Am I better than the electrician?

[JHunter]

I just got done installing a 220 outlet in my new garage for my air compressor. Everything works great, install is clean and no issues.
As I tighten down the last screw holding the breaker box cover panel back on, it arcs big time. The main breaker is off to the house, so I'm thinking, what the hell!
Turns out the main line coming in from the street was routed in a way that it had been making contact with the end of the screw holding on the cover panel for a while. I didn't touch or otherwise move anything on that side (left) of the box, so I know I didn't do it. When I tightened down the screw, it finally went through the sheathing and arced out.
Isn't there a code that would prevent (or is meant to prevent) any line from resting against the breaker box? Even though this isn't like in a car where vibration is an issue, I would still think that wires shouldn't be snug against the front leading edge of the breaker box to prevent this type of issue.
Any comments?
Already placed a call to my home warranty company to send out someone to reroute the wire - I ain't doin it!

 

[sberry]

Human error, sloppy install, its something I actually watch for when installing a cover.

 

[MattT]

If you take your time and do everything properly you'll be better than a lot of paid house wirers. Taking the time to do things right cuts into their profit margin. Every pro electrician I know refuses to touch paid domestic work and won't let a house wirer anywhere near their own place.

In your instance part of the problem was a badly designed breaker box. It shouldn't have been possible for a cover screw to contact the wiring

 

[breakfasteatre]

I would say its the design of the panel, not the installer.

My boss was putting the last cover screw into a 600v squareD panel, the screws were really long and it went in sideways, hit the main lug and blew the panel up in his face. There wasnt much left of that screw.... My boss' fault? No, it was the dangerous design of the panel.

Many residential panels we install, we have to be cautious of the main feeders coming in the top, and their relation to the two top panel cover screws, the design of the panel allows the screw to contact the main feeds

 

[Aceman]

It's not poor panel design, it's the installers fault.

If the original electrician can't put enough bend in the wires to keep them away from the screws than he's lazy. That's why they make zipties with screw holes in them.......

 

[JHunter]

I think Aceman has it. In my opinion, the way the wire is laid in the box pushes it against the front cover, rather tightly. It comes in from the back/bottom, up the left side and around the top to the main lug. Too much wire seems to be the cause because of the way its laid its forced to touch the front lip of the interior box. The screws aren't excessively long, but clearly long enough to pierce the sheathing of a wire that's jammed against the front lip.
I also noticed that someone arced another wire coming out of one of the breakers against the ground bar - and then covered it up with electrical tape. There are black arc marks on the ground bar right behind the live wire with electrical tape on it, and black smudge marks on the red wire coming out of the breaker above it.
Glad I have the home warranty program - this will be the second call in my first month of owning the place (the first was to fix the AC unit).
Thanks for your input guys.

 

[Ford12508]

Many electricians do terrible box work, even though it is so easy to do. I understand that it takes a few extra minutes to make each wire the perfect size and shape it the way it should be, but it really does make future jobs 10 times easier, and I know a few inspectors that go by the rule "If it looks good and is safe, I don't care if the first staple is 1 too many inches away from the box"

 

[spongerich]

It's not poor panel design, it's the installers fault.

If the original electrician can't put enough bend in the wires to keep them away from the screws than he's lazy. That's why they make zipties with screw holes in them.......

Good design is by definition idiot proo..er..resistant.

A well designed panel would prevent such a minor error from causing catastrophic failure. It would seem a simple matter not to put the screws right next to the most dangerous components of the system.

 

[CUSTOMMANCAVES.COM]

Zipties? In an electrical panel? Not while I'm around...

 

[MrMark]

zipties are required by code in a panel to keep multiwire branch circuits grouped together. Zipties used judiciously also keep the panel neat.

It's definitely installer error. There shouldn't be wires anywhere near the corners where those deadfront screws go through.

It's not a minor error, either. He could have been killed with a little bit of a ground path through his body.

 

[CUSTOMMANCAVES.COM]

Zipties are required by code? Which code are you looking at? I have yet to see a panel in new construction with a zip-tie in it, and every single one has passed.

 

[foss]

zipties are required by code in a panel to keep multiwire branch circuits grouped together. Zipties used judiciously also keep the panel neat.

It's definitely installer error. There shouldn't be wires anywhere near the corners where those deadfront screws go through.

It's not a minor error, either. He could have been killed with a little bit of a ground path through his body.

absolutely !!

 

[foss]

installer error

 

[MrMark]

Zipties are required by code? Which code are you looking at? I have yet to see a panel in new construction with a zip-tie in it, and every single one has passed.

210.4(D)

2008 NEC. grounded and ungrounded conductors (in other words, the two phase legs and the neutral) shall be grouped by wire tie or similar in the panelboard.

Exception is provided for circuit entering from cable or conduit making grouping obvious. I think this would mean 12/3 in a panel would not require ties.

That's paraphrasing, but pretty close to actual language.

You think the fact that an installation passed inspection is somehow meaningful?

 

[Ford12508]

If you used a single romex connector on the box, and brought in branched wires in it, would it still have to be zip tied?

 

[CUSTOMMANCAVES.COM]

210.4(D)

2008 NEC. grounded and ungrounded conductors (in other words, the two phase legs and the neutral) shall be grouped by wire tie or similar in the panelboard.

Exception is provided for circuit entering from cable or conduit making grouping obvious. I think this would mean 12/3 in a panel would not require ties.

That's paraphrasing, but pretty close to actual language.

You think the fact that an installation passed inspection is somehow meaningful?

(D) Grouping. The ungrounded and neutral conductors of a multiwire branch circuit shall be grouped together in at least one location by wire ties or similar means at the point of origination.

Professionals use "similar means". Everyone else uses tie wraps. There are other devices used for grouping in panels.

And, no...passing inspection of a new electrical installation doesn't mean anything...

 

[MrMark]

what are they? black tape?

code says tie wraps, but professionals (whatever that means) use "other means." That makes good sense.

 

[Aceman]

Zipties? In an electrical panel? Not while I'm around...

Since zipties aren't good enough for you, what do you use?

 

[MrMark]

If you used a single romex connector on the box, and brought in branched wires in it, would it still have to be zip tied?

Could you elaborate further?

 

[CUSTOMMANCAVES.COM]

No wire-ties required when you do it right. There are plastic bands for grouping wires.

 

[CUSTOMMANCAVES.COM]

If you used a single romex connector on the box, and brought in branched wires in it, would it still have to be zip tied?

See "exception" above.

 

[mrb]

the 'professionals' using other means are day laborers using scrap of solid wire wrapped around the conductors because the EC that bid the piecework tract homes is doesnt have the budget for zipties.

custommancaves, go take a look in some commercial (real commercial -highrise, factory, etc; not some little Type V building) panels and you will see that zip ties are quite abundant in work done by real electrical contractors (the ones where a small job is high 6 figures, and who have real electricians working for them, not day laborers)

 

[JHunter]

I'm certainly not trained on this topic at all (the reason for my original questions), but the comments about installer error and slop makes sense to me.
The fact is, I could have easily been killed by doing nothing more than screwing in the front cover screw - and that scared the **** out of me. BTW - the screws were the correct ones for the box.
Seems like a simple redesign of the box would prevent that from happening - instead of the face box being bent inward to form the lip, which puts the screw on the inside of the box, simply folding the front edge of the box outward would mean even a boneheaded homeowner that used a screw that was too long or any other craziness, wouldn't run the risk of touching anything dangerous. Of course I suppose a bonehead homeowner shouldn't be taking the cover of the box to begin with - but I've installed the same outlet configuration in the last 5 houses and feel confident that I can do it right (on my last rental house, I paid an electrician to do it for me and watched as he did it, and reaffirmed that how I'd done in the past was at least how he did it - so I felt reassured).
Anyway, like I said, my gut told me that the line from the street (or any other for that matter) shouldn't have been placed snug against the front of the box.
Hopefully I'll get a call tomorrow and have a pro take a look at that issue as well as the scorch mark and electrical tape "repair" the PO left for me.

Wire pulled away from the front of the box - took a surprising amount of effort to do this - at least its safe till the electrician gets here:

Melted screw on the left as compared to what it looked like before:

What I found when I first took the cover off - not sure if the PO did this or the electrician when he originally wired the house:

 

[MrMark]

My R2 driver for the typical deadfront screws is insulated. It makes a lot of sense to get a set of the german insulated screwdrivers and just use them when near anything electrical even when you always make sure the equipment is dead. They are cheap in Wera or Wiha and very high quality. For some reason the insulated Kleins are through the roof and the tips are not as good. I bought them before I found the Wera.

I just ordered a Wiha terminal block driver 30701, I believe, for those triple drive screws that you see all over that panel. It's insulated too and it was cheap! Right tool for the job.

That insulated screwdriver would have saved your life if you had managed to ground yourself.

Edit: Actually, most of those bus bar and breaker screws are the R2 and the R2 fits very well on those. It is the R1 on the receptacles and the like that will get the terminal block driver from me.

 

[MrMark]

You have a bigger problem.

I wonder if that is repairable?

I don't know but I would float that out here to see what some experts think.

That is your main feeder. I know they are going to want to wrap 3M tape around it, but I have my doubts on whether that would be legit. You better do some research.

 

[MrMark]

I also don't know why you have white wires going into your breakers????

 

[JHunter]

I also don't know why you have white wires going into your breakers????

Thats something else that caught my eye - I've always seen black and red as the two hot options, white and bare copper were negative/neutrals. I think I read that if white is used for anything other than neutral it was to be marked with red tape on both ends - clearly not the case here.
This is a relatively new house, under 5 years old and I'm finding issues that I sure wish the home inspector would have found - not that I'd expect him to pop the cover on a breaker box. I found no vent pipes for the two bathroom exhaust fans - so the moist air just goes into the attic.
I can't wait for the electrician to get here - this is driving me nuts.

 

[MrMark]

the whites have to be reidentified with black tape - you are right.

I hate to tell you this but there is a lot of monkey business going on in that box!

That red wire looks scorched too.



I think the home inspector should have done just that - popped the cover.

 

[walrus]

custommancaves, go take a look in some commercial (real commercial -highrise, factory, etc; not some little Type V building) panels and you will see that zip ties are quite abundant in work done by real electrical contractors (the ones where a small job is high 6 figures, and who have real electricians working for them, not day laborers)

I hate zip ties in a panel, I hate them in a trough. I'd like to see inspectors bang guys for bundling and make them derate for some of the stuff I see. When a trough is full of black wires and I need to follow one back to a breaker to make sure I turn off the right breaker, zip ties are nothing but a hassle

 

[Aceman]

No wire-ties required when you do it right. There are plastic bands for grouping wires.

Now lets see a pic of a panel you made up with STRANDED wire and no zip ties. You're assuming everyone uses Romex.....

 

[geaugafletcher]

'tell you what, I've browsed some electrician's forums online and they were full of the most block-headed, snotty elitists I've ever experienced when it comes to "laborers".

Much of their self-righteous attitude was predicated on "dumb homeowners", the biggest menace to safety and a good working union man's livelihood (so they say). Of course, they fail to realize that they only see the crappiest of homeowner repairs and base their opinion on that very limited and therefore useless sampling. Anybody who asked for wiring or other electrical advice was effectively stealing from an electrician's starving children. Very tiresome attitudes.

Nice to hear a couple admissions that electricians are not omniscient, gracing our ignorant lives with their underpriced benevolence.

[/rant]

Looks like shoddy work to me, too.

 

[walrus]

Now lets see a pic of a panel you made up with STRANDED wire and no zip ties.

I do it all the time, no zip ties. I could care less if every wire is at a right angle or is perfectly straight. Means nothing in the way the panel performs or if a breaker trips when its supposed to. The first time someone goes in to add something its going to be all screwed up anyway

 

[Aceman]

I do it all the time, no zip ties. I could care less if every wire is at a right angle or is perfectly straight. Means nothing in the way the panel performs or if a breaker trips when its supposed to. The first time someone goes in to add something its going to be all screwed up anyway

Maybe you don't care, but I do. I do this for a living and the customer gets charged a premium for my services. The least I can do is spend a few extra minutes and make the panel look like a professional wired it. That doesn't mean I bend perfect right angles in every wire and comb them out so there are absolutely no twists, but it does mean I group them and run them into the breaker neatly. I'm not seeking perfection, but I want a clean install.

Responding to your second comment, if an electrician or anyone else for that matter can't add another circuit or two to an existing panel and keep it looking at least as clean as it was originally wired, that person is lazy. I do it all the time, it's really not that hard.

I was actually thinking about it today that I should of taken my camera to work. I happen to be cleaning up a couple of panels and adding some new circuits on a dairy right now. If I remember tomorrow I'll snap a couple of pics.

 

[Nostraquedeo]

To the OP, the installation of that screw into the cable is just as much your fault as the original installer. Yeah, he should have routed it differently or installed it in a different manner, but as the person doing work in that panel, that is your responsibilty to make sure you are not putting yourself in danger! You are the only one in that case that can prevent you from getting hurt.

 

[walrus]

Maybe you don't care, but I do. I do this for a living and the customer gets charged a premium for my services. The least I can do is spend a few extra minutes and make the panel look like a professional wired it. That doesn't mean I bend perfect right angles in every wire and comb them out so there are absolutely no twists, but it does mean I group them and run them into the breaker neatly. I'm not seeking perfection, but I want a clean install. .

I can understand that, pride in your work is a good thing. Bundling wires so I can't see whats moving in a big cluster of wires is a bad thing. All my work is in Cstores, 20 electricians may have been in there before me, moving stuff around, panels schedules have been crossed out, erased, written in pen, erased crossed out again and the last thing they want on a friday afternoon is me shutting down one of the POS machines with a store full of people. Especially when it takes 10 minutes for it to come back up after rebooting. I want safe, easy to follow work.My customers only know when stuff works or it doesn't. I should take some pics of some of the stuff I see in these stores You probably see the same stuff?

 

[sberry]

As to the original; question,,, am I better than the electrician? I would say not, ran a screw in to a live wire, incoming feeder to boot.

 

[JHunter]

To the OP, the installation of that screw into the cable is just as much your fault as the original installer. Yeah, he should have routed it differently or installed it in a different manner, but as the person doing work in that panel, that is your responsibilty to make sure you are not putting yourself in danger! You are the only one in that case that can prevent you from getting hurt.

As to the original; question,,, am I better than the electrician? I would say not, ran a screw in to a live wire, incoming feeder to boot.

- Totally agree, and I'm the OP. After posting the title I thought to myself, well that was dumb (the title - clearly the electrician is better at this than me, even if he did run a live wire in a tight spot). And you're both right, I should have looked and paid more attention. My original question was actually about Code - is there a code that is meant to prevent a live wire from having direct contact with the side/front of the box - which I don't remember being answered, but is also kinda irrelevant at this point I suppose. Lots of discussion about neatness and zip ties, but I didn't see anything about physical contact with the box and if its prohibited. Reason I asked is so when the repairman comes out, I can know what he should be doing - tape it up and leave or reroute it and prevent another "boneheaded" homeowner from killing themselves later down the road.
Still haven't heard from the electrician thats supposed to come fix this mess, but maybe I'll get a call today.

Thanks guys

 

[walrus]

- My original question was actually about Code - is there a code that is meant to prevent a live wire from having direct contact with the side/front of the box

No, wires are in contact with every box I see. They are also in contact with every conduit I see whether its metal or plastic. I think there is some common sense involved and having where it was, wasn't too smart but I see it all the time. I've pinched wires with cover screws before also, you aren't the first. Mine was a piece of number 12 though not a service entrance cable. I make sure I look before putting in screws now

 

[shamrock12]

As I tighten down the last screw holding the breaker box cover panel back on, it arcs big time. The main breaker is off to the house, so I'm thinking, what the hell!
Turns out the main line coming in from the street was routed in a way that it had been making contact with the end of the screw holding on the cover panel for a while.

Glad you are ok but I think you got really lucky. The feeder cables usually are not protected from outside on property. It would take hell of a show to pop the utility fuse somewhere along the street. I wonder how this shorten out feeder cable caused your main breaker to trip. The main protects whatever is connected (or touching) on the buses but the feeder cables are on the other end of the main. It could have kept arcing big time until the culprit melt apart from the source.

 

[MrMark]

I think that is what it did.

I wonder why the mains wires are even in that section of the box. The panels I have seen have an Edison side and a panelboard side (for a combi unit) or just an Edison side and then a feed to a panelboard.

I have not seen where you could hit the main feeders from the street if you were not in the Edison side. But, I'm sure there are configurations I am not familiar with.