ICF Mountain Homestead: Meter Base and Main Electrical Panel

[@mommagator9899]

So happy for the progress you are making on your new home, but really miss the old homestead style videos.

[@drjcwardjr]

We used to save those “plug nickels” when I was a little kid!👍

[@hisimagenme]

Coming along... hope you had some fun in the sun this summer. And a break in the rain... smiles and blessings...

[@trwsandford]

That electrician is above journeyman. Nice job there!

[@trinam2503]

Always a good morning when Guildbrook posts a video! 😁

[@WendyK656]

Wow you guys are getting closer! and it is so fun watching to see this all come together.

[@TheRealTonyCastillo]

I realize every state is different, we would not be allowed to run all the home runs in those 2 separate holes due to bundling and derating/temperature issues of 3 or more current carrying conductors in a hole in a wood structure or using the 3 pvc pipes to bring them in the panel. We were allowed to do the pvc some years ago locally but that has changed. I am wondering where the ufer ground is and or wires from a ground rod for bonding of the panel. Those talking about a "utility" shut off, those can be required in some jurisdictions mostly for a bypass option. The new 2020 code is requiring meter mains on all new residential services which adds another 200.00 cost to the meter, and the reason for the requirement is for fire fighters to be able to kill the power to a structure instead of having to wait for the power company to show up and disconnect power from a pole or other location. Additionally, most of the 220 breakers will need arc fault protection when the 2020 code is adopted. Prices of new houses just keeps going up and up it seems. Might stuff some insulation in the pipe between the meter and panel to off set the temp variation to prevent the panel from sweating on the inside causing rust and premature failure of the breakers. House is looking nice! Keep up the good work!

[@Penny-bt4gc]

Another step closer to the finish line. Hoping everything falls into place and you can spend Christmas in your new home.

[@straight_to_finish]

Really clean with those three risers; beats installing 3 dozen clamps. I might have to steal that setup!

[@PermaPasturesFarm21]

I’ve been an IBEW electrician for many years. Arc fault breakers are the biggest industry rip off ever. Whenever a new code book comes out there’s always some ridiculous new provision added to funnel more money into the pockets of the manufacturers. It seems the electrical industry has taken a few lessons from the pharmaceutical Industrial complex.

[@thegreenviking1422]

I am an electrical inspector in South Africa for the cellular industry and what you are saying is true, the legislation is designed (and paid for ) by corporates...

[@judd_s5643]

I’m a retired Homologation Engineer ( manages regulatory agency requirements) for a $300million/ year. I can confirm these tactics and it’s just not in the US. Countries have use regulatory compliance as a form of trade barrier. For example, Germany required a particular brand of X,Y capacitors in all power supplies that connect to the power grid. The only mfg is (you guessed it) in Germany. One of the main reasons for the formation of the European Union was to eliminate requirements like this and allow products to cross all borders. They also allowed the labor force to move around.

[@totherarf]

@@DonnaRatliff1 I am UK based but here is a cut and paste of a post I replied to earlier today! OK this might be a long post, but it is something I have been involved in for a few years now! Firstly these are my own opinions and nothing to do with any company I do work for (disclaimer over lets get on with it!) Firstly what does a "Smart Meter" actually do? It takes a reading every 30 min and links both gas and electric to give a 48 snapshot a day view of your energy usage! This means that They know your energy usage in detail. Can they keep this data secure? It is Data and hence has value ... will they sell it? Personally I am aware there is a whole subset of our society that would be interested to know if your house is empty for regular intervals. Do you want them to have access to that information? The second thing it does is to get rid of a slew of meter readers! Are they giving you a discount for this saving? So now we have our meter positions not even given a cursory check from one decade to the next. Things do deteriorate and become dangerous ... but you all check this stuff yourselves, right? The third thing the meters do is to allow remote switching! Up to now if your supplier makes a mistake (and they do! Trust me!) they would give you a bill that you could object to and you would have legal backup. They would need to go to your house 5 times and try to convince you that you were wrong and they were right (giving you the opportunity to convince them otherwise by showing them the meter) .... and after the 4th visit they would need to go to court to get a warrant of entry in order to get into your house and cut you off. Crucially You would have the right to turn up at court and show how they were wrong .... and no Judge would give a warrant in these circumstances! Now they simply invite you to pay and if you refuse they cut you off! If they were feeling vindictive (and I have no evidence they would be) they could switch you off at the close of business on Saturday meaning you have no energy or even reasonable chance of getting someone to fix it before Monday! Also there is growing pressure on You to pay up and argue later (I am not aware of a single case where this has worked in your favor)! Now lets talk about the economics of it! Churn is the recycling of customers from one company to another in both directions to enable the companies to retain their respective customer numbers. They do this by giving you "offers", and this costs them money! At the moment they are stuck with this as there is a downward force on prices of energy. The cheaper the energy the more people will migrate to that company. Martin Lewis and the Meerkats (other comparison sites are available) make a living out of this. I do encourage you to find the best offers through one of these sites! Now when the number of "Smart Meters" hits a tipping point they will (again, My opinion only) start complex tariffs! At the moment there are only 2 variables in your energy ..... Standing charge / No standing charge and Price per unit. This gives a huge number of tariffs that your average person could not wade through to find the cheapest .... but the comparison sites can and do. Once you get complex tariffs it becomes ..... Different! If the companies decide to sell power at different rates throughout the day, each with their own time bands and each band with its own price there is literally no way Martin Lewis, The Meerkats or anyone else can work out who your cheapest supplier is (without knowing when and how much power you use throughout the day ...... Meerkats Lewis et all are all out of business and you are left scratching your head at finding a good deal! Churn is eliminated! Now if the power companies were to break the law (I know shock horror, they would never do that would they ) they could agree to say 10% hike per year in prices and you would never know how to get a better deal. In truth they would not even need to agree such a "deal" as there would no longer be that downward force on energy price so the effect is that the customer will pay more! OK, time to get speculative now! After 2030 you will not be able to build a house with gas piped to it! This means that after 2030 more and more energy will be Electric. "Well how will that affect me" I hear you ask! In quite a large way, but it gets worse! Petrol and Diesel cars will be phased out in favor of clean Electric ...... but where will they all get charged? At your house overnight? At the moment the majority of homes in the UK are fed at 240 Volts via a big cable running down the pavement to your local substation ..... typically with a 400 Amp fuse in each phase and 3 phases going down the pavement branching off a single phase to you home. If you have a modern Cutout you will have a 100 A fuse, but it can easily be seen that you cant all pull 100 A at the same time otherwise you would only have 12 houses to a circuit. What it means is that for you to have all electric homes and electric cars you would need to DOUBLE each substation! That would mean digging Every road up and putting another cable in parallel with those already installed. Just to put some perspective to this the cost of installing a single joint is £600 .... and that is one per house throughout the UK. Add to that the cost and inconvenience of digging a trench the length of Every road and installing hundreds of thousands of substations (they can run up to £1,000,000 each) and you get a genuinely HUGE bill! Who do you think will pay that one? There has been speculation about hacking. All I can say is that simultaneously switching large numbers of meters throughout the country could easily break the network! That could leave large parts of the country without power for days. The effect of this would be catastrophic for everyone. While I do not think this is likely it is a real risk being planned for at high level! Having said all that Smart Meters are not necessarily a bad idea .... it depends on your situation! Just go into it with your eyes open!

[@paul4800]

Perma Pastures Farm: What you are saying is negligent and is increasing misinformation for customers and people who don't understand electrical installations and the danger that is inherent to electricity. As an electrician, you are responsible for educating customers why they need to have these safeguards installed; when instead you tell them they don't and their house burns down from a parallel arc fault down the road, do you really think a jury will find you not negligent? Do you really think that you are helping the electrical industry and customers by spreading misinformation? Do you really think that the National Electric Code panels would keep adding "ridiculous provisions" just to make some manufacturers rich? Maybe it's because there are unqualified electrical installers who don't understand the NEC who are misinforming customers and doing installations that don't meet code that result in damage to property and persons that are the reason why the code book keeps getting more and more of these "ridiculous provisions". If you are not going to care about staying up to date with a living document meant for the practical safeguarding of persons and property, then someone has to pull that weight for you, and it happens to be manufacturers that have to take up the slack, because who else will if not you? Do your future customers a favor- take whatever old codebook your state is stuck on and put it in your book shelf for reminiscence, buy a 2020 codebook and get caught up to the modern day, or retire from the trade and stick with farming.

[@wizard3z868]

@@totherarf our meters in north america are on the outside so you cant tamper with them easilty i like the design of the uk setup just grab some cable and jam it up to the main leads before the meter free power and no one will ever now lol

[@stan3198]

Sometimes you wonder if the newer codes aren't tied into a commission conspiracy. LOL $40 breakers YIKES !!!!

[@Guildbrookfarm]

Yes exactly. Seems like a scam put on by the insurance companies. Arc Fault breakers are notorious for nuisance tripping.

[@wizard3z868]

you mean $100+ with the professional mark ups and trades wonder why pple do things themselves lol i dont think parts mark up is needed just give a far labor rate not hard for pple to google home depot /lowes and go why are you charging me a $100 when i can go and buy one for $40? vs you cant google what an hourly labor rate is 🤔🤐

[@theElderberryFarmer]

Have you thought about wiring up for a generator inlet and an interlock breaker? I went that route rather than a transfer switch. Backfeeding your panel with a breaker interlock in place lets you pick and choose which circuits to power at the time of the event. With a transfer switch, you have to decide in advance which circuits to power - and if your needs change over time, you have a PIA task on your hands moving circuits in/out of the transfer switch.

[@Guildbrookfarm]

Yes that will all be part of the solar install.

[@jameswitte5167]

And after the power is finally done and on you get to go around and verify each light, switch and outlet with the breakers to make sure they are labeled right ... And make sure there aren't any ghost circuits ... Don't forget your low voltage runs ... We pretty much always used DSC hardware ...

[@sovereigns1grace]

Yay! More goodies happening! 💕

[@chelemichele1524]

Progress is good... Have a good evening 🌻🌻🌻

[@steffaniewalz8444]

I agree with Momma Gator. I love that you are getting a new home.. and it's going to be perfect when you are done. Right now, homesteading and gardening are hot.... It's hard to do it all. I think groceries being hard to come by has freaked more than a few people totally out. I'm having a horrible time getting seeds to some of the things I want. Saving seeds is a hot on the agenda topic these days. House is coming along great.. and I am so happy for y'all. I guess we have to let the guy's have a bit of the channel too. LOL

[@joshualachute3448]

I would love to see a picture of the condenser nameplate. You can often downsize the wire on larger breakers for those units as per NEC Article 440. The compressors usually have built in over current protection. I've seen some units allow #10 AWG on 50 amp breakers. Really enjoy your videos. Keep them coming.

[@PaullaWells]

Awesome! I’m still rooting for the holidays for y’all!

[@Jonzuber]

In Tennessee, you don’t need ARC fault breakers if the electrical panel is mounted on an exterior wall facing outside. If your planning on adding solar panels at a later date, getting an inverter with ARC fault already built into the inverter will also eliminate having to install ARC breakers.

[@tmackie1694]

Jaime: miss seeing you in the videos. Hope to see you soon, and that you and the girls are well 😃

[@bigunone]

Interesting per our local code the meter base should have been mounted on a piece of painted plywood to maintain the air gap at the back, and I would have probably done the same for the panel just in case you plaster or sheet rock in the future

[@petrag.4092]

Looks awesome! 🙏❤️🇺🇸

[@brandytrevino]

I'm still so anxious for y'all! Every time I see progress my heart skips a beat...could be dehydration cuz it's hot lol love this tx weather😝 2 thumbs up guys!!

[@dlove118]

Buy an extra 15 and 20 arc fault when you order. There is a good chance one will be bad out of the box and you want to have one to swap out to test.

[@WiSeNhEiMeR-1369]

HOWdy GBF, Thanks COOP ...

[@Max-cd7xd]

Doing good :) ... Keep it up!!!

[@Miweatherspotter1]

You may want to consider a service disconnect between the meter and your main electrical panel. if you choose to wire your solar in and want to run the entire house off of it he may need to fiddle in that panel and will be a lot easier if you have a disconnecting means and not have to get utility to come out pull the meter get an inspection put the meter back in. When I added a battery-based inverter to my house I had to go through that hassle because there was no disconnecting means between the meter and the main panel

[@Guildbrookfarm]

There’s a 200 Amp main breaker

[@Miweatherspotter1]

Guildbrook Farm How about a breaker or disconnect between the meter and the main panel. Code here is to have one built into the meter base or near by. Your main panel is close enough to count but it’s handy to have one that will make every wire in the main panel dead. If you ever want to run the whole house off solar 😉 you could very easily add the transfer switch, gateway (Tesla) or a stacked set of inverters (Schnider, sol-ark etc). Between the meter and the main panel.

[@andyteohockguan2235]

Awesome video

[@dryii]

Curious: why not wire up the sub-panel now? Seems like extra work later to have to rip out the wires from the nice and neat install.

[@Guildbrookfarm]

Because it might be quite some time before we move the solar and we want this to pass inspection as it is.

[@KatInTheNorth]

Yes! You are making progress! Do you think you'll get in before winter? Hope so!

[@Guildbrookfarm]

We’re trying but can’t guarantee it

[@KatInTheNorth]

@@Guildbrookfarm You're very close!! It's always good to hear from you two.

[@sh839c]

Good job on that panel. Can you tell me what model Mr. Cool units you have?. Are they the new inverter non-mini split models?. If so That's what I am looking to use to replace my old conventional power hog units. Also, the inverter units should be easier on a generator I would think.

[@Guildbrookfarm]

They are. There will be a few videos all about them coming up. 👍🏻😉

[@sh839c]

@@Guildbrookfarm Excellent.

[@MrKurtn]

our area we would need a utility shut off switch so if fire department showed up they could cut the power to the house from the outside by meter.

[@adelacoburn1396]

Yaay new video....booo on those costly arc fault breakers. Thank for posting =)

[@smoochmcguire5291]

Great video thanks again

[@bc5891]

Get yourself this box on Amazon - Altelix NEMA Enclosure 14x11x5. Its a good box for internet and other low voltage lines you need to pull into the house. The house build is coming alone nice

[@Beecozz7]

Cool!!!

[@beachlife1411]

Nice

[@nickseamus7340]

Plastic bushings? Service loops?

[@Guildbrookfarm]

Hamsters? Omelette?

[@wizard3z868]

cld agree with bushings service loops are not code all you have now a days is cheap Con-tractors instead of proud craftsman

[@DerykRobosson]

Fiber to the prem, in the country? Awesome!

[@Guildbrookfarm]

😎🤘🏻

[@Dads_Junk]

I thought (obviously I was wrong) that y'all were going off grid ? ? ? you already have a solar setup right ?

[@Dads_Junk]

@@kaydefreese7586 I must have missed it or forgot - thank you

[@Guildbrookfarm]

We’ve been off grid for 3 years. This house will use the grid to supplement our solar.

[@brandytrevino]

They wouldn't have been able to get contractors up there. It was a decision they had to make.

[@rufusrizzo78]

How did we live before the oscillating cutters? It's probably too late, but having a main power shutoff is nice so you don't call the power company to pull your meter if you need to do something in your main panel.

[@Guildbrookfarm]

That’s what the main breaker is for

[@rufusrizzo78]

@@Guildbrookfarm it's rare I know, but there are times I've wanted to shut off power from the meter. You're not supposed to pull the meter, nor do I like the idea.

[@GrandsonofKong]

Looks good...ARRG about the Arc-Faults. IMHO the need for these outside of bedrooms is driven by the breaker manufacturers "bending the ears" of the NEC Code writers.

[@Jonzuber]

FYI, the local electrical company determines what type of meter that your required to install in order for them to provide the power.

[@Guildbrookfarm]

??? The meter is the meter. They install the meter. It’s their responsibility.

[@wd9dau]

Never trust an electrician with no eyebrows!

[@gaurd3]

A friend of mine built a new house. New construction codes are a bitch.

[@scottwhitehurst2725]

I know I’m a day late and a dollar short but don’t land the neutrals before you get your afci and or gfci breaker’s. They are neutral specific.

[@mattstechreview3310]

I hate to ask but aren't you going to use solar for your power

[@Guildbrookfarm]

Yes for all critical loads. Grid will backup the solar.

[@robsterenborg]

there is a good reason for Arc-fault breakers ! Just see it as a protection for yourself with all the wood in your house

[@Bex-rg8pj]

👋

[@ohske]

👍👍👍👌♥️♥️♥️

[@richardweiss8401]

Can you give a shout out to Boss of the swamp please.

[@randomroses1494]

I need to see video evidence that the bunny is alive and well🌈☀️💖

[@JCZ2601NL]

🇳🇱NL.SUPER👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍🍀❤️

[@wizard3z868]

should up your craftsmanship with using composite wood for concrete installs and some bushings wouldnt hurt either. im no Con-tractor prefer to call myself a craftsman do it right above code when practical. i expect better than a d- (what minimum code is ) lol just went to your page your homesteaders explains a lot if it passes and your happy with it not tht bad of a job honestly just keep an eye out all those wires bundled together like tht will cause a lot of heat and induce stray currents on all conductors in a bundle

[@tmackie1694]

Jaime: miss seeing you in the videos. Hope to see you soon, and that you and the girls are well 😃