My first installation / my home /inspection problems

System

I just passed my underwriters inspection on my second try the first time I failed for having schedule 40 instead of 80 down the Side of my house , and no labeling on the 60 amp knife switch outside next to the meter I installed 44 Trina 230 watt panels on a east west facing roof I'n strings of 11 moduals each down to 2 sma 6000 watt inverters my inverters are mounted In my garage on a 4x8 plywood board covered by a nice piece of plasic diamond plate I found at a paneling store it looks realy clean and there are no exsposed wires inside they'd are all behind the Sheetrock going to the sub panel and knife switch I used three buchanin b taps to line side tap into the L1 L2 and neutral all of my unirac rails are solid and I rann the grounding lugs right across to my inverters and then to the bonding electrode and then to a 8 foot ground rod for each inverter I also ripped my old roof first and put 30 year arc shingles myself so I'm basically saying start to finish did my entire project myself saving few bucks also my meter is spinning backwards as I type I'm very thrilled to be able tonsay I did it all myself All together I have about 130 man hours In the project because I did have a helper

AntronX

Re: My first installation / my home /inspection problems

Post some pictures.

BB.

Re: My first installation / my home /inspection problems

Congratulations--That is a big project to take on without a lot of practice/hand-holding.

One possible suggestion... If I understand you correctly--you have a separate ground rod/wire to each inverter "green wire/safety" ground?

If so--you might want to re-think if you have a history of lightning in your area.

Generally, it is better to run all house grounds to one spot, then run extra lightning conductors out to nearby ground rods (typically used if your soil has poor conductivity).

The reason to do this is if there is a strike near your home, it sets up a voltage gradient from the strike out through the neighboring soil. If you have two ground rods, you can easily get large voltage/current potentials between them (i.e., voltage drop through the soil). This can induce current into your safety ground systems and cause lightning induced current flow through the rest of your ground referenced systems (wiring, plumbing, phone, computer networks, cable TV, etc.).

Think of ground in a "star pattern". A rod in the center of the star that goes to your home's various grounding locations. And any extra ground rods are attached to single length of cable from the "center of the star" straight (as possible) to each single rod (lightning wants to take the shortest route possible and it does not like turns).

-Bill

arkieoscar

Re: My first installation / my home /inspection problems

Congratulations! Is that an insurance underwriter you reference?

mike95490

Re: My first installation / my home /inspection problems

60 amp knife switch

A real knife switch ?? And it passed ?

Somehow, I think you mean another type of switch. I hope

chevenstein

Re: My first installation / my home /inspection problems

arkieoscar wrote: »

Congratulations! Is that an insurance underwriter you reference?

NY state does not license electricians (though some cities and counties do). Instead, most municipalities require that electrical work is inspected by an underwriting agency (regardless of who performed the work). For a long time the largest agency had a name that was something like "the NY Fire Underwriters' Board", even though they were just one of many private companies that provide this service.