I'll try to keep this brief. I am in the midst of a series of projects at the fish plant in Newport. Today we started a new one. They want to relocate their mincing equipment to a different area, and then convert the old room into a big freezer storage. So we went out to start ripping out the old stuff, which was apparently installed by their previous electrician.
I took a bunch of pictures (I thought) but when I got home, only one of them was on my phone. I don't know where the others went. But let's start with this:
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The guy ran PVC conduit (which is typical here) into PVC boxes, with PVC fittings, but put IGBs on every single one :laughing: This is just the tip of the iceberg. You might also notice (maybe) in the picture that there are approximately 1 billion wires in there. Located nearby was a panel, containing seven 3-phase breakers (mostly 20s and 30), each feeding a separate equipment drop. By my count, that is 21 current carrying conductors all stuffed into a single pipe and not derated. Realistically most of the equipment is less than 10 amps but they rearrange things often.
Next up is the EGCs. I said seven circuits in one pipe, right? Well there was seven EGCs in there too. A separate one for each circuit. Nothing illegal about that in itself but geez, what a waste of wire and conduit fill!
The final, and most major thing, was the panel supplying these circuits. It was a 3-phase Cutler Hammer CH panel (the 3R version) with the normal CH stab-on breakers. Not a huge deal, right? Well this equipment all runs at 480 volts. The panel and breakers are rated for 240 volts max.
So to recap:
I brought my apprentice over and showed it all to him and basically said, "This is how you don't do it."
I took a bunch of pictures (I thought) but when I got home, only one of them was on my phone. I don't know where the others went. But let's start with this:
The guy ran PVC conduit (which is typical here) into PVC boxes, with PVC fittings, but put IGBs on every single one :laughing: This is just the tip of the iceberg. You might also notice (maybe) in the picture that there are approximately 1 billion wires in there. Located nearby was a panel, containing seven 3-phase breakers (mostly 20s and 30), each feeding a separate equipment drop. By my count, that is 21 current carrying conductors all stuffed into a single pipe and not derated. Realistically most of the equipment is less than 10 amps but they rearrange things often.
Next up is the EGCs. I said seven circuits in one pipe, right? Well there was seven EGCs in there too. A separate one for each circuit. Nothing illegal about that in itself but geez, what a waste of wire and conduit fill!
The final, and most major thing, was the panel supplying these circuits. It was a 3-phase Cutler Hammer CH panel (the 3R version) with the normal CH stab-on breakers. Not a huge deal, right? Well this equipment all runs at 480 volts. The panel and breakers are rated for 240 volts max.
So to recap:
- 240V rated panel running at 480
- 21 CCCs in a single conduit, not derated
- Separate EGCs for each circuit all in the same conduit
- Ground bushings on PVC pipe with PVC fittings in a PVC box
- I didn't crunch the numbers but I bet conduit fill was getting close to a violation
- Now that I think about it, even though there were seven EGCs, they were all #12 and not compliant with 250.122 for the 30 amp circuits
I brought my apprentice over and showed it all to him and basically said, "This is how you don't do it."
:laughing::laughing::laughing:
