with Jim, of course, while at the same time admiring John's commitment to getting it right for his clients and the homeowner. The question of where to draw the line takes judgment and isn't always the same in every situation.

We have lots of stucco here, and have been using it for close to 100 years. Of the thousands of buildings I've looked at with hardcoat stucco, I can't recall one that was quite as FUBAR as yours. The texture they were attempting is called a trowel sweep. It is supposed to be applied in two layers over the base coat, and be troweled in such a way as to leave a narrow ridge or bead at the edges of the fan shapes; whoever did this applied it way too thick and I can't imagine that any of the curing times or conditions were correct. The only good news is that the staining below the horizontal crack indicates water emerging from it, which implies there is some sort of WRB behind this mess. I wouldn't go so far as to bet on flashings. Perhaps when they tear it off the walls they won't be completely damaged.

Hello Joseph I would think you have plenty of room in your panel to install a breaker that feeds your air conditioners. The available room, in terms of amperage, is based on the total connected load, not the ratings of the breakers. The breakers are never assumed to be simultaneously operating near their maximum capacity. Tapping into the main feeder lugs would be a very bad thing. The feeders to the AC panel would be an unprotected extension of the service entrance conductors, without any form of overcurrent protection, and the lugs themselves would not be rated for two conductors. A couple of 3-ton air conditioning units is not all that large a load. The instructions might be calling for a certain maximum size overcurrent protection device to handle the inrush current that occurs when they start up, and that only lasts for about 1/10 of a second. During normal operation, I doubt the two of them combined are going to draw more than 40 amps. There are lots of other ways to do it. You could run individual branch circuits from this service panel to the AC units, or you could install a $ubpanel. Either way, you are going to end up needing disconnects within sight of the AC units. If you are dealing with an AC sub, I suggest you ask them for their preference. As to other choices of how to do it, please realize you are getting close here to asking an internet forum for design advice. None of us are really going to be comfortable providing that, though I do applaud the diligence you are applying to the planning stages of the project.

I agree with the "specified amount" portion John. I don't think that means things will stay there. IR testing in industrial facilities often identifies terminals that have weakened over time. The idea of just tightening things again isn't necessarily the right thing to do. If you retighten something, you might actually cut through part of the conductor. Sometimes the right way is to remove the conductor, cut and strip it, and reinstall it. That would be especially important with aluminum. Over-tightening can be just as bad as not enough torque. Around here, we have at least one jurisdiction that requires the contractor to have a torque wrench and torque screwdriver, and to torque the connections in the inspector's presence. If they call for inspection without those tools, it is an automatic turndown and reinspection fee.

For 3-wire circuits, yes. A multiwire circuit always had to have a red conductor, and the red conductors all had to originate from the same bus. The circuits that were not three wire could use black from either bus if they were part of a cable system. If they were pulled through raceways, then even the non-MWB circuits had to match the color for their bus. This even applied to knob and tube. For 120/208 three phase the convention of black, red, blue was mandated in the code. So was voltage drop. All of that was dropped in 1975.

Basically for the same reason Bob posted - problems for someone else down the road. The conductors are not going to care one bit about the of color their insulation. It is entirely a human factors issue. One reason things follow certain conventions as far as wiring practice is so that the next guy in will understand what is happening. If the next guy is going to add 3-wire circuits he will want to be able to visually identify the pole where each circuit originates, and having them inconsistent creates confusion. The code used to require that once you picked a certain bus to be red, you had to stay with it throughout the building. The 1968 NEC was the last to say that: "All circuit conductors of the same color shall be connected to the same ungrounded feeder conductor throughout the installation." (210-5). That turned into a non-enforceable fine print note in 1971 and was deleted in 1975. That was the year the lawyers took over, and did all they could to pretend that the NEC is not a design specification. In actual practice, as promoted by IBEW and NECA, this is still the "right" way to do it. I don't know a person working with the tools for a living that would walk away from it with one red wire on one bus and the others on another bus. So the difference it will make comes down to perception. A journeyman working on this thing in the future will know that this panel was not done by his brethren. That said, I am sure you will all agree that Mr. Velder's work is exemplary for someone not in the electrical trades, and that he has done a far better job wiring this thing than most of the stuff you look at every day. On top of that, he cared enough about getting it right to post it on here. I think he is entitled to know everything we can tell him about what is right and what isn't.

While agreeing with Bob 100% here, it is too late to change most of those things as the wires have already been trimmed to length. One other T9C thing - the red-black pattern isn't consistent. The two red wires at the top connect to the left bus, and the one at the lower left connects to the right bus.

On this particular panel, the screw for the main bonding jumper that John is talking about would go in that small notch at the lower left, just under the left neutral terminal bar. The screw should have been included with the panel, and will have a slightly green color. Assuming you can't find the screw, the bonding jumper will need to be sized based upon the size of the service entrance cables, probably 4 AWG. I can't be sure from the picture, but it looks like you might have 6 AWG in there now. Where is the grounding electrode conductor going to connect to this?

I agree - good price, good product.

With respect to the AFCI part of the question, forget about it if you put in a Square D. Doesn't matter if it is QO or Homeline - they don't make one that will work with multiwire circuits, and most panels have multiwire circuits. Also, Square D's clunky technology for AFCIs leaves them sticking out into the gutter space and obscures the neutral bar. John - if it were my house I wouldn't consider anything other than Siemens / Murray equipment. I would also stay away from any of the all-in-one panels that skimp on wiring space. You might want to check in with the utility to see if they are going to throw any curves at you regarding the new service cable. Around here, $1,800 wouldn't begin to cover it.

Some gems in there. Thanks Barry.

If you get in series with the neutral, you could indeed be electrocuted. When you are in parallel with the neutral, even assuming you are standing barefoot in a puddle of water and you are making a great connection to the earth where the utility drove their ground rod under their transformer, the only voltage you experience is approximately the voltage drop of the neutral. It can be enough to measure on the ammeter without being at a voltage level that will even produce a startle current.

The NEC has lots of places that mandate the removal of abandoned wiring. None of them apply to residential. There are a few places where power conductors would need to be removed, though mostly the types of wire the NEC wants removed are abandoned signaling and communications conductors. The area where these create the most problems is above suspended ceilings. They add to the fire load, and can create more difficulties for workers attempting to add or relocated wiring that is not abandoned. This became a hot button issue in the codes about 10 years ago, and requirements for it started showing up in the 2005 NEC. I have no idea how it managed to get translated into inspector folklore. FWIW, I like the idea of tying all the conductors of the circuit at each end. That is a traditional way of dealing with it.

These pictures are from an apartment where someone was being shocked in their kitchen. The genius that "repaired" it decided to bond every neutral to the panel enclosures. The wiring was all in EMT. The picture with my meter shows a half amp on one of the pieces of EMT. That's the same amount of current a 60Watt bulb would draw, except in this case that energy is just being expended to heat up the conduit. In the kitchen, the client who hired us had experienced a mild shock when touching the stove and refrigerator at the same time, after the "repair." UL refers to these low level shocks as "startle current." They really can't have more voltage behind them than the voltage drop of the neutral, yet it is enough to get your attention. The inductive reactance heating of those conduits is racking up the electric bill. It will also create odd magnetic fields. If you have a high-end stereo, you will get a hum on your speakers. Even though the consequences are usually not severe, it is the first step on the slippery slope. Most electrical accidents are the result of more than one thing going wrong, and this one should be fixed. Click to Enlarge 44.81 KB Click to Enlarge 48.65 KB

Voluntary seismic upgrades to single-family residences in California do not have to be engineered as long as they do no harm. That translates into no requirement that they do any good either. Regardless, the jurisdictional inspector does not go into the crawlspace. I think the primary reason that gussets or ties would be good on those post/beam connections is to help resist uplift of the beams. They would have negligible effect on lateral movement, since that aspect is handled by bolting at the perimeter.

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/investigation ... 06921.html

I wouldn't be as concerned about the open crawl since fire usually goes up, though if there were gas-burning appliances down there my opinion would be different. Saturday didn't meet my expectations, and my specific questions at the time went unanswered. At least I got to check it off the list of things I thought I wanted to do someday.

At that time I think the building code in your area would have allowed it. Assuming that Humbolt County was using the 1970 UBC, section 3204(b) would have allowed a common attic up to 3,000 square feet. Today it would require a rated fire partition. As to "how long has that not been allowed?" it looks like a requirement for a draft stop separation went into the 1982 UBC, and the modern version of this (requiring at least a one-hour separation) would have been in place starting in 1994. Aside from the fire spread issue, it could also be a security issue for the tenants.

I use one called PrinkKey-Pro and love it.

The problem is that they are branch feeder types, installed after that type was no longer allowed.

We have a new article on AFCIs on our site. http://www.codecheck.com/cc/articles.html (Updated version of article posted August 17) Thank you

I don't like that one Mike - Chapter 18 is basically about oil. Try this one from the chapter on gas-burning appliances: G2427.5.9 (503.5.10) Space surrounding lining or vent. The remaining space surrounding a chimney liner, gas vent, special gas vent, or plastic piping installed within a masonry chimney shall not be used to vent another appliance.

Thanks Jim - I never knew that some of these were truly 60-amp panels. Isn't that picture of the cow's derriere actually the place where FPE produced their press releases?

Even though the largest size cartridge fuse that will fit in the blocks is 60 amps, these are 100 amp panels. The left fuse block cuts power to the four Edison fuses and the two tap blocks, and the right fuse block is the range circuit. Fairly standard fare for the late 40's - early 50's.