I was recently called by a lady who told me that her commercial rental building near downtown San Diego was being converted by the city to an underground utility system. The utility poles along Imperial Ave. and 24th Streets are being removed. This is part of the on-going work by the city to remove the utility poles since 1967. The lady went on to explain that a city code enforcement inspector had visited the building and informed her that the electrical wiring, meter box and circuit panels inside had to be brought up to code before any undergrounding to her building could be completed. So, being an underground utility specialist, she called me.
What I found was something that words could never properly describe. So I took photos! Lots of photos. I had never seen electrical wiring done in such an unsafe and unprofessional method in my 38 years as an electrician. I’ll try to describe what I saw. There are 2 electric meters in this automotive brake shop with machines everywhere. Each electric meter consisted of a single glass meter mounted in a single meter socket. From the socket (meter base), there were 4 separate single open wires running in open air to the breaker panels a few feet away. Someone had even cut into some of those wires in the middle and tapped into them with splices capped with wire nuts to send power to some machines without the protection of circuit breakers. There were some twisted open splices without any wire nuts covering the twisted bare copper wires! They were just bare. The other electric meter fed a circuit panel with a #10 piece of Romex wire. That’s only rated at 30 amps. Whoever did this work has also never heard of Romex connectors. Every cable on this job entering a panel or leaving a panel, switch box or receptacle outlet simply passes through a knock-out without the use of any connectors. No wonder the code enforcement inspector almost condemned the building. The owner advised me that the tenants did all the bad electrical work themselves. I won’t even get into what the lights and wall plugs looked like. Most weren’t even attached to the structure. They just hung by the wire. The tenants have been in this building for years and years.
My customer was given a notice by the city of San Diego to complete repairs within 30 days or the building would be shut down. Because there are 2 auto repair shops inside, she needed to do something fast. I called the city and told them that I had been hired to do the upgrades. The inspector told me that all that was required for the city to allow SDG&E to proceed with the undergrounding of the electrical conversion, was to upgrade the meter boxes and the circuit breaker panels and get them ready to be energized once SDG&E was ready to remove the poles. I was to provide a new 400 amp, underground fed, dual meter cabinet. From this cabinet, or pedestal, I was to install (2) 2″ metal conduits (EMT) into the building and terminate them each into (2) new 200 amp circuit panels mounted to interior walls. But first, the meter pedestal had to be installed on a new level cement pad, which I had to form, mix and pour. Because the entire building is considered a “non-stable structure”, the meters had to be installed inside a free standing pedestal instead of being mounted on the side of the building! If you push on any exterior wall, the entire building moves. This is not a small building either. So, long story short, new meter pedestal mounted on a new cement pad 12″ tall, (2) new 200 amp panels located inside very close to the old panels and connected to the meter pedestal with hard metal conduit, fed with (3) 3 ought copper wires (not Romex) and each panel containing a 200 amp main breaker. Once completed, the city backed off with their threat to shut down the businesses. And now, nobody can tap into the wires between the meter and the panel through hard metal conduit. I was surprised to learn from the code enforcement inspector that although the lights, switches and receptacle outlets were also breaking every code violation there is, they would not require repair. There was a rear building as well with the same problems. This one required a 200 amp meter / panel box also mounted away from the unstable structure. This single meter box was mounted on a post sunk into the asphalt with (1) 2″ EMT conduit from it to a new 200 amp panel mounted on the wall inside. All in all, it was a great job to do with a few challenges thrown in. We decided to do the work on Saturday & Sunday so we could work without all the cars trying to get in and out of the small lot. I didn’t know they were open both days…Plus, we had to keep a sharp eye on our trucks and tools. Most of the pedestrians were pushing either shopping carts or pros-ti-tarts! It was the hood.
