[volt-nuts] current-nut question .. total waste of ones time

Dan Kemppainen dan at irtelemetrics.com
Thu May 1 12:28:36 EDT 2014


> 
> On 04/30/2014 02:01 PM, ed breya wrote:
>> When I applied for the permit from the
>> county, this caused nothing but grief and confusion - they didn't
>> understand, and neither did PGE, why anyone would want a second meter.
> 
> At my last house when the place was rewired after a fire, I anticipated
> this problem.  I had the electrical contractor move the meter base about
> 4 ft away from the breaker panel and install the service disconnect on
> the far side of the meter.  That gave me about 5 ft of conduit inside
> the house from the wall penetration to the breaker panel - plenty of
> room to cut in and add the second meter base after the inspection.
> Worked like a champ.

We are close to building a new house. When I build the garage, I put a
200 A service into the garage. I have a 200A breaker in the garage that
will feed the main going to the house, just for this reason. Won't be
able to play with the garage, but at least the house can be completely
shut down (or tied to a emergency generator through a large transfer
switch if necessary). That being said, I did put a pair of current
transformers on the mains feeding the garage panel, just for kicks.

Of course the only down side is the house is a sub panel, so grounds and
neutrals cannot be bonded together there, so I need a 4 wire feed to the
house.

But, yeah, generally to pull a meter to change something you need a
permit. Gone are the days when electricians had the a bag full of the
lead seals used to 'lock' meters in their boxes.

Dan




More information about the volt-nuts mailing list