# Today s work



## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

Adding a sub panel isnt as simple as it was in the past. Today safety is the most important factor.

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

Junction BOX

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## Black Dog (Oct 16, 2011)

Nice space suit...:thumbsup:


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## dronai (Apr 11, 2011)

Why does your profile say Residential electrician, new to Commercial ? They let the new guy do that :laughing:


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## EBFD6 (Aug 17, 2008)

I don't get the suit. Wearing the suit didn't make that job safer. If you were concerned about doing that job with the gear live then it should have been shut down. If something went wrong, you might have prevented injury by wearing the suit ("might have" being the key to that statement) but you still would have caused serious damage to that gear. 

I never, ever, wear arc flash ppe. I feel it makes the situation more dangerous by reducing visibility, dexterity, comfort (ie, excess heat, sweat) and it gives the wearer a false sense of security. I have 2 categories of hot work that I use personally.

#1 - hot work that I feel is low risk and I am comfortable performing with no ppe.

#2 - hot work that presents what I believe to be a significant risk of injury or equipment damage that I will not perform with all the ppe in the world. This work will not be done live (by me) under any circumstance. 

Your situation would fall under category #2. Throw the suit in the dumpster and shut it down next time.


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## gnuuser (Jan 13, 2013)

EBFD6 said:


> I don't get the suit. Wearing the suit didn't make that job safer. If you were concerned about doing that job with the gear live then it should have been shut down. If something went wrong, you might have prevented injury by wearing the suit ("might have" being the key to that statement) but you still would have caused serious damage to that gear.
> 
> I never, ever, wear arc flash ppe. I feel it makes the situation more dangerous by reducing visibility, dexterity, comfort (ie, excess heat, sweat) and it gives the wearer a false sense of security. I have 2 categories of hot work that I use personally.
> 
> ...




i agree
there are a few tricks i know with working live that i dont recommend to anyone ( experience at running live emergency power cabling)
but in general due to safety constraints we never work live 
our company's new owner would fire us and recommend the revocation of our license


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## Mshow1323 (Jun 9, 2012)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4I-i6LA338

Marty?


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## dawgs (Dec 1, 2007)

I would ask your boss to get you a fiberglass fish tape. No way I'm pushing a steel tape into that gear.


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## ponyboy (Nov 18, 2012)

I bet that 2" needs a grounding bushing.


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

It's likely that the arc flash suit would make the difference between an open casket and a closed casket if something went wrong here. There's no amount of PPE that would protect you from the very high available fault current in that gear.


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## ponyboy (Nov 18, 2012)

MTW said:


> It's likely that the arc flash suit would make the difference between an open casket and a closed casket if something went wrong here. There's no amount of PPE that would protect you from the very high available fault current in that gear.


So true. The majority of the gear I see daily has no ppe that satisfies the arc study. And it's not limited to 480 by a long shot


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## pete87 (Oct 22, 2012)

Zen is that a metal fish tape ?







Pete


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## Black Dog (Oct 16, 2011)

Mshow1323 said:


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_4I-i6LA338
> 
> Marty?


:laughing:


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## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

Thats my supervisor. . I dont think it needs a bonding bushing a. Because the hole was drilled. (Existing) b. Because reducing washers are acceptable means of bonding.c. I wouldn't put one on that side anyway. Id put it on the other end. Yes fiberglass would have been right and we pulled a rope through to the panel it feeds. 

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## ponyboy (Nov 18, 2012)

zen said:


> Thats my supervisor. . I dont think it needs a bonding bushing a. Because the hole was drilled. (Existing) b. Because reducing washers are acceptable means of bonding.c. I wouldn't put one on that side anyway. Id put it on the other end. Yes fiberglass would have been right and we pulled a rope through to the panel it feeds. no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


If it's over 250 volts to ground it doesn't matter what "end" it's on. If it is a diminished connection (reducing washer) it needs a grounding bushing. Judging by the look of the gear I'm going to assume it's 480 volts and to me it looks like you used a reducing washer, if this is all true then you need a grounding bushing on that connector.


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## theJcK (Aug 7, 2013)

i agree as well.. ppe are dangerous in their own way. and you guys are insane using a steel fishtape. id felt better doing it in shorts, tshirt and fiberglass tape.. not like ive done that or anything.. ::whistling2::


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

What was the justification for live work? 



Looks like a real hole of a building too :laughing:


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## Mshea (Jan 17, 2011)

I completely disagree with EBFD6 and MTW about your evaluation of the value of an Arc Flash suit if live work was actually required. I have no idea what that gear serves but the fault current can vary a lot, even in equipment that size or voltage. I know of 1600 amp services with under 10 KA of fault current and 400 amp services well over. The incident energy cannot be estimated by the information offered. If indeed live work was justified then that bomb suit might be enough depending on the incident energy calculation. Certainly if the location is higher than category4 it is unworkable hot as there is no bomb suit made to protect the electrical worker against the percussive energy. IE a good looking corpse.
In principle that may or may not be adequate protection but how can we tell with what infomation is presented here? What if the supply transformer has an impedance of 8 or 9%?

One very interesting point to me is Canadian rules do not require a bonding bushing even when reducer washers are used and I would agree that bonding bushings are not what I consider adequate for ensureing bonding continuty is maintained. Certainly 1 place I prefer the NEC requirments.

So what was the justification for the hot work?


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## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

120/208 ponyboy. There is 1 400 amp bucket 2 200 s and 3 or 4 spares. Its to feed a 200 amp panel upstairs. Its a hole to some degree but what does that have to do with anything

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

Yeah, that may be a lot safer than how that work used to get completed, but truth be told, if safety was the most important factor that gear would be de-energized.

Mike Rowe has talked about this, he calls it "Safety Third" because no matter how many companies he visited with super visible safety policies, none of them ever actually sincerely made safety the first priority.


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## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

I agree big john. Ian (in the suit) is the only guy here who does hot work. He bought all his own gear all his high volt tools and does all the arc fault classes and has to call in for hot work report before any work is done. I think u understand so to you sir, I think its been a slow process from when we did what we did to get the job done to " if you want a 200 amp panel we have shut down the whole panel board full of disconnect s that affect other tenants". Were doing what we can to get customers to understand. If a power source only affect s the customer then yea shut it all down its gonna cost them less money on our end , the work will get done faster and probably better. But its not always just that simple

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

pete87 said:


> Zen is that a metal fish tape ?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Sir that is not mine. It must have been left in there by the last maintenance guy who took the wire out of those empty pipes

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## MTW (Aug 28, 2013)

Mshea said:


> I completely disagree with EBFD6 and MTW about your evaluation of the value of an Arc Flash suit if live work was actually required. I have no idea what that gear serves but the fault current can vary a lot, even in equipment that size or voltage. I know of 1600 amp services with under 10 KA of fault current and 400 amp services well over. The incident energy cannot be estimated by the information offered. If indeed live work was justified then that bomb suit might be enough depending on the incident energy calculation. Certainly if the location is higher than category4 it is unworkable hot as there is no bomb suit made to protect the electrical worker against the percussive energy. IE a good looking corpse.
> In principle that may or may not be adequate protection but how can we tell with what infomation is presented here? What if the supply transformer has an impedance of 8 or 9%?


It's moot anyway since the type of live work pictured isn't allowed by OSHA standards, even with PPE. Permissible live work is very narrow and does not include pulling conductors into live gear. I agree with everyone else who said that this should be shut down.


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## eddy current (Feb 28, 2009)

zen said:


> But its not always just that simple


I disagree. Your only doing that to save someone money. Someone who does not care about your life. It's that simple.


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

I bet the contractor loves Ian. Does he provide his own tugger, benders, gang boxes and van too? :laughing:


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## pjholguin (May 16, 2014)

You can wear all the PPE to prevent burned flesh, but when the pressure wave hits you they will be pouring(like chicken noodle soup) you out of that suit!
Patrick


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## sbrn33 (Mar 15, 2007)

"no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been."

Can you just quit that. It is annoying as hell.


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## Walkman (Aug 16, 2014)

*According to NFPA 70E, this isn't live work. This is work within the approach zone of 208/120 exposed conductors which only requires hard hat, safety glasses, ear plugs, and clothing rated at 8 calories. So the suit looks like overkill to me. This would be rated just like opening any panel and exposing the bus to install a new breaker in a house. I think that metal fishtape is a little sketchy though.*


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## Big John (May 23, 2010)

The approach boundary is shock-hazard only and he may be outside it and still within the arc-flash-boundary.

I agree, he may not be within the prohibited approach on the gear, but he is absolutely interacting with it in a manner that could cause an arc flash. 130.2(2) absolutely considers this energized work and says the equipment should be de-energized unless he meets some of the permitted hot-work exceptions, and I'll bet $100 he doesn't.

Further, there's no telling simply by knowing the voltage what the arc-flash-boundary is or what ATPV his PPE needs to be.


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## Walkman (Aug 16, 2014)

Big John said:


> The approach boundary is shock-hazard only and he may be outside it and still within the arc-flash-boundary.
> 
> I agree, he may not be within the prohibited approach on the gear, but he is absolutely interacting with it in a manner that could cause an arc flash. 130.2(2) absolutely considers this energized work and says the equipment should be de-energized unless he meets some of the permitted hot-work exceptions, and I'll bet $100 he doesn't.
> 
> Further, there's no telling simply by knowing the voltage what the arc-flash-boundary is or what ATPV his PPE needs to be.


*The voltage is the qualifier for the approach boundaries. Table 130.2(c) lists 208 systems as simply avoiding contact in the prohibited approach boundary. I don't have your reference in my older handbook defining the Limited Approach Boundary as energized work. Which edition are you quoting? Maybe I can get a newer one from the safety office.*


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## nbb (Jul 12, 2014)

sbrn33 said:


> "no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been."
> 
> Can you just quit that. It is annoying as hell.


I personally like it, as it plays to the fact that we did not invent electricity, even if our lackadaisical public education attributes it all to Ben Franklin.

Different strokes for different folks, but it seriously annoys you that much?


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## Mshow1323 (Jun 9, 2012)

nbb said:


> I personally like it, as it plays to the fact that we did not invent electricity, even if our lackadaisical public education attributes it all to Ben Franklin.
> 
> Different strokes for different folks, but it seriously annoys you that much?


It annoys him not by what it says, but about how his posts are formatted. That sentence is his signature, but because it proceeds a long underscore it appears to be part of the post, therefore we have to read it every single time he posts. If it was below the underscore we could ignore it like everybody else's signature line. 
.....He does this not by accident.


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## nbb (Jul 12, 2014)

Mshow1323 said:


> It annoys him not by what it says, but about how his posts are formatted. That sentence is his signature, but because it proceeds a long underscore it appears to be part of the post, therefore we have to read it every single time he posts. If it was below the underscore we could ignore it like everybody else's signature line.
> .....He does this not by accident.


Heh, well that is another matter that speaks to his temperament. I frequent another forum where this method of signing posts above the signature line is not uncommon. I subscribe to the George Carlin school of thought in regards to irony, so although it seems weird to type up a "signature" into software that automatically appends a signature to each post, I am not going to get annoyed by it.


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## knowledge29 (Nov 6, 2010)

zen said:


> Adding a sub panel isnt as simple as it was in the past. Today safety is the most important factor.
> 
> no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


Why couldnt the gear be shut down?


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## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

Its gonna be shut down when we have to energize the panel. Its a few floors to shut down. We got the ok to pull the feeders in and get the panel finaled out. Now were gonna shut it down in a few weeks when it agreeable for all the tenants

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## zen (Jun 15, 2009)

How do u know what I do or why. I dont think I care but so u can understand it use to say it came from my phone and in the setting it says its my signature. If you looking to be a smarta $$. You could have let me know from ur side it reads as a continuation of my post now im gonna change it because its the right thing. Ur welcome

no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


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## stuiec (Sep 25, 2010)

zen said:


> Its gonna be shut down when we have to energize the panel. Its a few floors to shut down. We got the ok to pull the feeders in and get the panel finaled out. Now were gonna shut it down in a few weeks when it agreeable for all the tenants
> 
> no matter what we theorize as electrics. It has always been .


Read, "lowest bidder"...


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