What do you think about this electrical work?

[Owen Lucas]

I had a 26kW Kohler generator installed recently and it appears the electricians did some sloppy wiring IMHO.

What do you think about their work? Are there any safety issues here or is it just aesthetic? Now it has me questioning everything they did.

My main concerns were how they ran wiring around the plumbing and duct:

 

[mk378]

White wire under the duct is really shoddy I would demand a redo on that. Around the pipe looks like just an excess loop, but again really shoddy.

Inside the breaker box looks OK. You actually want a bunch more slack inside a breaker box in case it is ever necessary to relocate a breaker or replace the whole box.

 

[Owen Lucas]

White wire under the duct is really shoddy I would demand a redo on that. Around the pipe looks like just an excess loop, but again really shoddy.

If that's the worst of it then I'll just disconnect the duct and loop it back up. I don't want these guys back out here to screw it up again lol.

 

[mrsilv04]

Is it wrong? No. Could have it been done much better? Yes.
What they used to secure the wire to the floor joists, are the clamps that are used for when wire is run inside of conduit.
This looks like something a farmer would have done, doing it himself to save a few bucks.

 

[hemitom]

A little sloppy maybe a bit of laziness as well

 

[Trav]

Blame it on the apprentice.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Is it wrong? No. Could have it been done much better? Yes.
What they used to secure the wire to the floor joists, are the clamps that are used for when wire is run inside of conduit.
This looks like something a farmer would have done, doing it himself to save a few bucks.

That's what I thought. I figure maybe some type of plastic bracket should have been used to avoid the metal on metal contact if the electrical cable sheathing wears off for some reason.

Fortunately the generator install appears to be solid, that was done by the generator company. They farmed out work to electricians and plumbers for the propane line.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Blame it on the apprentice.

The youngest guy must have been 40, I doubt he's an apprentice. They identified as commercial electricians and "don't do residential" when I asked them to have some recessed lighting installed.

 

[Hall]

Looks to me like they forgot their ladder....

Blame it on the apprentice.

Our house is a typical build in a new neighborhood and I am 100% convinced that an experienced electrician wired in all the devices on the ground floor while an apprentice did the upstairs. Shepard hooks in the wrong direction, two wires crammed under a screw terminal, and so on. I've replaced them all, or am almost done, with Decora wiring devices, including many commercial-grade ones, and corrected all of those things.

 

[Hall]

I had a 26kW Kohler generator installed

Is that supposed to run your house or most of it ? Where's the breaker interlock ?

Did they run the black wire and the white wire ?

 

[55hambone]

The conduit straps used for support are not ideal, but they would meet the letter of the NEC. It appears that going into the panel there is not any support at all and the cable enters the panel through a metallic flexible conduit connector-not a clamp type connector. I am guessing that no electrical inspector visited the job. If I had installed that during my electrical apprenticeship they would have made me become a plumber.

 

[Owen Lucas]

Is that supposed to run your house or most of it ? Where's the breaker interlock ?

Did they run the black wire and the white wire ?

Yes, they ran both wires and the generator will run the entire house.

The generator is on one side of the house and had about 20 feet of heavy wire run, to the main circuit breaker box and then they ran a heavy wire all the way to the other side of the house to connect to an external breaker box outside.

I think they bit off more than they could chew or underbid as the contractor was asking if he is sure I wanted to thave the pool and other ac connected to the generator. I said of course lol, who doesn't want AC when the power is out?

The conduit straps used for support are not ideal, but they would meet the letter of the NEC. It appears that going into the panel there is not any support at all and the cable enters the panel through a metallic flexible conduit connector-not a clamp type connector. I am guessing that no electrical inspector visited the job. If I had installed that during my electrical apprenticeship they would have made me become a plumber.

I have to schedule the inspector, I can't wait to showcase this work!

 

[Hall]

Yes, they ran both wires and the generator will run the entire house.

I'm curious what the white Romex wire is for.

The generator is on one side of the house and had about 20 feet of heavy wire run, to the main circuit breaker box and then they ran a heavy wire all the way to the other side of the house to connect to an external breaker box outside.

What's the external breaker box for ? If I'm not mistaken, they would just run (1) heavy-gauge wire from the generator to a new breaker in the breaker box. That breaker needs to be sized for everything you want to run off the generator, i.e. 50A, etc. It also needs to have an interlock with the MAIN breaker so that both can't be ON at the same time. Will the generator folks be back out to test it and make sure everything's good to go ?

 

[JHZR2]

The youngest guy must have been 40, I doubt he's an apprentice. They identified as commercial electricians and "don't do residential" when I asked them to have some recessed lighting installed.

They should have put it all neatly in conduit then.

 

[Trav]

The Keystone cops or three Stooges of the electrical trade I figure.

 

[RhondaHonda]

Subscribing to see what the inspector says. I don’t know much about electrical so I don’t have anything to add.

 

[Arc]

It's sloppy work but so is all the other wiring as far as those pics show around the panel. They probably figured it didn't matter. It all comes down to what you are willing to pay for.

 

[supton]

Looks a bit sloppy--no worse than what I'd do, so I should be careful here... but it looks a bit slap-dash and done quickly.

I thought there was something against wire hanging like that--too easy for people to hang coat hangers on? something like that.

 

[Arc]

I'm curious what the white Romex wire is for.

What's the external breaker box for ? If I'm not mistaken, they would just run (1) heavy-gauge wire from the generator to a new breaker in the breaker box. That breaker needs to be sized for everything you want to run off the generator, i.e. 50A, etc. It also needs to have an interlock with the MAIN breaker so that both can't be ON at the same time. Will the generator folks be back out to test it and make sure everything's good to go ?

It's hard to tell from the pics but it looks like an automatic transfer switch next to the main panel. 26 kW would have a 200 amp switch available even if the generator only supplied 100 amps. The Romex is probably to a receptacle if there wasnt one close to the generator.

 

[repairman54]

House box looks OK.
Yeah around the duct is sloppy helper work.
I've done 2 Generac installs myself, mine and a buddy's 11k units. Its not rocket science when you work with electricity.
Looks like a big 26k unit feeds the entire house box by splitting the utility feed. Way easier install.
Generator transfer box is the isolation switch, they have a big knife switch internally thrown via solenoid to switch from utility to gen.
The smaller units like the 11k ones just do 8-12 individual circuits that get wired back and forth from the panel box to the transfer switch.
My last house was a modular, panel box was in the rear, meter and utility feed was in front. They ran the meter to panel box feed cable attached to the bottom of the floor joists the same way, not in a conduit. Inspector approved sticker on the box door.