What Do You Guys Think?

krthomp33

I need some good opinions and knowledge here guys.....

I had a customer who I gave a bid for last year for a private hanger on a small air strip. 200a meter disconnect at the vault, 225' 4/0 urd in 3" pvc to a disconnect outside the building. Total price was 3500.00 at the time, and did not include any work inside the building. He of course balked at the price and I told him to check around.

This guy calls me last week and he has found out that he needs a energizing permit, hence he has to pull a permit. He asked me to pull the permit for him. I told him I would have to inspect the job before I would even consider it. Then his friend who did the electrical ( an aircraft mechanic) calls me and tells me how he went to a book store to refresh on the code and lays out the way he did the job over the phone, 200A meter, no disconnect, 200' of 4/0 in a 2" pipe buried 4' to the building, put in 2 ground rods at the meter, but wanted to know about if he was supposed to run a ground wire in the pipe to the building. I told him I didnt give out any information over the phone without looking at what I was talking about and doing some research.


I just have a bad feeling about this one........

What do you guys think, any and all comments are welcome

CE1

Exit Stage Right and Don't Call Me Tonight!!
or
Triple The Price To Do It Right.
or
Have a Nice Day and Just Walk Away.
or
This is Going to Cost You More Because You Didn't Let Me do It Before.

This is a BIG problem for the construction industry right now and sometimes we in the trades need to put our foot down and just say NFW!

Sparky Joe

Hell, even call the building inspector out there on him to shut him down and slap him with a big 'ol fine. Suddenly 3500 will be sounding like a bargain.

darren

I would get him to ask the inspector at the same time he is explaining why he didn't get a permit to do the job in the beginning.

On the other hand since I come on here to learn, would he have to run a ground in the pipe or would the two ground rods work for that situation.

Darren

joasis

Just explain your license is as valuable as his, and if he will let you work on airplanes and he will assume the liability, then you will sign off on his electrical work....and I bet that will be that. I would not even drive out to look.

__________________

Sparky Joe

Since it was in PVC he needs to pull a ground

Speedy Petey

Not so. As long as there are no other metallic paths between buildings the grounded conductor can also be the grounding conductor. See 250.32
Regardless of this ground rod(s) are required at the building.



This does not change the fact that this guy should have NOT done this work. Commercial work should NOT be done by anyone other than a qualified and/or licensed electrician.

__________________

Sparky Joe

Wow, so you're saying you don't need a ground wire from where your ground is created?

Speedy Petey

No. For a sub-feed to a detached structure you can,under certain conditions, run only the hot and neutral conductors. You DO bond the neutral bar in the remote panel as you would in any main panel.
See 250.32(B)(2) below.

The ground rods are always mandatory where a feeder is run to a remote structure. And we know their purpose is not to ground anything. In this case they don't create the ground, the neutral is the ground.



250.32 Buildings or Structures Supplied by Feeder(s) or Branch Circuit(s)
(A) Grounding Electrode Building(s) or structure(s) supplied by feeder(s) or branch circuit(s) shall have a grounding electrode or grounding electrode system installed in accordance with 250.50. The grounding electrode conductor(s) shall be connected in accordance with 250.32(B) or (C). Where there is no existing grounding electrode, the grounding electrode(s) required in 250.50 shall be installed.
Exception: A grounding electrode shall not be required where only a single branch circuit supplies the building or structure and the branch circuit includes an equipment grounding conductor for grounding the conductive non–current-carrying parts of equipment. For the purpose of this section, a multiwire branch circuit shall be considered as a single branch circuit.

(B) Grounded Systems For a grounded system at the separate building or structure, the connection to the grounding electrode and grounding or bonding of equipment, structures, or frames required to be grounded or bonded shall comply with either 250.32(B)(1) or (B)(2).

(1) Equipment Grounding Conductor An equipment grounding conductor as described in 250.118 shall be run with the supply conductors and connected to the building or structure disconnecting means and to the grounding electrode(s). The equipment grounding conductor shall be used for grounding or bonding of equipment, structures, or frames required to be grounded or bonded. The equipment grounding conductor shall be sized in accordance with 250.122. Any installed grounded conductor shall not be connected to the equipment grounding conductor or to the grounding electrode(s).

(2) Grounded Conductor Where (1) an equipment grounding conductor is not run with the supply to the building or structure, (2) there are no continuous metallic paths bonded to the grounding system in each building or structure involved, and (3) ground-fault protection of equipment has not been installed on the supply side of the feeder(s), the grounded conductor run with the supply to the building or structure shall be connected to the building or structure disconnecting means and to the grounding electrode(s) and shall be used for grounding or bonding of equipment, structures, or frames required to be grounded or bonded. The size of the grounded conductor shall not be smaller than the larger of either of the following:
(1) That required by 220.61
(2) That required by 250.122

__________________

mdshunk

I've never done an aircraft hanger, but I do remember some additional special grounding considerations for the slab and the structure itself. Can't put my finger on it at the moment.

In my neck of the woods, it's illegal (read, lose my license) to pull a permit for someone else's work. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to (as I have done in the past) call the inspector and get a big fat "STOP WORK" order slapped on the door of this hanger. Normally, they'll give them a few days to get a permit before they threaten fines and the like.

If you wanted to pull this permit for some reason, you'd have to get him to agree to let you bring all this sub-par work up to NEC and your personal standards.

Do you really need this job? I mean, do you have other stuff to do this week? I sometimes wonder if these screwball customer reports are mental excercises or if guy's are really struggling because they need the work but can't decide if they'll be screwed or not. If you don't need the work shoot some crazy high price or just don't call him at all.

krthomp33

Thanks for the responses guys

I went out this morning (Monday) and met with the guy who is doing the work, (not the owner) and did a quick visual inspection, and you can guess how that went......

At the meter socket, no ground rods driven, no expansion fittings on the pipe, no noalox on any of the connections, and they had the run already buried. At the building, no expansion fitting, only 1 ground rod, and the guy was already slinging mc in the building. I pointed out a couple of things, told him that they would probably have to dig up the pipe run as most inspectors want to see the run before it is buried, and told him I would send a written report to the owner.

Before I got home, he had already called and left a message saying that the owner told him to tell me to pull the permit as soon as possible, and they would let the inspector dictate wether or not they needed to dig up the run, and make any of the changes that I had recommended, and he was rather snotty in the message that he left.

So when I got home I called the state inspector, left him a message and will try to get in touch with him tomorrow. No way in hell am I even thinking about pulling a permit, and I will now try to shut him down. So much for trying to be a nice guy, and make a little money from this.

I am not sure how the inspector will handle this, as it is a private hanger building, and even though it is at an airfield, it is on private property.

MD.....I could have used the work, so I was looking at the angle that if I did the inspection, and found the errors, than I might get the work to fix them, but this guy is looking for someone with a license to lay out the whole job for free........aint gonna happen

As CE1 could second, electricians are abundant up here for the population that we have, and competition is fierce. Add to that the fact that a license is not required for residential work (duplex and below), and it can be tough to get business up here. I work 3rd shift maintenance in addition to my business, to allow me the time to build a reputation and solid customer base. I am trying to focus mainly on service calls, and I have one commercial account who keeps me steady, but it is just enough to cover my overhead. I have a couple of letters of introduction I am working on to send out to all the property management companies and I have a couple of other angles I am exploring to try to capture a special segment of the market out there.

Hope this little background helps!

I will keep you all posted on what happens with the inspector

brian11973

Here, Cleveland, Ohio, area, Ohio Edison WILL NOT energize a service without an inspection. Don't do a job that might come back to bite you in the a$$( it's your job now). Here (Ohio) an aircraft hanger would be commercial, would require a state license ( no matter if it were "private"). the retard that does not know this. BUST HIM!!!! Help weed out the hacks!! Here that would keep you from getting the state license.


RUN LIKE MAD FROM THE CHEAPO!!!!!!!!

AND TELL HIM NO MORE "FREE" INSPECTIONS!!!!!! YOU WANT $$$ JUST TO SHOW UP!!!

krthomp33

UPDATE:

I talked to the state inspector and the guy in charge of the utility, explained what was going on, and the inspector was going up this afternoon to shut the job down . He said he would keep me informed off the record, and that if another sparky tried to pull a permit for that job, he would make sure that all the work that was already done got removed....

Something satisfying about this

CE1

Excellent!!

mdshunk

Holy smokes! That's one course of action that I've never seen or heard of before. Make them rip out the non permitted wiring? Some of it might be correct. I support a stop work order in this instance, and having a licensed electrician take over the job. Ripping out all the non permitted work seems a little bit over the line to me, but maybe it's all crap anyhow. Surely, at least some of it is wrong and needs torn out, but -ouch-, all of it? Yes, it does seem satisfying to us license holder to learn that, though.

RobertWilber

If it is illegal to install electrical equipment without a license and/or permit, then lack of a license or permit is evidence that no electrical equipment has been installed ...
Requiring those parties who get caught "cheating" to demolish "illegal" installations will encourage others to choose to follow the rules.
The effective penalty would not be that you have to do it right [like everybody else], but that you also LOSE the benefit of everything you did wrong! [raise the ante!]

mdcorreia

[QUOTE=mdshunk]I've never done an aircraft hanger, but I do remember some additional special grounding considerations for the slab and the structure itself. Can't put my finger on it at the moment.

In my neck of the woods, it's illegal (read, lose my license) to pull a permit for someone else's work. That said, I wouldn't hesitate to (as I have done in the past) call the inspector and get a big fat "STOP WORK" order slapped on the door of this hanger. Normally, they'll give them a few days to get a permit before they threaten fines and the like.

If you wanted to pull this permit for some reason, you'd have to get him to agree to let you bring all this sub-par work up to NEC and your personal standards.


Do you really need this job? I mean, do you have other stuff to do this week? I sometimes wonder if these screwball customer reports are mental excercises or if guy's are really struggling because they need the work but can't decide if they'll be screwed or not. If you don't need the work shoot some crazy high price or just don't call him at all.[ /QUOTE]

FROM: mdcorreia.
Operate like a bank - Some people out there have a very low credit limit or you make up their credit limit according to the circunstances. If I needed the job, in this case, I would ask for a 100% down payment, take out a repair permit, work at T+M and if the down payment runs out ask for more in order to keep going.

Disturbed Elect

To anyone who wants to start a sub contracting buisness,I have been a Licensed Electrical Contractor For 10 Years in New Jersey and have had as many as 25 employees....My Advise, go back to work for a stable company. Unless of course you don't mind the following. Chasing after your money, dealing with people who sometimes own major companys who will screw you and go home to sleep like a baby, homeowners who can be a major pain in the ass,
trying to be honest and trustworthy when most around you are not, trying to pay your bills to suppliers when you haven't collected all your money yet, trying to pay your bills in general,and last but not least my favorite...Retainage, so you know also General contractors very rarely lay out there own money, most of there contracts have pay when get paid clauses. Which basicly means they don't front money and as soon as they collect they deduct right away thier overhead,profit and general conditions, this is after usually getting a deposit from the owner that they rarely foward to subs. They are very smart and clever. Be carfull. I know of one GC that did 25 Million in sales and was compleatly debt free at the end of the year.He did not spend a dime of his profits to operate his buisness like us measly little Subs Do.

Disturbed Elect

sorry about the negitivity