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Commercial Electrical Work without a Permit

jar546

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Joined
Oct 16, 2009
Messages
10,971
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I was going through some old photos and came across this memory. I was contacted by one of the PPL service engineers who asked me if I was feeling alright. I had no idea what he was talking about so he said to me that power was released for a 120/240 Delta 3ph service meter that was changed from UG to overhead after a flood. Apparently the electrician wired it incorrectly and the inspector (he thought it was me or my company) signed off on it. You can actually see the pink approval form from the company that signed off.

At first I had to check the address and found no permit then I asked my guys if anyone did an inspection without a permit and got a big 'no!" When I drove to the site I found what you see in this photo below. What happened is that the contractor did not pull a permit then hired another third party agency to release the power. I was the BCO at the time and my company had the exclusive contract with the municipality.

So what is wrong? A few things. First of all, the electrician has this set up for 208/120Y 3 phase, next his colors, even if that was a Y 208 system are backwards. So I called the electrician and told him power was rejected by PPL's crew when they saw this was not a Delta system and they were hooking back up a delta with a 208 high-leg. I then told him he needed to pull a permit and get it inspected after he made the required connections. So even if the inspector did not know the voltage, the colors are wrong and if he would have just looked up into the air at the pole mounted transformers, he would know what voltage it was supposed to be.

I guess they both missed the big orange tag that said to connect the 208 high-leg here. The yellow tape with the note was from the POCO. The third-party was a branch of an architectural/engineering firm that eventually had to change its name and the name of the firm due to "problems". If you zoom in, you can see the name on the pink sheet.

120:240DeltaWrong.jpg
 
I am amazed ... ok sometimes impressed ... with your postings. Electricity is not my strong suit. But even i can follow the bus bars and see that the colors are crossed.
 
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