One full electrical panel

Philip d

Well-known Member
I just finished doing the panel for the 28x40? cottage(going to be used as a house) that our trade school is building. In the entire panel there?s only 1 empty space. Being so many circuits it was a bit of a chore to make it look exactly like I?d like it but it?s not bad I guess. It?s a 200A 40 space panel with 18 on a generator side up top since it?s going to be bottom fed and 22 on the bottom. What I did like about this panel is there?s a neutral bus bar down both sides the breakers click onto. That way the AFCI?s don?t have a pigtail, just attach your hot and neutral to the AFCI and no pigtail to the bus bar.
cvphoto5153.jpg
 
WOW that is an awful lot of wires. And it looks very pretty to. If an inspector gives you any greaf about that you can bet he is a fraud master.
 
It?s a Square D, the neutrals are all connected except the top
and bottom are isolated from each other when the utility
breaker is off if your running supply from the generator. The
neutral is switched through the pair of breakers at the genset
disconnect
 
Was good to hear from you, you said not as good as you would of liked...that means you recognize/realise
putting a little effort into something has value. Have you taken a look at other workmanship in the class?
That will give you a level of where you stand...remember they are watching your projects also..:)
Well done slim.
I see some 240 circuits on the gen side, must be a good size gen set is planned for these "cabins"
 
It was great chatting with you too Phil! The home owner said he never has power outages or very rarely where it?s being setup but he had a 7500W generator. There?s all electric heat in the house plus a heat pump so I put the heat pump and water pump on the generator side.?My instructor seemed a lot happier with it than I did,I found with the bus bar running horizontally it was darn near impossible to have enough room to make everything with shaped nicely and go the way I wanted it. Maybe with more practice it?ll look like the other ones I did. The poor guy doing the panel in the other cottage isn?t having much fun. He started wiring his panel that?s the same and a couple hours in noticed he had it upside down to where the feeds coming in. Tore it all out started from scratch again then a few more hours in was brought to his attention that were using arc fault breakers and some of his neutrals are now too short. Hopefully he gets it figured out next week.
 
I think if the panel was mounted in a basement and you could run all your feeders in the sides it?d be a lot neater looking job,there?s just very little room with everything coming in the top.
 
Nice looking job. Does look like a QO panel. How about some pictures on the house wiring. Always like to see how others do it. Glad to see you are using some 14 ga wire. No need for 20 amp circuits throughout a house.
 
In building new industrial equipment, we usually saw customer requirements for around 20 percent minimum open circuits, I/O points, pneumatic valve mounts, etc., for future expansion and modifications. This equipment was generally expected to have about ten year average lives before rebuilding or replacement.

I'm surprised to see new residential construction with only one space for new circuits available for future expansion on a building that is expected to stand 100 years and shouldn't need any electrical renovation for 40 plus years. Does that pass the local building code or are you working around a donated panel box?
 
I?m pretty sure there?s code specifying spare circuits in commercial installs in Canada but at this point nothing in residential that we?ve studied or been told about. My electrician friend said he doesn?t use these panels anymore because they?re really too small. There?s easily a dozen or more spaces taken up by the combo breakers. He likes using a sub panel as generator panel with a built in lock out. Not a whole lot more money and way more space.
 
I just had a look at the harvester photos, they must have had one heck of a time getting out of there! They did very well to not damage anything
 
AFCI = Any Flashing Current Indicator???
Did I mention I HATE Ackronyms when they are not spelled out once!
 
Sorry haha AFCI is an arc fault circuit interrupter. It?s for fire
prevention in case there is a detectable amount of arc
between a hot and it?s neutral. Both the hot and neutral wires
are wired to the afci breaker and the breaker is also
connected to the neutral bar in this case. It?s code that all
recepticals in a living area have them except dedicated
circuits for your fridge.range hood ,micro wave and anywhere
around your counter. Any motor type load will cause nuisance
tripping ex. those mentioned and small kitchen appliances.
You need ground fault recepticals within about a yard of your
sink to prevent you from getting a shock.
 
Leave the same loop in all your wires .If you are going to leave extra loop then do it on all the wires. You should see my friend Mike Boswells panels . Immaculate with every wire perfectly aligned . Your needs some work.
 
I agree,not my best work at all,I ran out of room and was being pushed to go fast,I don?t like putting that many circuits in the top,had I been able to run them all through the sides it would have turned out much neater
 

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