Bungalows wrote:Thanks Jerry, this was in the attic with no conduit. I find this about 20% of the time.
awsome site keep it up
Hi Bungalows,
I was wondering if it may have been SE cable running through the attic, however, that is still addressed the same was in in conduit not encased in concrete.
Just verifying, you find the meter on one end of the house, no main service disconnect there, SE cable running into and through the attic to the service panel inside the house, 10-20-60 feet away, and you find that about 20% of the time?
This would be my recommendation, and probably the easiest way to correct the installation:
Install a service disconnect outside, that puts the "point of entrance" of the service entrance conductor to not be anywhere, the service entrance conductors would still be "outside". That is the easy part.
Now, replace the SE cable with NM cable, three conductor with ground, which has an insulated neutral as required for feeders and that run now becomes "feeders", not "service entrance". This may be the hard part, depending on the accessibility of the attic. In cases where the attic is tight and they stapled/secured the original SE cable properly, the new feeder cable could be fished in. However, if they did not secure the original SE cable down, as is often the case, then it could be used to pull in the new feeder cable.
Doing that would not put the service disconnect at the meter, no problem, and the neutral would be bonded to ground at that service disconnect.
That would also leave the original service equipment in place inside the house, and this is where it can get touchy and hard (expensive).
- *IF* the original service equipment was only rated as service equipment with no provisions to isolate the neutral from ground, that is a problem and that original service panel would need to be replaced, i.e., that is rated for "Suitable for Service Equipment Use Only".
- *IF* the original service equipment was rated for use as service equipment but has provisions to isolate the neutral from the ground, then the neutrals can simply be isolated from ground and the "main" can serve as a "main for that panel", that is not a problem and that original panel would not need to be replaced, it would have been rated "Suitable for Use As Service Equipment".
Thus, the most difficult and most expensive part of the correction would be if that panel did not have provisions to isolate the neutrals from ground, meaning it has to be replaced.
Still, though, the cost should not be too bad. Just throwing out some round numbers here, which would vary depending upon costs in your area, but:
- install service equipment with service disconnect outside next to meter ... $400-600
- run new feeder conductor to interior panel ... $400-600 (depends a lot on length and accessibility
- replace old interior service equipment only panel with new panel ... $1,000-1,500
- contact a local electrician you know and run the scenario by him, having him throw out "ballpark" numbers for each phase, that will give you a much more accurate cost guesstimate than my "several ballparks combined" number.
That is definitely something I would be writing up on each of those 20% of the houses.
Thank you for the kind words on the site,
Codeman