Speaker 1: S What up everybody?
Speaker 2: Paul Abernetti here, Welcome to another episode of Let's Ask Paul,
sponsored by Master the NEC Electoral Code Academy, and we've
got a great question or two today on this episode.
But but first and foremost, I just want to let
everybody out there know that sorry for about a week.
We've been down and I made tons of promises about
upcoming content and things that we'll be doing, and that's
all gonna take place here very rapidly. But I just
wanted to give everybody update. We have officially moved from
Texas to Virginia. We are here in Virginia. The corporation
has officially been moved. It's dissolved in Texas and reborn
again in Virginia, which is which is where I'm from,
for those that have always asked, I grew up here
in central Virginia, the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains
my whole life.
Speaker 1: And then we ended.
Speaker 2: Up in Texas and spent ten great years, almost eleven
great years in Texas. Wonderful state, wonderful governor, Governor Abbott,
and uh and it just life does what it does
to people, and we just we're back here in uh
in Virginia, So we are excited about it. We were
out in the country, we're away from all the hustle
and bustle, but we're really close two large areas like
Richmond area, and so obviously we're going to get back
into doing our seminars locally all throughout Virginia, hit the
Four Corners Manassas. We'll also hit Virginia Beach area, we'll
hit Roanoke area, and of course all those in between.
So look for that to come shortly. When we start
doing those live continuing education courses. I'm probably gonna be
a little more expensive than the online stuff, but that
means you get me in person, and there's nothing like
attending a live seminar. So we're excited. We're gonna get
that all kicked off again in the next couple months.
We'll get that part of it. We still got a
lot of stuff on the ground. We got to get
running the studios up and running podcast. Location is still
being worked on here a little bit, but we'll get
it all squared away. We want to thank everybody that
supported us during this transition and all of those students
that have been patient in this last week while we
moved from Texas to Virginia, so I'd be appreciate that
and all your patients and taking letting us get that done.
So anyway, that's out of the way. So again move
is successful. We finally got all settled in, so we're
good to go.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: So what we're gonna talk about to day is I got
some questions that were submitted, and of course I've got
tons of questions, but we're trying to take these in
certain order in a bunch of upcoming episodes.
Speaker 1: So let me try to dive right in.
Speaker 2: So okay, So the first question that we have, says
Hi Paul, I have a question regarding EV branch circuits.
Says I have a customer who is wanting to add
a receptacle for an EV charger. He states that he
doesn't want to add any more circuits to his electrical
panel because of fear of overloading his electrical service. Okay, well,
I have some questions about that, but let me keep on.
He says he had a low calculate performed by another
electrical company and they told him he was already using
two hundred and nine amps on a two hundred amp service. Hmmm, Well,
first of all, dude, if you're actually pulling two hundred
nine amps on a two hundred amp service, you'd have
a problem.
Speaker 1: Okay, you'd be tripping a two hundred a breaker. I'm
just saying.
Speaker 2: So basically, they did a calculation. It's very rare for
a two hundred amp for a dwelling that has originally
installed a two hundred amp service that typically you're only
going to be loading half of that or a little
more than half, So it's rare. So that sounds like
a low calcuation. Now, if they did the load calculation
and it came at at two hundred nine amps, then
the two hundred amp service would be too small. And
so either somebody originally didn't do it properly, or this
guy's been adding stuff along the way, or the electrician
or whoever did the load calculation and provide I did
this stuff to this individual that's asking.
Speaker 1: Me the question.
Speaker 2: You have to question the first electrician in how they
did their calculation and whether or not they use the
standard or optional method and all that, because it just
seems odd that they would do a calcun come up
with two hundred and nine and then two hundred hath
service beIN unless again, the guy's been adding all kinds
of bookoo stuff that type of thing. So my first
recommendation is you redo the calculation using the optional method,
go through, tell them that you have to take a list.
Speaker 1: It's a little more charge for it.
Speaker 2: Make sure you charge for it, and go through and
do a calculation to double check that first of all.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right.
Speaker 2: Next he goes on to say, the customer is wanting
to use an existing thirty amp two hundred and forty
volt dryer circuit and install a double throw safety switch
to switch power from the dryer receptacle to the evy
charger receptacle when needed. Article six of the twenty twenty
EC states that ev charging outlets shall.
Speaker 1: Be on a dedicated circuit.
Speaker 2: Now it actually says that they have to be on
an individual brand circuit. Years ago it used to say,
you know, dedicated whatever. Now it says individual brand circuit.
Speaker 1: That's what it is.
Speaker 2: It's an individual brand circuit that supplies only one piece
of utilization equipment in the nature of the circuit. So
if you go look up the definition of individual brand circuit,
right and you start looking it up, it's going to
say it's a brand circuit that applies only one utilization equipment. Now,
in my opinion, whether or not you throw a switch
in there and you're doing the dryer one time and
you're doing the EV the other time, I think he
gets into semantics and it's not the intent of the code.
I think that it's that the only thing to be
on that circuit is an individual brand circuit is an EV.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 2: The other things that brings into question with this would be,
you know, thirty ahs to tally for an EV charger
that didn't put you up in the benefit of a
level two charging.
Speaker 1: That that's it's higher than.
Speaker 2: A level one, but it's just you know, it's not
up there in the level two range where it's forty
eight amps or whatnot. So you get that adequate charging.
Sounds like this customer would get ticked off. It's not
going to charge it an adequate time dropping it down
to thirty amps. But that's the other thing you got
to be aware of. Can your EV SSE be geared
back and turned back, because again you have to treat
those EV circuits as continuous loads at one hundred and
twenty five percent, and so again, if it was forty
eight amps of output of the ev then it's going
to equate to sixty amps. So at the end of
the day, it's still on a thirty. So assuming you
could dial it back and change the settings in many
of the ev ses you can in order to do that,
it's still in my opinion, doesn't get you out of
the fact that the definition of an individual brand circuit
is only one piece utilization equipment. Now, even though there's
a switch on there at any given time, there is
technically only one piece of equipment on it. It's asking
for the EVS to have a individual brand circuit specific
for it. So if you put the receptacle in okay,
which is again the point where you're taking power from
the system, is also an outlet, and so it says
each circuit shall have no other outlet.
Speaker 1: That's what it says in six twenty five forty.
Speaker 2: So it's my opinion that you know, throwing the switcher
in there, the switch in there, safety switch, double throw,
will it work?
Speaker 1: Absolutely? It probably will provide it.
Speaker 2: Again, you gear that EVS back so it doesn't overload
those conductors, and you know what, you really will be
dropping it back when you start looking at those evs
and then you're taking the EV's value from its nameplate
at one hundred and twenty five percent and realize that
you're stuck with the thirty.
Speaker 1: It's probably going to do them no better that they
just use.
Speaker 2: A plain old EVY you know, class one and plug
it in fifteen amps and just charge it that way,
be honest with you versus the hassle.
Speaker 1: That's my first opinion on that.
Speaker 2: Anyway it goes on, say, technically each receptacle to be
on it be on a dedicated circuit since only one
can be energized with the safety switch. That is true statement,
but I do not think that is the intent of
six twenty five dot forty. Now there's a difference between
whether you're getting something inspected or you're just doing it.
Speaker 1: But let me put it this way.
Speaker 2: If you do the EVC and you don't have the
ability to gear that thing or turn that thing back
or make sure that the homeowner can't change it, then
you're not gonna still gonna get the benefit of a
faster charge, which is a whole reason for a level
two type charger. So they're still gonna get frustrated and
it's not going to charge in the timeframe they wanted.
So that's something you just need to be aware of
because sometimes get pushed into maybe doing things that the
customer wants, you know, that type of thing.
Speaker 1: It's like the suicide cord.
Speaker 2: When somebody wants to plug a generator and put in
the back you know, run it backfeeded into a dryer.
Speaker 1: You know, they're like, hey, well it works.
Speaker 2: I'm sure it does, but it doesn't make it right
for the nec aspect of it.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So therefore, the brand circuit that is designed for that
EVS must be dedicated okay, to that ev and not
supply other loads.
Speaker 1: That is that is my opinion on this.
Speaker 2: I'm sure that others may disagree with that. You go
on to say any help would be greatly appreciated. Love
your podcast, keep up the great work. Well, I hope
you love it. Even after I gave you this information.
I'm sure people will agree to disagree with me. But
I believe that that's the intent of six twenty five forty,
is that that that individual brand circuit is specifically to
be run for that EVS when you put an EVS in.
So nothing mandates that you put in ev S E,
but the moment that you put it in, then you're
going to have to run the circuit that the individual
brand circuit for that EVSSE and in the twenty twenty
three code even for the calculation, it's seventy two hundred
watts that you have to take any consideration as a
minimum for your localc Okay, if you're going to put
an e VSC.
Speaker 1: In, so.
Speaker 2: Practically what I mean technically I should say, technically will
it work?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're only switching one and switching one to
the other, it's basically transferring it one to the other.
Speaker 1: That's fine. You do have a concern with the conductor size.
Speaker 2: You do have to could be concerned with the EV's
output and treating it as a continuous load, which you
don't do with a dryer application. So there's things that
you have to consider rather than just say, hey, let's
throw the switch in and we can switch one to
the other and it technically will work. But then you
might be limiting what you're going to get out of
that ev s E. You might be limiting it and
ultimately that ends up pissing out the customer. Now, what
I think I would do personally if I was given advice, Okay,
I would probably ask to do that calculation again and
there might be a way to clear up some space
in that pannable. When they say they're worried about overloading,
I mean if they truly believe they have two hundred
and nine amps through a calculation on a two and
amp service, that should be a bigger concern for them.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So again it's all about diversity as well. So that's
two hundred nine amps is a calculation. I recommend that
you redo the calculation you use the optional method because
most homes that have a two hundred AM service using
the optional method, they're usually well below that.
Speaker 1: Okay, so that's my recommendation.
Speaker 2: Probably not helpful, but that's the best that I'm going
to give you on it.
Speaker 1: But I again summarize it.
Speaker 2: I do believe that the individual brand circuit that's required
by six twenty five forty needs to only supply the EVS.
Now you do you you do whatever they want, but
if you end up doing it, make sure that you
know that that EVSE is not going to exceed the
rating of those conductors and the overcurrent that's supplying it.
Speaker 1: Just be careful with that.
Speaker 2: If you proceed with that, because they're just thinking about
supplying the ev they're not thinking about the other ramifications
from the ratings of the EVS, the settings on it,
whether you've got to dial it back, because again level
two is designed to give you a really fast charge rate,
not obviously not the same as a level three DC,
but it's very fast, you know, six seven, eight hours,
depending on the unit in what your amps are. That
you got to be careful because even at that thirty
amp circuit for that dryer, then you're really going to
be dropping it down beyond that when it comes to
the rating that you dial into that at ev S
C and you ultimately are not going to get much
over what a level one would give them. And then
that they can just plug into any receptacle. So thanks
to think about. Hopefully that helps you out a little bit. Okay,
so let's see, let's move on to another question. So
another question we have here was submitted that says where
is it legal for electricians to run SCR, which is
service entrance rated or service entrance round distinguish Its distinguishes
it from SEU, which is typically the two conductors in
the helical wrap that goes from the weatherhead down to
the meter. So the SCR typically goes from the panel
to a remote distribution panel. But you know s CU
and SCR cable. It's kind of about a great sheeting
on it looks like non metallic sheath cable. It is
non metallic, but it's a little bigger. Typically used for
services and feeders, but the SCR has in the SCU
can be used for other things than just services or
feeder applications. I mean, there's obviously four conductors in an
SCR can supply a piece of equipment that needs four
conductors and you know the equipment ground. But also you
could have a unit that needs just the two hots
and an equipment ground, and then the SCU would be
fine for that too. So don't think that it's just
for service or feeders. It can actually be used branch
circuits to utilization equipment as long as again you're using it,
whether or not you need the three conductors of the
four conductors, depending on what you're installing, you may have
a neutral and you may not. But just don't think
that SCR or s e U is only one application,
and that is for service applications or feeder applications. There's
other applications where you can clearly use SCR or SCU.
Just remember that you have to follow the security and
supporting rules as if it was non metallic sheath cable
that's in article three thirty four Dot thirty. You're securing
in supporting section. Remember that dot thirty and most of
your wining cable has to do with securing and supporting.
Speaker 1: So you still can run it.
Speaker 2: You just have to secure it, like if it was
non metallic sheet cable or what some of you refer
to as romax. You just have to remember that you
still have to secure and support it accordingly.
Speaker 1: Okay, now the question says.
Speaker 2: Again, well, where is it legal for electricians to run
SCR cable through an apartment complex?
Speaker 1: All right, so if you.
Speaker 2: Have an apartment and their interior units, so it's really
one building, so it has one address, and you have
multiple units in the building. So basically the envelope is
it was one building, and then you have what's called
fire rated assemblies that run through the building that separate
the different units and maybe the common corridor, so they're
not separate buildings.
Speaker 1: Okay, so there's nothing.
Speaker 2: That says that you can't run seer in the building
to supply the remote distribution panels for each.
Speaker 1: Of these apartment complexes.
Speaker 2: If you penetrate a fire rated assembly, then you have
to maintain the rating of that fire rated assembly, So
you pay attention to three hundred twenty one of the NEEC,
and so you'll have to use an approved fire stopping
detail and put that the fire rated wall, floor or ceiling, whatever.
You have to put it back at its original rating
that it would have lost when you penetrated it. You
have to follow the detail for how you penetrate it.
And that's like UL or Hilty can give you those
details on what you need to do, how you would
need to do it, into messent material, all those type
of things. But as far as running the SDR, if
it's a single building, nothing prohibits you from running it
into concealed walls all through that building to each one
of the apartment.
Speaker 1: Complexes or whatever you want.
Speaker 2: Okay, totally different question when it comes to what can
I supply because obviously one unit can't supply anything in
another unit, and if it's a common area, that's done
from a house panel. Uh, but that's not really what
the question is just about. SCR cable usage. And so
again the question is about an apartment complex. Then you
can run it from wherever you're putting the switch gear
or the panels. You can run it to every the
remote distribution panel. You can run it up through the
building in all the concealed walls to every apartment that
you need to. That's not you're not just done all
the time, done every day of the week, that type
of thing. So well, where you run into issues with
the se cable in SCR is when it goes outside.
Right when you go outside, then you got a problem
to get from point A to B because SCR is
not direct burial rated. Now my product is at hung
Kore Wire. It's called a hybrid cable. It's not only
is it SCR, but it's also trade cable, so you
get the benefits of direct burials. So it is perfect
for transitions from point A to point B, especially if
you've got to leave one building it's a another building.
Just remember that one of the big issues you have
is if you had an apartment complex that had let's
say I'm just throwing this out there, that every unit
was separated by a fire wall, so they actually create
separate buildings. So that's when you would have an address
on something that is let's just say it's one twenty five,
one twenty eight, one twenty you know, different number, and
then they have their own separate numbering system. Then typically
this is what you'd get in a you know where
you might have multiple apartments one level and there's firewalls
between them. Well, if each one of those apartments has
its own address, then there's a possibility that that is
its own separate building. And if it's its own separate building,
then you can't take an SDR and go from one building,
feed it through another building to feed another building. Okay,
that would not be koach to do something like that. Now,
you don't want it run through the building that's not
associated with the sea.
Speaker 1: Now, and again, like I said, if it's a.
Speaker 2: Big apartment complex and all of the apartments are inside
of it and it's only separated with fire rated assemblies,
then you're perfectly fine to run them all around and
you're not going to have a problem that type of thing. Now,
got to remember that it's it's once you take it
and you go outside of the building, and you go
like out of your one building and you go through
it and you have a firewall, which then all of
a sudden constitutes you going into a separate building, right,
And once you go into that separate building, then you
run into some issues with it going from one building
to another and then having disconnection means and all this
kind of stuff, right, And also then it talks about
the number of supplies to a building and two twenty
five thirty and it gets way more.
Speaker 1: Complicated and that type of thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, But if you're not passing through the building and
you're just doing everything on the outside of the building,
then nothing says that you can't use SCR.
Speaker 1: And SR is a wet location product.
Speaker 2: It can mount on the side of a building and
run down and hit separate panels whatnot at each individual apartment.
If the apartments are separate buildings, then that's fine. But again,
if it's one full building and you just have apartments
inside of it, the envelope and then the only thing
inside is the fire rated assembly is not firewalls that
separate and create their own buildings, which typically go up
and through the roof.
Speaker 1: Mind you.
Speaker 2: So if that's not the case, then there's nothing that
says you can't run SCR all through that building. It's
not going to cause any problems. Again, remember the ser
typically when you're doing that, since you're running it further
in the building, it's going to be on the load
side of a disc next so in overcurrent protections. So
that's not going to be a problem with that. I
don't know if that answered your question, feel free to
follow up and ask me, you know, to clarify, just
let me know what episode it is and give me
a little bit of a summary of what it was,
because I do get thousands of emails, so I just
want to make sure I stay on point with what
you're asking. But yeah, again, I've seen plenty of apartment
complexes with individual apartments and they're just separated by fire
rated assemblies, and you have a basement area that's got
all of the panels in it, an access area and
all the meter the meter stacks and everything, and then
you go straight from that room all through the apartment
complex to hit the panels that.
Speaker 1: Are inside of each apartment. SCR is perfectly fine for that.
Speaker 2: Like I said, if you're going to hit buildings, then
you know, go from building to building. Then you got
to pull in the rules in two twenty five and
look at all those rules and you know, be very
careful what you're applying those rules to.
Speaker 1: That type of thing.
Speaker 2: But other than that, there's really not much places that
you can't run ser in a building.
Speaker 1: Now, one of.
Speaker 2: The other things that again does come into play is
the disconnecting mean requirements. So if you did have multiple
buildings that were separated, could be one building that separated
with firewalls. So think of the six apartment complex where
it has a firewall between each of the apartment complexes,
creating separate buildings because of those firewalls. And we're not
talking about fire rated assemblies here, we're talking about firewalls
that separate and create buildings. Okay, that separate structures to
create buildings. If that is the case and you want
to run something from one building through or to another building,
you still got to follow the rules in two twenty
five thirty one B for the location. And when that
takes place, you're sitting there going, okay, well, it has
to be in a readily accessible location nearest the point
of entry of the conductors or where you going to
do that, So kind of pointless if you know you're
not going to do it down in a crawl.
Speaker 1: You're not going to do it in an attic.
Speaker 2: You know, how are you getting across these these from
the different buildings and where would you put that disconnect?
So it kind of makes it impractical for that application.
But where you don't have I'll give you a good
another good example and Alexandria, Virginia. You have these apartment
complexes and they have a common attic, so it's a
common attic, so it's no firewalls. It's fire rated assemblies
to our rated assemblies, all this kind of stuff. But
then go up into the attic and it's just open.
And now they may put up some wire or something
to separate the units of it, but they're not firewalls.
So that is it might have a bunch of apartments
in it, but it's still just one building. Okay, you
look at the structure and you have a just a
makes up of a lot of fire rated assemblies. Well, hell,
you can run ser all through that building and is
not a problem. It's concealed in the walls. Doesn't matter
how you rote them for point A to point b.
Speaker 1: That's fine. Nobody knows they're there. They're in the walls.
It doesn't.
Speaker 2: There's no harm, no foul. They got over current protection
on them. They're good to go. But the moment that
you were to put firewalls in there that run from
the foundation all the way up through the ceiling through
the roof, now you've created separate buildings and when you
go from one building to another building, then you got
to meet all these disconnecting meaning rules, location rules, all
that stuff, which makes it impractical to do that where
you gonna do it at that type of thing. Otherwise,
what you really would do is run it all on
the outside and put the disconnected each one of the
individual units, uh, and do it that way makes sense.
Hopefully that makes sense. All right, folks, that's going to
be it for this episode today. It's a short one.
We just want to make sure we covered some of
these topics and uh, we're gonna get caught up with them.
But that's that's all we're gonna do for today. Thanks
for following me, Thanks for sending us the questions.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 2: If you need any follow up to any of these questions,
all you got to do is go to Paul Abernathy
dot com. It's a free service. Make sure you put
in your name your information, your contact information, and give
me a summary of the episode that you're questioning and
you want a little clarity, and give me a brief,
you know, summary of what you're asking and I'm more
than happy to follow up. Okay, all right, folks, till
next time, Stay safe, God blessed, and thanks for your
patience while we move from Texas to Virginia.
Speaker 1: Take care,