I got hookups!!!

[JohnEd]

Lets just say I am seeking clarification on this and not taking issue with anything Sean has said.  BUT, and without making the "call"  "every appliance MUST have its very own personal circuit breaker".  Your kitchen range, hot water heater, clothes dryer, sump pump, well water pump, furnace, shop built in compressor, shop welder/s, heat pump, etc.  Areas of the country may have peculiar code enforcement in some instances but the NEC...NATIONAL Electric Code is , well, national.  Here we are required to have 2...TWO, 10 foot grounding rods hooked to the circuit panel and the rods MUST be 12 foot apart.  Can you believe that Eugene with 4 months of constant rain every year must meet "arid area" specs?  Stranger than fiction is FACT.  I mention this only cause you said DEATH VALLEY.  Got two rods in the ground?  Did you have to use a jack hammer?  Did you know it was OK to lay those rods on their side and bury them?  More strangeness.

You have "over fused" that 110 circuit.  Right after the rule that says "don't lick your fingers and touch both these wires with your bare hands" is the rule about "over fusing".  It is number two though.

I think the workmanship in your pics is excellent....just some details and that is what our "inspection program" is for.

John

OK!  ANY appliance that is hard wired in or is fixed to the floor/ceiling,etc MUST have a dedicated breaker.  If it is plugable and rolls around then it doesn't need the dedicated breaker.....your blender would qualify.  I put in three boxes for a friend to hook up his welders at different locations in his shop.  In theory, I could have put all three on the same breaker but I put each box on it's own breaker. 

ALL breakers MUST have only one wire connected to them.  You are supposed to connect the other legs of any circuit in a junction box or outlet box "DOWNSTREAM" of the breaker.  No fairs wire-nutting a bunch of wires inside the circuit breaker panel.

You got code questions?  Ask your local elect supply house staff.  They are often more knowledgeable than a electrician cause the salesman sees ALL the problems and researches ALL the answers EVERY DAY.  They are a superb source of what electrican will do your job best for less.  "You go girl"

John

[JohnEd]

If you have used up all the breakers in your box talk to your local supply house about the best/cheapest fix that will keep you within code.

[rv_safetyman]

Teresa, I hope you take all of these comments as constructive input. 

I once posted a picture of some wiring in my bus and I got a ton of "negative" comments .  As I stood back and looked at it, ALMOST all replies were CONSTRUCTIVE and had my safety in mind.  I have since corrected all of the major issues.

Some folks are very quick to jump on the NEC is king bandwagon and it used to drive me crazy.  George Myers was a stickler.  As we all know, there can be various ways to accomplish most things safely, but electrical wiring is not the place to get creative.  The NEC only reflects one way to do the job, but it was written based on a huge amount of experience (some of which is based on dead bodies). 

The issue that I wonder about is the wire size for the 50 Amp circuits.  Hard to tell, but it looks small to me.

JohnEd makes a good point.  Ground rods are mandatory and can be an issue.  We had a plant in Moncks Corner, SC - a pretty wet area of the country.  It was an old plant that, I am sure, was wired to the code in place at the time.  A few years ago that area went through a couple of years of extreme drought.  I am not sure what happened, but they sustained a huge amount of damage, because the ground rods were in dry dirt.

Jim

[happycamperbrat]

Teresa, I hope you take all of these comments as constructive input.  

I once posted a picture of some wiring in my bus and I got a ton of "negative" comments .  As I stood back and looked at it, ALMOST all replies were CONSTRUCTIVE and had my safety in mind.  I have since corrected all of the major issues.

Some folks are very quick to jump on the NEC is king bandwagon and it used to drive me crazy.  George Myers was a stickler.  As we all know, there can be various ways to accomplish most things safely, but electrical wiring is not the place to get creative.  The NEC only reflects one way to do the job, but it was written based on a huge amount of experience (some of which is based on dead bodies).  

The issue that I wonder about is the wire size for the 50 Amp circuits.  Hard to tell, but it looks small to me.

JohnEd makes a good point.  Ground rods are mandatory and can be an issue.  We had a plant in Moncks Corner, SC - a pretty wet area of the country.  It was an old plant that, I am sure, was wired to the code in place at the time.  A few years ago that area went through a couple of years of extreme drought.  I am not sure what happened, but they sustained a huge amount of damage, because the ground rods were in dry dirt.

Jim

Absolutely I am taking this as constructive....... disheartening, but constructive. I know I have a lot to learn about electric and am thankful for the people here to let me know rather then a fireman or insurance guy telling me I screwed up after I killed my family or burned down my home!

As for the flexible housing and the rod with wiring for the home, they did pass inspection in 2001. The guy who did it is now dead (no he didnt die from a fire in his home) and the plans for the set up here have long been gone so Im not sure what I would refer to.  

[Sean]

... "every appliance MUST have its very own personal circuit breaker".  Your kitchen range, hot water heater, clothes dryer, sump pump, well water pump, furnace, shop built in compressor, shop welder/s, heat pump, etc.

John, that may be true in certain areas but it is not in the NEC.  In particular, receptacles for cord-and-plug connected equipment, as you have already noted, are commonly doubled or even tripled up in order to move the equipment around.

Even permanent equipment is permitted to share a circuit.  For example, a single 50-amp circuit, usually with a receptacle, is normally installed in a house where a free-standing range is used in the kitchen.  However it is very common, when remodeling a kitchen, to install a permanent cooktop in the counter and a separate permanent oven in the cabinetry; in this case, both devices can be connected to the same original 50-amp circuit.  This is such a common misconception even among licensed electricians, however, that the electrician who did my last remodel refused to do it.  I had to do it myself; when the inspector came and looked over my work, we both had a good chuckle about how code-ignorant many professionals today can be.  BTW, the inspector found three code violations in what the professional did, all in permanent wiring.  He found only one issue with the stuff I did myself -- I did not shorten the cord on the disposer enough.  FWIW.

...
I think the workmanship in your pics is excellent....j

I disagree.  Drilled holes are in improper locations, the boxes are not properly mechanically secured, conductors have not been properly identified, there is no chafe protection, the list goes on.  I consider this unacceptable workmanship.

OK!  ANY appliance that is hard wired in or is fixed to the floor/ceiling,etc MUST have a dedicated breaker. 

Again, this is not true in the NEC.  It may be true for certain jurisdictions that have added restrictions above and beyond the NEC.

ALL breakers MUST have only one wire connected to them. 

This, too, is not in the NEC.  Again, the only thing the code says about this is that all items must be installed in accordance with their listing.  If the breaker manufacturer rates the lug for two wires, you can connect two wires.  If you have found otherwise, please provide me the code section so I can look it up and educate myself.

You got code questions?  Ask your local elect supply house staff.  They are often more knowledgeable than a electrician cause the salesman sees ALL the problems and researches ALL the answers EVERY DAY.

Here again, I must beg to differ.  Yes, there are SOME sales personnel at some supply houses who have some familiarity with the code, often because they worked as a journeyman in a previous job.  But every supply house will tell you that it's not their job to know the code, it's yours.  Moreover, supply houses have a vested interest in selling you stuff, so the advice is often slanted toward more gear rather than less.

Bottom line is that if you are doing your own work, YOU are responsible for knowing the code and the proper techniques.  As Brian mentioned, a professional electrician spends years in training and apprenticeship before being qualified to do this work on her own as a journeyman.  Even then, every journeyman I have worked with has carried with him a little code reference handbook -- none of us can memorize every fill table, de-rating, ampacity, and other minutia.

When I come to this board to answer questions like this, I do so with the code book open in front of me.  The code is way too detailed to just be guessing at this.  That's even bearing in mind that I worked for a C-10 licensed electrical contractor for a decade and I studied (but did not sit) the C-10 exam.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[luvrbus]

Girl you have it made not long ago we older converters had George Myers and Dave Galey to keep us on the right track those 2 never missed anything and now you just have Sean Lol 

good luck

[Sean]

If you have used up all the breakers in your box talk to your local supply house about the best/cheapest fix that will keep you within code.

FWIW, that's not one of the issues here.  I see at least two unused spaces in this panel.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[happycamperbrat]

Girl you have it made not long ago we older converters had George Myers and Dave Galey to keep us on the right track those 2 never missed anything and now you just have Sean Lol 

good luck

LMAO!!! As soon as I read the word "code" I knew Sean would be all over this 

[luvrbus]

I had mine like your and the only thing the county inspector made me do was add a sub panel he didn't like the plugs on meter panel  code or not I had no idea or he just wanted it different but a licensed electrician installed mine and was not happy about moving the plugs that debate lasted about a week before he moved the plugs


good luck

[bevans6]

My experience is the inspector owns the bat and ball, the electrician is just the player...  I've never had a bad inspector who got the code wrong, but I'm sure they exist.

Brian

[Sean]

...As for the flexible housing and the rod with wiring for the home, they did pass inspection in 2001. ...

Hmm.  Well, some inspectors are more lenient than others.  The conduit running out the bottom with the 100-amp circuit in it looks to me like Flexible Metallic Conduit, type FMC, which is:

348.2 Definition.
Flexible Metal Conduit (FMC). A raceway of circular cross section made of helically wound, formed, interlocked metal strip.^*

The code is very explicit about where this may and may not be used, in particular:

348.12 Uses Not Permitted. FMC shall not be used in the following:
(1) In wet locations
...
(6) Underground or embedded in poured concrete or aggregate

(Underline emphasis mine.)  The reasons are clear:  FMC is not watertight; water can easily ingress along the loosely crimped joint that secures one helix to the next (yes, I know, it's a continuous strip, but you get the idea).  With any rain at all, that conduit will fill up with water, and now you have your insulated conductors running under water.  Since the conductors themselves are also not rated for direct burial (or maybe even wet locations; hard to tell in the photo), eventually water will ingress through the insulation, creating current leakage.

I know we did not start out talking, in this thread, about existing work in that box.  But it is worth noting, because this is likely to give you problems down the line.  A sharp inspector would have red-tagged that installation, forcing the electrician to do it over again correctly.

Bear in mind that I am 400 miles away, looking at a couple of photos.  If I were there in person, I might see extenuating factors, or I might see even more issues. Remote diagnosis is spotty at best.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

* In accordance with the copyright and intellectual property policy of this web site, I include the following:

From NFPA 70^®, National Electrical Code^®, 2008 Edition
Copyright © 2007, NFPA, 1 Batterymarch Park, Quincy, MA

Used under "fair use" doctrine:
"... quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, ... reproduction by a teacher ... of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson ..." (from Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law, 1961)

[Dave5Cs]

As a California Contractor, this just proves the fact that had it started with a Plan and then a permit which then leads to pre-plan review this would have all been caught and then inspected by an inspector.  Not judging anyone but there are rules because these things can Kill people. It is not worth the problems or your family.

Just sayin Dave

[happycamperbrat]

Maybe it makes a difference because this isnt actually exposed to over head sky? There is a roof over this area.... Rain cant get it, but I did install a sprinkler system last year where the backflows are near the electrical panel box.......

[Sean]

Maybe it makes a difference because this isnt actually exposed to over head sky? There is a roof over this area.... Rain cant get it, but I did install a sprinkler system last year where the backflows are near the electrical panel box.......

FMC may not be buried underground.  Does not matter whether there is a roof over that ground or not.  Also, as you note, installing sprinklers in the area makes it a "wet location"; many wet locations are actually indoors.

-Sean
http://OurOdyssey.BlogSpot.com

[happycamperbrat]

It would be pretty easy to dig up that flexible pipe and have it exposed (though not so easy to take it out of a potentially wet location as my house water inlet is in that area as well....) What does the code say in those conditions?