Wayne Whitney wrote:
On 2008-12-21, Kevin Ricks wrote:

In my area sub-panel disconnects are required.

That seems odd--shutting off the main breaker in a subpanel doesn't
render it safe to work on, as the incoming feeder conductors are still
energized. To deenergize the panel, you have to kill the feeder itself.

I was told the local inspector would require the disconnects where there
are 2 columns of breakers in the panel? With one column you can turn
everything off in one sweeping hand motion...with 2 columns your all
confused in a panic emergency ..... It was just a store employee that
said that... , but it may be that the NEC would require disconnect
anyway in my situation. It's an 8 slot sub in a detached shop building.
I believe NEC requires disconnects for subs in detached buildings.
Actually, I am not sure if my shop is classified as attached or
detached? It's separated from the house by a breezeway but attached at
the roof. I treated it as detached.


OR what I did was to back feed the sub-panel through a standard
breaker (60A in my case). Much cheaper than the main breaker kit,
but it uses up 2 slots in the sub-panel.

This configuration requires an additional holddown bracket on the
backfed breaker.

Thanks I didn't know that.
Kevin




Cheers, Wayne