Saturday, December 30, 2017

Shop Update

My boys showed up this morning to help finish the electrical installation, so that we can get it inspected.  My second son went through an inspection when he built his shop earlier this ear, so he's familiar with the process and could guide me against potential pitfalls. 

Mainly, grounding.  It is a metal building,after all, and I understand that we want a good ground to everything, but I really don't understand the requirement to use grounding tabs.  The meter pan is grounded to an 8-foot grounding rod, buried to below slab level.  The ground goes inside to the breaker panel, which is also grounded to the slab through a grounding rod that the slab inspector required to ground the reinforcing steel to the to the box.  Each run of electrical cable is grounded to the box, and to the building with screws, and the box itself has a little green grounding wire installed that is linked to the fixtures themselves.

All that being said, this is the regulatory regime we live in today, and we double-checked  everything, found a couple of question marks, and re-did the work.    I believe that it is all tight and right, and we're ready for the inspector.  I'll call them Tuesday morning, first thing, because I am sure that Monday is a holiday.   Hopefully, he'll get here late Tuesday or early Wednesday, and give me a PASS sticker so that we can proceed with the electrical connection. 

But, it's now Saturday afternoon.  The shop is closed, the tools are put away, and I can proceed with Happy Hour.  It is a holiday weekend, after all.

1 comment:

Alien said...

Are you required to GFCI all the outlet circuits?

I'm assuming all the outlets are on 20 amp circuits. Did you put in any 30 amp 24 and 60 amp 240 circuits to accommodate future heavier equipment (air compressor, welder, etc.)

You have air conditioners, any provision for a large wall fan? On low it can exhaust gunsmoke, on high move enough air for cooling.