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  • Lake Lanier Georgia Shoreline Management Requirements Explained

    Hi, this is George with Argo electrical and I am the surge protector guy. So, this is podcast number 22. This is a deeper dive or further explanation of the Shoreline Management requirements by the Corps of Engineers at like Sidney Lanier. Like Lanier’s starts around Dawsonville flows all the way down to coming, Buford and a huge part of it is in the Gainesville, area Forsyth and Hall County, especially mostly for side haul and Dawson County, are they the counties that are affected? So anyway, our last podcast we talked, we just read through the Exhibit C document that they provide you at the time of inspection. If you have one of these docks on your property that adjoins the lake, you’ll have to have this dock inspection done by a licensed electrician every five years, it doesn’t mean that you can’t do the work you just need to find someone like me that has a license that can sign off on them. Now let’s talk about the underground wiring. I think it’s a little screwy the way they’ve got it laid out. It says installation from property line and shoreline service pole says must be under underground follow access path, no overhead wiring. Only tops you f and USB cable may be used. And of course if you put your wire in conduit, this would not be applicable. So insulation requirements cables, or conduit and it doesn’t include conduit need to be at least 24 inches deep. If you were in conduit and National Electrical Code says 18 inches 24 inches is only six inches vapor and keep anybody out of it. Okay, and Lancey talks about the warning tape must be buried around 12 inches deep, so that you can buy a big roll of this yellow warning tape. And it actually has warning printed on it about 5000 times for the 1000 foot row. But um, you can, you know, start that off at the beginning of your ditch, as you’re filling back in, put the wire and put 812 inches worth of guard on top of the wire, I would pack it down just a little bit. And then you can lay your type right in on top of it and then come back and drag the rest of the the dart back into your ditch. Okay, service Paul says can’t be below elevation 1073 MSL I’m sure that’s close to sea level, you know, in this area. I know we’re never gonna have to see your eyes that far. But anyway, they won’t it. Generally if you go if you go on like linear, and you see people that have dogs. The Gangplank is going to be down on a lower level and then you come up for five feet. And you’ll see you know, it was what they call the shoreline. All right, and the water might be 1520 foot from that shoreline, just depending on how full the lake is, but I won’t it up on that hill to where you know, the legs gonna have to come up 2530 foot for it to get to the access point of the power at your service pole. Okay, and they won’t nothing any larger than a six inch pole. We generally get a four by four treated piece of lumber square treated piece of lumber, says eight foot maximum above the ground, you can buy the eight foot or and make this guy about six foot high. We’d like to buy the 10 foot or and we can put two or three foot in the ground we can put you a what we call a yard blast or light, which is you know now is an LED light with a photo sale, you can just leave the switch on and then we get start the light have come home. Very nice. They have a 20 year warranty. It’s about $150 for that light. And of course the last time they got listed is they want you to use a wooden post. I don’t want any metal down there. Like Lanier sits on the largest piece of granite in the Western Hemisphere. Okay, and up and down that lake all the time when these lightning storms run through, you know from the spring all the way through the fall. It’s retracted their water it’s granted both of them, you know, transfer their conductive so they you know had the potential to transfer electricity. All right At your Shoreline panel box says it must be at eye level, you know a good, a good height is around 60 to 65 inches. You can’t go wrong with that. Course it always depends on who your ranger is. They’re the ones the Corps’ Rangers are the ones that will let you know if you have something that doesn’t meet their standard, okay? It says the cable leading from the ground must be enclosed in a conduit and hardwired. So what that means is the cable coming up out of the dirt can’t be just flopping on the pole, you got to put it in a conduit. A good rule of thumb is a one inch to an inch and a half size conduit just makes it a lot easier to pull that wire up. You know when we do them on the side of houses or whatever the power company requires us to put a nanny. One thing about putting that elbow on the bottom of your PVC conduit going into the dirt, it’s a lot less chance that your wires going to get pinched. If it gets pinched over time eventually, that’s probably the place that’s gonna burn out. Make it easy enough for repair but your wires gonna be short. Okay, so service from the shoreline panel box to the boat dock. The cable from the panel box must be hardwired into ground fault circuitry. So what you own is you want to tie your circuit coming out of your sub panel on your four by four post into a 20 amp ground fault circuit interrupter breaker. That’s a GFCI. Breaker. Okay, you need 20 amps

    so, what you’re doing is you will come out of your sub panel on the four by four posts and a piece of conduit flexible conduit is acceptable. So I’m gonna choose water tide it has to be NEMA three rated, okay, nema three just simply means that it’s waterproof. You can go higher NEMA four name or five. That’s really more of industrial applications that are you know, flexible conduit and fittings that are used around chemicals. Okay, you don’t really need to go that far. NEMA three is fine. All right, only approved for wet locations. That means it’s a you know, outdoor wet location box. I say if you go into Home Depot and ask for NEMA three, most of the people in there look at you like you’re crazy. You want to look for the term wait location, outdoor rated, locking and grounding receptacles. So when you know when I was talking about coming back out of your your sub panel on your four by four post at the shoreline, you’ll come out of that with a conduit you’ll have a waterproof box, they do make PVC boxes that you can just slide the pipe right into there, seal it up with with glue and it’s considered to be NEMA three watertight, wet location approved parsley, I like to cast boxes, they’re partially metal, you can screw your fittings into that they work real well the problem with plastic is once you if you ever strip out the screws spots to where you’re putting your cover on or whatever, you will not be able to get a new screw in there. And then you’ll you know be faced you know with trying to re tap the hole or just taking the box completely off and replacing it just to replace a busted cover. Okay, but um the receptacles there at that post is a single receptacle. It’ll be a three hole receptacle. That’s a twist lock. That’s outdoor that makes it outdoor rated with an N US cover. Maximum number of receptacles Oh, excuse me, excuse me, surplus cable. For years during the low like elevations if you look at the drawing on your Exhibit C which is a two page document, they’re going to show you 75 to 100 foot of cable. Usually what we do is we’ll purchase 75 foot of the so called or asked J cord and you run it you run out of the receptacle at the shoreline post. And then you have to have a junction box mounted on your stride or some kind of steel on the end of the gang plank. It’s up about two and a half, three foot, middle of the thighs a great measuring point for most people. Unless of course you’re really short 510 So, you know, top of the thighs what I use, right and anyway on their you know what they call a wire keep or something like that it’s got a Chinese finger on this on the bottom of a weather proof fitting connector, you know, you can screw bust your hole in the bottom of your box with a unit bed or something to fit the size connector. If you’re running 12 to the ground, it should be a half inch connector, that Chinese finger will keep someone like a kid or someone that’s rolling the dock in and out maybe just wasn’t paying attention or whatever. If that thing’s not in there, it’ll snatch the wire, and when you’re rolling the dock in and out and then your connections will be no good. And you’ll have to pay somebody like me to come out there and fix the connections or figure it out and fix it yourself. Okay. All right, and um, back to the surplus cable or whatever if the legs really up, maybe you’re only using 20 foot of cable we get. We like to get like a hose holder or whatever. You can get a metal one that’s got two holes on on a bracket beside it. You screw that into your post and you can roll up your excess wire right there. On the shore. It’s very manageable, and then when the light goes out, you get ready to let your dog out. You can unroll it right there, going towards the lake and let the dock out and pulled the wire right on out with the dock so receptacles on the dock, all receptacles must have ground fault protection at service pole. That means, you know, in the old days they would put a GFI on the pole. Instead of buying the breaker you really want to break her to protect the entire circuit. You do not want your aluminum dock to get energized, or the steel on your dock begin to energize. They must be in weatherproof receptacle boxes with self closing caps. That’s an EN US cover that I was talking about. So they’re saying a maximum number of receptacles on the dock is two single or one duplex receptacle. The single receptacles look like the old ones that we used to use for a window unit and an air conditioner and whatever. You can find them at Home Depot, Lowe’s, whatever or your local parts store I buy most of my parts from city plumbing and electric and coming Georgia. I also have a store in Gainesville Blue Ridge, Cleveland Winder I know they’ve got like six or seven locations, but they’ll treat you right tell them George Argos thank you that may or may not get you a discount. All right, so your convenience outlets 15 and 20 amp rated I would use 20 amp stuff, the difference in the 20 amp is you will not be able to plug them into the back of the receptacle. But if you wrap that wire around your screw, bend it down, tighten it down and have the wire going in the right direction. The chance of that wire ever coming out from under that screw is very very slim. Okay. At the post, they want these receptacles to be around four foot over the ground 48 inches on the boat dock itself they won’t at least 30 inches above the deck like say middle of the thigh is a pretty good reference point if you don’t have a tape measure handy Alright, dock wiring must be approved for wet locations and enclosed in conduit. Now we talked about you know the underground section using us for USF wire right and also made the point that if you ran conduit all the way down there, you could use t h h n because as long as it’s in you know an approved waterproof conduit that is acceptable wiring on the dock you can you know when we wire these docks, we won’t run PVC all the way around to the receptacles to the lights whatever the customer wants. You have to have flexible conduit going across the ramp from the ramp to the main section of the dock that way when the dog beings or whatever the conduit doesn’t break, okay and they will call you on that. Another thing is when you put this liquid con liquid tight conduit together, make sure your joints are good and your connectors are good. Okay. So anyway, moving right along. Enough conduit must be installed to prevent entry of moisture. That means all openings are prohibited. You need to cap it off or whatever. If you use the A few years the PVC boxes you can find caps where you bought the box, which is just a plug into the open end it’s not being used. I like to use what the people at the part store called a bale box. It’s a weatherproof outdoor box. It’s metal clad. Kind of a composite deal, but it’s a little bit harder. It’s not fiberglass, it’s actually metal. And the entryways you combined with three entries, five entries, you can buy them anywhere from two, three quarters, half inch, or an even goes up to a one inch size. One inch is a little bit of overkill, if you’re new at this or whatever. And um, you’re really wanting to do it yourself. Maybe you’re so ambitious, that You even bought a fish tape, which what electricians used to pull wire through conduit, I highly suggest upgrading the size of the pipe three quarter, you know, make the wire flow a lot easier, you’ll be able to pull it easier, and you’ll be able to fish that fish tape through your conduit much better. Half inch can be tough if you don’t know what you’re doing. I’ve been doing this for almost 40 years now. And it still gives me a fit from time to time. Okay. So, lighting minimum requires for Safe Access will be allowed maximum ball size of any for any purpose, floodlights or whatever on the dog is 150 Watt. The good news is you can buy
    led replacements for the old, you know, the old light bulbs. The name is escaping me right this minute, but you can buy a 20 watt light bulb, it’ll put out the same light as the old fashioned incandescent bulbs that put out 150 Watts, and it’s probably going to only use about 20 watts of energy fixtures and lights must be approved for the wet locations and mounted to the exterior not beyond the outer perimeter of the boat dock. I mean you can’t put it out over the water. And the old days up here the guys would. And girls I’m sure would use a floating light they plugged the floating light in, put it out over the you know the water at nighttime and it would attract the shiners up to the light. Then the crappie would come up and buy it made for easy pickings. I’ve actually used that myself. But in any event, your permanent fixtures on the dock cannot extend past the bottom of the boat dock. They must be aimed downward so nobody comes around the curb at night and they’re getting shine in the eyes with lights off your dog likes a crash boat. And the lighting along the path, maybe mushroom tight with no exposed wiring. You need to put that in a conduit coming up out of the dirt and something to hold the conduit or they make some posts are about 7580 bucks apiece. But they work real nice. It’s a square composite post. There’s even a space in there to where you can add a receptacle wherever you want it. So you would have a convenience outlet coming down the path towards shoreline. The mushroom type they’re talking about if you want to find these yourself and that post I was referring to has a half inch threaded hole on the top you can either cap it off the the post comes with a cap short nipple that’s closed and or you could screw that out and use what they call up a go to light which yes does look like a mushroom. You should be able to buy these lights and either white or really forest dark green. And I think you can actually also buy a Polish brown dark brown. All right. So general guidelines, all breakers cables, cords and receptacles must be assigned size to accommodate service needs. It’s recommended that a licensed electrician performed these installations. Alright. And what’s going to happen is if you do it yourself, and then it doesn’t match up to what this drawing is and what this documentation says your electrician may not sign off on your paperwork. And in any regards, you know the whole point of this is one Kalach you know we do this type of work, but to is to help you remove any liability for yourself in case somebody suffers. being shocked on your property your dock and liability is blamed on you the homeowner, the property owner Once again, my name is George. I’m going to Argo electrical. You can talk contact me at 770-596-1437 or you can find me online at Argo electrical electrical.com. We’re on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, all that fun stuff. Have a great day. Thanks for listening

    The post Lake Lanier Georgia Shoreline Management Requirements Explained first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    21 min
  • Exhibit C Document Lake Lanier Corp of Engineers

    Hi, this is George with Argo electrical and I am the surge protector guy.

    So Today we’d like to talk to you about the requirements for installation and use of electrical service on government property it like said Sidney Lanier so if you own a lake property in the Gainesville, Buford, Dawsonville area, Cumming Georgia, it’s very well likely that you have electrical service there. So they’ve got a note in there documenting this Shoreline Management Exhibit C, that you will have to have signed every five years to keep your electrical permit good on your dock or like Lanier says all installations must meet or exceed national electrical code standards for wet locations marinas and boatyards article 555 And I titled the National Electrical Code handbook and any additional requirements set by the Corps of Engineers is listed below. So we’ll start out with a line item A installation for property lines shoreline service pole must be underground and follows access path no overhead wiring number two only types UF and USB cable may be used three installation requirements cables may be direct arrayed or enclosed and approved conduit the minimum burial depth is 24 inches and the warning tape must be 12 inches deep alright so down into shoreline, you will have to have a service pole and it cannot be set below elevation of 1073 MSL you know we generally do these at a eight six foot height total height and and it says in the next line maximum six by six square diameter is the maximum 10 foot long would be your maximum which would be eight foot above the ground. So you’d want at least two to three foot in the dirt and then seven eight foot above the ground wooden post only are allowed no utility post all right. So shoreline service panel box must be eye level must be no less than five feet above the ground. cable leading from the ground into the panel must be enclosed in conduit and hardwired okay and your service from the shoreline panel box to the boat dock cable from panel box must be hardwired into the ground fault circuitry only approved for wet locations may be used. Locking and grounding receptacles and plugs are required at Shoreline distribution panel and or service connections for floating facility and our ship to shore receptacles. Surplus cable use for use during low Lake elevations may be caught up and attached to the service pole. All right, are you receptacles must have ground fault protection at the service pole. They must be in weatherproof receptacle boxes with self closing tabs maximum number of receptacles on guard is to single or one duplex receptacle receptacles providing shoreline power for both said 20 amp minimum rating. That means don’t bother 15 amp receptacles 20 amp is a commercial grade must be locking in grounding tight convenience outlets 15 and 20 amp rated only. Must be plugged in when attached. When unattended and not yet may be unplugged. When unattended and not in use. receptacle height on a service post minimum of four foot above the ground. On the boat dog minimum of 30 inches above the deck. Dock wiring must be approved for wet locations and enclosed in conduit into conduit must be installed to prevent entry of moisture. Links of liquid tight flexible conduit must be utilized at Mobile ramp and dock joints I mean across the gangplank Okay. Lighting minimum minimum requires for Safe Access will be allowed maximum bulb size for any purpose is 150 wise. fixtures in lights must be approved for wet locations and cannot be mounted to extend beyond the outer perimeter of the boat dock. All lights must be aimed downward lighting along with Half, maybe mushroom tight with no exposed wiring. General guidelines all breakers cables, cords and receptacles must be sized to accommodate service needs, too. It is recommended that a licensed electrician, perform installed installation and then they give you a picture of all this stuff. And so if you’re interested, if you need recertification of your exhibit, save for your Shoreline Management on your dock on Lake Lanier. Call me I’m George Argo with Argo electrical services. You can reach me at 770-596-1437 or you can find me on the web at Argo electrical. Thanks and have a great day.

    The post Exhibit C Document Lake Lanier Corp of Engineers first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    7 min
  • Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?) Part 4

    Hi, this is George with Argo electrical. And I am the surge protector guy. So we’re right smack dab in the middle of our generators versus solar power cost analysis series, and our podcast. This is our podcast number 20. We started this in September August of 2023. And today is the third day of January 2024. So, our last podcast, we discussed the cost of a solar power setup, which includes a inverter and includes lithium battery bank, along with six have solar panels from a manufacturer that offers these products in the Atlanta Georgia area. Okay, just to recap, you know, the price for what they sent me I ask for an estimate yesterday, I got one in my email today was $7,400, you get the inverter, you get the battery bank, which I believe is two batteries, and you get six solar panels. Okay, so now, having said that, we also included in that cost, the price of someone like myself, who is a non restricted electrical contractor, the old timers called it master electrician, you know, and then what we did back in August, September, we charged about $7,500. To this gentleman, what we did was we got on the load side of the meter base with a 200 amp main breaker, we disconnected the power to the interior electrical panel, we ran into a new disconnect on the interior side, which is normal for any heavier equipment, you’ve got to have a disconnect within 10 feet and within sight of whatever it is you’re doing. I don’t care if it’s a water heater or a hot tub, whatever you’re not supposed to straight wire on, we even know we always do that, you know even when the panels in the same room. So anyway, you know, you come out of the load side of your new disconnect on the interior of the home, you feed that to the live side of your inverter, you come out of the inverter and feed that into the lobes the land side of your interior electrical panel. So we said the price for all of that is going to be right at $15,000 Sounds like a lot of money, right? Well, for my 1400 square foot house, I put down a you know even number, what I feel like is close to the average, probably a little closer to $300 a month. But anyway, just for you know, being a conservative number there, we multiply 265 times 12 which came out to $3,180 that would be 12 months of energy costs and $265 a month price tag rounded up to $3,200 we multiply that times point 75 or 75%. And that’s $2,400. Now $2,400 is what you would save in the first 12 month period, if you would use the batteries to power your home for say 18 hours a day. And then use six hours a day to recharge the batteries either off the grid or and or the solar panels. So now if we take that $15,000 Total to purchase the equipment, hit the install installation perform, divide that by $2,400 it would take six years and three months to completely pay for the unit. Now having said that, after the six years is up, then you would not have any money in your in your unit. These people are claiming that these batteries are good for at least 20 years and they’re warranting the setup for 10 years. So you You know, the whole point that I’m getting at is, you know, by the time you got to the 20 year time frame, not only would you have provided an ultimate, an alternative pathway to energy if you had a power outage, but you know, by the end of the 10 year period, you would have paid for the unit and saved enough on your energy costs to pay for a setup all over again. To me that, that makes sense. If you have money, obviously, everyone’s not going to be able to afford this. But at the end of the day, if you’re looking at putting a backup generator, standalone backup generator on your property, and you’re thinking about spending anywhere from 10, to $15,000, to have one to run the whole home, the standalone generators are the way to go. The transfer switch on these generator setup, states has no energy, it sends a message to the Generac generator, it cranks up the transfer switch, locks in disconnecting power from the power source from the grid, and then the generators forming, feeding the house. And then now you’re powering your generator with either natural gas or LP gas. So these batteries set up for whatever. If it senses no power, it does the same thing. But you’re running off the batteries, you’re not running off a few you know, this is green energy, re rechargeable energy. To me, it makes complete sense. If you’re going to make this type of investment to definitely do a little research, looking into these solar power battery backup, inverter setups. They’re, they’re very maintenance free. You know, the prices have really come down in the last five years. If you’re interested in and looking into something like this, and you say, Hey, this is a little bit too technical for me. I’m not an electrician. Feel free to call me at 770-596-1437 You can find us on the web at auto expo.com Once again, I’m George and I am the search tech guy. Thanks for coming

    The post Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?) Part 4 first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    9 min
  • Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?) Part 3

    Hi, this is George with Argo electrical. And I am a surge protector guy. So this podcast is podcast number 19, since we started doing these things, and this is part three in generators versus solar power cost analysis. So yesterday, we gave you the pricing for a Generac generator that would power my home, which is a totally electric 1400 square foot home that’s got central heating and air, it’s got like a three ton AC unit HVAC unit. Got a electric water heater, electric range, electric dryer, and of course the rest of it. And we gave you the price for the automatic transfer, switch, pad and everything. So now today, what I did was yesterday, I actually asked for a quote, for a solar power setup, to do the same thing that the battery backup generator would do, which would be provide alternate energy sources. When the utility was down, the wonderful thing about the battery slash solar powered units is that you could actually power the home on the battery, and while the grid is still up, so you can run the battery all the way down to say 5%. And then flip it back to grid power and recharge your battery. And, you know, obviously, I’ve never done this completely in my own home. So I don’t have completely accurate information. But I believe you’d be able to run the house for about 18 hours on that one charge. And that wouldn’t include that would not include any charging from the solar panel, or whatever. So anyway, they sent me back the estimate. It’s a 2.4 Kw complete solar power system, 6000 Watts, 220 240 volt lithium battery bank, six 400 Watt, mono solar panels, and including the schematics. So this would also include your inverter, okay. And the one that we installed a couple of months ago was really cool. You can look at it and it’ll tell you whether your you know, the inverter is allowing power in from the grid, whether it’s coming from the solar panels, or whether or not it’s on the battery, and what percentage charge the batteries have. So, like I said, the price for that be approximately $7,400 It was like 7185, something like that. So and taxes and all that. It may be you know, a little bit over $7,400 I’m figuring the labor and parts for this would be approximately the same $7,400 And that’s about what we charge our customer to install he is we had to have a 200 amp disconnect to go on the load side of the meter base. We came out of that. We came out of that disconnect went into the inverter and then ran new ser cable, aluminum cable from the inverter into the 200 amp panel. Okay, so like what I said labor parts pay approximately $7,400. This would include another disconnect the wire permitting and any other miscellaneous parts that my main unseen, you know, you’re gonna have to have lag bolts to attach it to the wall, you may have to build some kind of little something or another. So you’ve got something good and starting to attach to. You got to strap it all down the permitting. By the time you pull the permitting, you’re looking at around $100 and is what it is in all county. Hall County, Georgia, Gainesville, Georgia. You’re also going to have the time of sitting in the permitting office or doing it online. And then, of course, meeting the inspector on the day of the inspection. They usually give you about a four hour window, so you can figure it’s probably gonna be at least Two hours then. So anyway, that’s what you would get for your 7400 hours. In addition to the 7400 that you spent for the solar power system, the lithium battery bank and the 400 watt solar panels. Now these battery banks are expandable. So if your home’s bigger than mine, you could probably go with this same inverse setup, and just have more than two batteries. Anyway, I’d love to talk to you about it. If, if you’re interested in something like this, you need some help diving in. Give me a phone call at 770-596-1437 you can contact me through my website at Argo electrical.com. And once again, I’m the surge protector guy. Thanks for joining in. Have a great day.

    The post Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?) Part 3 first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    7 min
  • Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?) Part 2

    Hi, this is George, with Argo Electrical. And I am this arch protector guy. So this is podcast number 18. Obviously, it’s the second one for 2024. But this is the second podcast on the cost of standalone generators versus solar power. And this podcast is going to speak to cost analysis for generator. Now the generator that we chose was the one that we sized for my home here in Northeast Georgia. And so

    13 199 square foot properties three small bedrooms and the upstairs with a bathroom, along with deanery, a kitchen, and pantry and bathroom and the lower level. Okay, that includes a
    electric water heater, it includes a lectric HVAC unit with a condenser, electric microwave electric stove range, if you will. So the size that generator generates calculator gave us was an 18 kW. Okay, so the 18 kilowatt generator with Wi Fi enabled features along with a transfer switch is $5,769 Not including taxes. So you would also need a pad to set your generator on, you need a generator, you would need an LP gas tank, if you don’t have gas to your home. And I got told you, we’re totally electric. We do live in the outskirts of Metro Atlanta. But we are in the county. So we do not have availability for natural gas feed from a utility, we would have purchased an LP gas tank, you can buy 100 gallon gas tank, we chose the middle of the road 250 LP gas tank, believe you can buy 100 gallon, a 250 gallon excuse me I have the hiccups, a 500 gallon or 1000 gallon tank. So the 250 LP gas tank installed is $1,500 approximately. So we figured looking at their labor, their beginning price was around $2,000. For those of you who are unaware of how this deal works, you want to put your standalone generator on the load side of the meter base. A lot of the properties that we deal with, you would have to have a main breaker or disconnect service emergency disconnect at the meter base. So we’re just saying that we could do it that way, then you have to get the wire size approximately, which would be about a one out copper, or a two out aluminum which would provide basically 150 amps. The service on this house is a 200 amp for the last 10 years or so. When we do these upgrades, we generally go with the 200 the parts are cheaper, you get a little bit more robust. You know, fulfillment of needs as it were with the 200 amp. Okay, so we we put a price tag of $4,000. The gas the LP gas price, currently is approximately $3 a gallon. That’s with tax. So if we filled up our 250 gallon gas tank at $3 a gallon that would be that would be approximately $800. So we’ve got the pad, the battery $300 $350 for the field, the LP gas tank, if you had to purchase that it would be $1,500 So currently we’re at around 2200 hours, we put a price tag of labor, and parts for the needed stuff that you would need would be around four grand. So now you’re at eight grand plus, you know, around $6,000, for the 18 Kw generator, with a transfer switch, you would also potentially a house this small, you really don’t need it. But Generac calls is basically a part that decides a priority, one of the generators in operation, HVAC, obviously would be first range, I believe would be second, and then the water heater would be third. And then the rest of the house, the 120 circuits would be for you put these things on your deal. They’re about $150 a pop. So you know, I would say you would probably need at least two for this house. So now we’re looking at close to $14,000 for this 18 Kw 18,000 watt generator with the Wi Fi enabled features and the transfer switch. Maybe that’s a liberal amount. But I would say for something of this size, and to make it work to where you know, and this standalone generator, okay? It senses when you have no power available from the utility, it sends a message to the generator within about 10 seconds, the generator cranks, the Automatic Transfer Switch engages, it kills the power to the you know, from the meter base, and now you’re powering the home with your generator running on full power. That way you’re not worrying about doing the generator. So you know, it 15 $16,000 for a home that’s worth about $260,000 That’s a lot of money. You know, they’re very nice. But you know, as we get into the pricing of the solar slash battery powered opportunity opportunities or whatever, I really believe that the solar powered battery powered options would be much more cost effective. We’re trying to keep these things kind of short five to 10 minutes long. So I’m going to move on now. Once again, my name is George. I’m the owner of Argo electrical in Gainesville, Georgia. I am the surge protector guy, you could contact me at 770-596-1437 and you can also find us online at Oregon electrical.com. Thanks for coming. And we’ll be back with some more of the standalone generators versus solar power cost analysis. Thank you

    The post Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?) Part 2 first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    10 min
  • Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?)

    Hi, this is George with Argo electrical services. And I am the surge protector guy. So today, we would like to discuss generators standalone generators versus solar power. What’s the difference? This is podcast number 17. For 2023 standalone generator for automatically provide energy to the property within seconds of a power failure via the grid. Solar powered batteries. With inverters now work on their own software. These inverters control input and output of energy via smart chips, or electronic computer boards. Standalone generators require few most common fuels for these generators, or fossil fuel, LP gas, natural gas. Larger generators can even utilize diesel fuel with Generac. Usually, the 32 kilowatt generators are larger. Utilize diesel fuel, there are options to tie in solar power with an inverter to power these generators as well. Solar units utilize solar power and batteries. To power the home. The inverters convert DC electricity to AC electricity. So going back to the standalone generators, so if you call someone like myself to your home, to, you know, look at purchasing a standalone generator and the standalone generator, what that means is is when you lose power from the grid, the transfer switch sends a message to the generator. within about five seconds the generator cranks the power comes on and confirms there’s no power coming into the system from the grid, the transfer switch will slam in place, keeping out power from the grid and using the power from the running generator. Now, these generators have to have fuel. Like I said, the most common fuels for these generators are fossil fuels, LP gas, natural gas and or diesel fuel. Okay, so if you have natural gas at your home, maybe you’ve got a furnace, maybe your stoves, maybe even your water heaters use gas natural gas or LP gas. So then you’ve already got a fuel source there, if you don’t, you’re gonna have to purchase a somewhere between two and 300 gallon tank to ensure that if your power’s out for four or five days that you’re going to have enough fuel there to be able to power the property. So the solar units use batteries and solar power. So we installed one about three months ago for a gentleman down in Flowery Branch and I was completely impressed with it. Because the whole the whole setup, you know, once we got it installed, we installed the inverter on the load side of the main breakers you know, we came out of that inverter back into the into the load side or the interior electrical panels in the home then we attached a battery, which could be expandable and with one more battery, or even two more batteries. And what that does is it increases the amount of kilowatts that your your home can utilize while it’s operating purely off of the batteries. You can also tie in solar panels to these so you can charge the batteries from the grid during you know normal situations to when there’s you know, no power interruption from your utility. You can also use solar power to charge the batteries you can control whether or not the home is running off the battery power or if it’s running off the grid power. And you know and I would assume that if you had enough solar panels and everything was working efficiently enough that you could even sell power back to your utility. To me this was a total game changer because the the manufacturer of this equipment guaranteed their inverter and their batteries for 10 year lie And, to me, that was a total game changer. Because the, the, the inverter or whatever, and the battery along with the solar panels, the total price for that was about what it would cost for you to buy a generator of, you know, equal strength, and you didn’t have to pay for any fuel. I know that LP gas prices, in particular and natural gas prices, along with diesel fluctuate from time to time. And, you know, and it can be rather expensive, if you were in a rural area. And, um, you know, you have consistent timeframe, to where, you know, the grid is, is, is is not functioning. I totally thought this was a game changer, I mean, to me, we went through it with the engineers from the people that sold the equipment, and we could drain the batteries all the way down to 2% 5% 10%. And then let the grid charge the batteries up, or the solar panels, charge the batteries back up. And then you could run the home off of the batteries, and not be using your energy, especially in the wintertime. And in the summertime. You know, you’re to be able to cut your energy bills, I would say easily by 50%. You know, obviously right after installing it, you wouldn’t immediately pay for it. But I would say over three or four years, you will completely pay for the installation. And then at that point, you would be saving money. And you know, and if these guys actually go for 20 years, golly gee whiz, you could actually run your household cost free from the utility for 510, maybe even 15 years. To me, this was a total game changer. So once again, my name is George, I’m with Oracle electrical services. We’re in the Gainesville, Georgia area, you can contact me 770-596-1437 We’re going to keep these podcasts short and sweet. My dad used to always say that the mind can only absorb what the rear end could endure. So we’re gonna try and keep these podcasts 510 minutes. We’re gonna do four or five, maybe even six more of these podcasts on this. Please stay tuned for more podcasts from us. We talk about all kinds of do it yourself projects and you know, also home improvements that deal with all of the electrical systems in your home. Have a great day and happy new year.

    The post Hey Gainesville Ga, Generators VS Solar Power (What’s the Difference?) first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    9 min
  • Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters Part 2

    Hi, this is George with Argo electrical services and I am the surge protector guy. And this is part two on ground fault circuit interrupters. All right. And I want to specify this is coming from the National Electrical Code. Four Oh 6.4 D. Replacement of receptacles shall comply with four Oh 6.4 D one through D eight as applicable. arc fault circuit interrupter type and ground fault circuit interrupter type receptacles shall be installed in a readily accessible location. Once again, I want to take you back to what we talked about last time. The Consumer Product Safety Commission has reported a decrease in the number of electric fusions in the United States since the introduction of ground fault circuit interrupter devices in the 1971 National Electrical Code and definition, electrocution, I hear people say all the time, oh, well, he got electrocuted and there he goes walking down the sidewalk. If you are electrocuted, that means you have died, you cease to be breathing air any longer. electrocution denotes being dead. Most safety experts agree that GFCIs are directly responsible for saving, saving numerous lives and preventing countless injuries. All right, so the main reason I want to talk about this section, this section allows us to use ground fault circuit interrupter breakers and receptacles where there is no grounding conductor, the ground dead conductor is the white conductor, the grounding conductor is in residential either bare copper or the green wire, okay. Grounding type receptacles where grounding means exist in the receptacle enclosure or an equipment grounding conductors installed in accordance with two 50.1 30 C grounding type receptacle shall be used and shall be connected to the equipment grounding conductor in accordance with four Oh 6.4 C or two 50.1 30 C. This is the point that I want to talk about to non grounding type receptacles where attachment to an equipment grounding conductor does not exist in the receptacle enclosure that means they use cloth wire it was in the 1950s they did not have ground wires in the non metallic non metallic cable or Romex is most residential and most electricians know it to be called the installation shall comply with four Oh 6.4 D to A D to B or D to C A a non grounding type receptacle shall be permitted to be replaced with another non grounding type receptacle. That means if you pull out a two hole receptacle that means a hot and a neutral and there is no ground plug then you should replace it with one just like it. Yes, you can buy them at Home Depot. I know that most of the homeowners, most of your plugs for your appliances, your blender and all that kind of stuff has a three plug setup. However, you you know you’re not allowed to change that receptacle unless you know that they won’t the old style in there not be a non grounding type receptacle shall be permitted to be replaced with a ground fault circuit interrupter type of receptacle. Now, so if you put a GFCI receptacle in that spot, then it can have that third Hall, these receptacles or their cover plates shall be marked no equipment ground and equipment grounding conductor shall not be connected from the ground fault circuit interrupter type receptacle to any outlet supplied from the ground fault circuit interrupter receptacle. That means you can’t just add a wire to your metal box. You know most of the residential the newer residential homes if the guys go in and they remodel, you know They’re using a composite or a fiberglass box or plastic box, but in the older homes around here, a lot of them were like the old handy boxes, they’re metal boxes, but just because you put a bonding jumper to that box does not make it you know ground compliant as it were. Alright, so let’s move right along here. See a non grounding type receptacle shall be permitted to be replaced with a grounding type receptacle were supplied through a ground fault circuit interrupter where where grounding type receptacles are supplied through a ground fault circuit interrupter grounding top receptacles or their cover plate shall be marked GFCI protected and no equipment ground and that’s protected and no equipment ground I have not seen that sticker yet. visible after installation and equipment grounding conductors shall not be connected between the grounding type receptacles they have an information of some equipment or appliance manufacturers require that to branch circuit to the equipment replies includes an  equipment grounding conductor in that case you would have to run a brand new circuit and informational note number two says C 251 14 for a list of cord and plug connected equipment or classes that require ground grounding conductor and let’s see here. Let’s see if we can pop over there real quick to 50.114 and I have I have my NFP a link pulled up here that’s 114 All right equipment connected my cord All right. So exposed normally noncurrent can carrying metal parts of cord and plug connected equipment shall be connected to the equipment grounding conductor under any of the conditions. One if it’s in a hazardous location to if it’s operated at over 150 volts to ground that means it’s to 20 or better. Motors have guarded shall not be required to be connected to an equipment grounding conductor. Except that was exception one exception to metal frames of electrically heated appliances. exempted by special permission shall not be required to be connected to equipment grounding conductor, in which case the frame shall be permanently and effectively insulated from the ground. That’s why they have the rubber shields on the bottom of them if you’ve ever seen that in residential occupancies refrigerators, freezers and ice makers and air conditioners, clothes washing, clothes drying and dishwashing machines ranges kitchen waste disposals information technology equipment, sump pumps and electrical aquarium equipment all of these have to have GFCI protection our handheld motor operated tools stationary and fixed motor operated tools and light industrial operated tools. D motor operated appliances of the following types hedge clippers lawnmower snowblowers wet scrubbers and E portable Hey headlamps yes okay in other residential occupancies refrigerator freezers icemakers air conditioners oh I already read that one. No, I didn’t. Close washing clothes drying dishwashing machines. Yes, I did read that portable headlamp. Okay, there we go cord and plug connected appliances used in damp or wet locations by persons standing on the ground standing on metal floors, or working inside of metal tanks or molars and G tools likely to be used in wet or conductive locations. Exception tools are portable headlamps portable luminaires likely to be used in wet conductive locations shall not be required to be connected to the equipment grounding conductor, if supplied through an isolating transformer with an ungrounded secondary have not over 50 volts. That means you ain’t got to have a GFCI on your headlamp if you’ve got a nine volt battery in it. All right.

    But real quick, the whole reason I wanted to talk about this is just, I have been in many houses where people were trying to sell their home, their parents passed away, or whatever. And, you know, a real slick trick is they have a fairly new panel in the house electrical panel, you can go in there and replace those breakers with ground fault circuit interrupters. And that allows people to change the receptacles out, and it allows the owner, the new owner, the purchaser of the home, to feel a lot safer about their purchase, and the safety that you know they would have by existing on that property. My name is George, I’m with Argos electrical services. I’m out of Gainesville, Georgia, my phone number is 770-596-1437 Give me a call today. If you got any questions you want to talk about stuff, I got a YouTube channel got about 100 videos up there trying to steadily add more. You can always just Google Argo at Argo electrical. Thank you

    The post Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters Part 2 first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    12 min
  • Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters Part 1

    Hey everybody, my name is George. I’m with Argo electrical services and I am the surge protector guy. So we are all the way up to podcast number 14. This podcast is about ground fault circuit interrupters. So if we dig into our National Electrical Code Book, section, two 10.8 Chapter Two tn dot a ground fault circuit interrupter protection for personnel. All right, a listed class a GFCI shall be provided in accordance with two 10.8 A through F. The GFCI shall be installed in a readily accessible location. That means where personnel can utilize it. Okay. So the next thing they have is an informational note, says C two 15.9 for GFCI protection GFCI protection for feeders. And so I flipped over there and I open that bad boy up. And let’s see here. Well, nope. I’m in the wrong spot. All right. Two 15.9. So if we read that, it says feeder shall be permitted to be protected by listed ground fault circuit interrupter installed and readily accessible location in lieu of the provisions for such interrupters specified in to 10.8. Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter protection of the feeder circuit protects all branch circuits supplied by that feeder. This type of GFCI installation is permitted in lieu of branch circuit requirements of two to 10.8 GFCI protection in the feeder can also be used protect construction site receptacles as covered in five 90.6 A provided the fader supplies no lightning branch circuits, although it may be economical, more economical and convenient to install GFCIs for feeders, consideration should be given to the possibility that a GFI might be monitoring several branch circuits and will de energize all the branch circuits in response to line ground fault from one branch circuit. So all right, I know you’re saying what the heck does that do for me? Well, the big thing about it is I believe what we need to what we need to see in that whole discussion is you know that we’re going to put a GFCI device or you know, protected line, basically where it’s being used. So, if, if you’ve got a feeder, running out to a cell panel is GFCI protected, and that thing trips, it’s going to kill everything. So I got to dig in through the code book and it’s just like, you know, your voltages coming down to power lines, power lines running into the meter base at your home. These circuits are not ground fault circuit protected. Okay. And so there you go. Anywho so let’s see here Hmm, I have gotten completely out of whack, all right. So anyway, for purposes of this section, the distance from receptacle shall be measured as the shortest path. This power supply cord connected to the receptacle would follow without piercing a floor, wall ceiling or fixed barrier. And what that means is if I’m using a skill saw off the deck of my home, that receptacle needs to be ground fault circuit interrupter protected if you know if we’re using a blender in our kitchen countertop GFCI protected so here’s a little bit more food for thought. The consumer production Safety Commission has reported a decrease in the number of electro cue shins in the United States since the introduction of ground fault circuit interrupter devices in the 1971 National Electric Code. Real quick definition electrocution, that means someone gets shocked and they die. If you got shocked and you did not die, you have not been electrocuted, you are merely shocked. Okay. Most safety experts agree that GFCIs are responsible for saving numerous lives and pretend preventing countless injuries. When the lack of conductors are passed through a sensor, and are connected to a short trip device, as long as the current in the conductors is equal, the device remains in a closed position. If one of the conductors comes in contact with the ground and object, either directly or through a person’s body, some of the current returns by the alternative path resulting in an unbalanced current, the Teredo coal sees the unbalanced current and the shut shut tree up mechanism reacts to the Open to open the circuit, the circuit design requires does not require the presence of equipment of an equipment grounding conductor, which is the reason four Oh 6.4, D to C permits the use of GFCI as replacements for receptacles and grounding mains that do not exist. So real quick, let’s go back to the shunt trip device wires a common place, that there are always shunt trips installed, that you probably really didn’t know, gas stations. That means if there’s an issue, it’s going to trip the power to the entire main, it’s gonna kill the power and then we don’t have any explosions, like we see on the movies. Okay, now, this section right here, which I’m going to talk about. And another thing is is for US Code chapter or section four, oh, 6.4, D to see, for me, it’s the use of GFCIs as replacements for receptacle, where a grounding means does not exist. Okay. Now, what this is talking about, so I’m an electrical contractor in the Northeast Georgia area, about 4550 miles north of Atlanta, there are a lot of homes around where I live, that were built in the 50s and 60s, okay. And a lot of a lot of these homes were built with the old cloth wiring, they only had a hot and neutral wire in there no ground wires. Well, these inspectors when these people sell their homes, people come in and they want an inspection report. Well, none of the receptacles on the property are grounded, the guy tries to stick his little plug in. And if they’ve got, the old receptacles suddenly has two holes, which is what it should have. You know, he’s like, Well, the, none of the circuits are grounded. And that is true, but it’s not 100% True. But in any event, the code allows us to either install a GFCI reset receptacle or nail a GFCI breaker. Okay, so in this part of the codebook, I purchased a handbook section or whatever, which, you know, this gives me the same thing that your instructors have for the most part. And there’s a picture in there and it’s got, you know, the source, you know, line in neutral and it’s got the circuit breaker feeding your shot tree up, feeding a solid state circuitry or whatever. And that’s the hook up that uses that. I guess it’s a lead ring or whatever I’ve I’ve seen them before I’ve installed them before, I don’t want 1,000% understand how these CTS work exactly. It’s like a CT. And by that I mean a socket transformer. But anyway, it it’s a hoop, that the wires run through the circuits run through, they’re not covered by metal pipe or anything like that, and that who monitors the system, and if it gets out of whack, it’s going to cause that shunt trip to open. And when that shunt trip opens, then whatever that circuit is feeding, whether it be the whole property, whether it be a dedicated circuit or whatever, then you know, it kills the power to it now coming out of that. It also goes up to a push to test button and that runs through a resistor which goes back to the other side of the neutral wire which is not run through that ring Okay, and then on the outside of that, he shows the load, you know, basically a receptacle or whatever, it’s kind of a fancy deal.

    I’m sure this is more for an industrial setup, it is a residential, but he still kind of gives us an idea how ground fault circuit interrupter breaker or receptacle works. Obviously, the shunt trip part is built in to the receptacle or the breaker, and there’s a push to task deal in there with a resistor. And if that resistor burns up, bam, it’s no good anymore. The GFCI is today and the GFCI breakers, they are not supposed to allow power out if it’s faulty. That means if that resistor burns up, the switch inside cannot burn closed. Back in the day, I remember GFCI receptacles in kitchens, and I’m remember, especially a church I used to go to and where everybody made culture, whatever there’s GFCI receptacle up there and you could go up there and you could push that test button and it would not work. But that circuit was hotter than pistol peak. And I’m no longer will that happen. And it’s another you know, just like we talked about in 1971 when they you know this is saving lives some of the old time electricians complain and bitch and moan about it. But anyway, a variety of GFCIs are available including portable and plug in types and circuit breaker type types built into plug caps and receptacle types. Each type has a test switch so that units can be checked periodically to ensure proper operation manufacture the manufacturer’s installation and use instructions specified monthly testing to facilitate this important ongoing safety check GFCI was installed to protect receptacles covered in two 10.8 A and B are required to be readily accessible GFCI is operate on fault currents of four to six milli amperes. At trip levels of five milliamp hours, the instantaneous current could be much higher, the shock can be fifth can be failed during the fault. The shock can lead to an involuntary reaction that can cause a secondary accident, such as a fall GFCI do not protect persons from shock hazards. Where contact is made with the ungrounded hot and grounded neutral conductors are between different ungrounded hot conductors. And, you know to the best of my knowledge, the ground fault circuit interrupters can tell the difference in in the load on the neutral side. It detects moisture and that’s what makes it trip arc fault breakers and receptacles. Now they they monitor the unbalanced load on that neutral to the best of my understanding. This is George with Argo electrical services. I am the surge protector guy you can find me at Argo electrical.com You can just Google at Argo electrical. You can email me at info at Argo electrical.com Or you can call me 770-596-1437 Thanks for stopping by. I look forward to talking to you soon.

    The post Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters Part 1 first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    15 min
  • 12 Keys to Understanding Grounding and Bonding Gainesville
    Grounding And Bonding Electrical Systems

    “Hey everybody, this is George with Argo electrical services. And I am the surge protector guy. So this is actually podcast number 11. And this is our third podcast on ground and grounding. This is part three, this is the final one we’re gonna do on this right now, by no means have I covered everything that needs to be just discussed with grounds and grounding or bonding. But I just wanted everybody to kind of get you know, these general ideas, I would say this, you know, if you do not understand some of the terms that we’re talking about, get yourself a National Electrical Code Book cost you about 100 bucks. If you’re doing this kind of work, you need to understand grounding, okay, and if you don’t understand what you’re reading, get you a dictionary, get in front of a computer with Google and Google it and read some articles on that. Maybe you can find someone that’s more eloquent than I can to explain it to you. But anyway, here’s some here’s some major of points, you know, for understanding or takeaway grounding and bonding, first grounding and bonding limits over voltages, they stabilize the voltage to ground during regular operation, and they do improve the performance of overcurrent protective devices. The grounding path from current equipment and metal enclosures to the supply source must be continuous, not subjected to damage and capable of carrying the fault currents imposed upon them. The impedance of the fault current path must be low enough to generate sufficient fault current to actuate the overcurrent devices protecting the circuit the Earth is not an effective fault current past the arrangement of the electric system must prevent objectionable current from flowing through the grounding and bonding paths grounding and bonding equipment must be adequately connected and located where it will not undergo damage, good electrical continuity in the contact surfaces is a must. So the grounding path from circuit equipment and metal enclosures to the supply source must be continuous. That means if you’re you’re using those to ground that means you need to have jumpers from your metal conduit connectors to the actual casing of the metal box or raceway. It also means that you know, that you can’t go from Metro to PVC and back to metal and back to PVC because then you can’t count on the metal to you know work as you know, a grounding path the impedance of the fault current must be low enough to generate sufficient fault current to actuate the overcurrent devices protecting the circuit. So you know there are a lot of different breakers out there when you get in an industrial grade breakers. There are settings on the breakers where you can set it to you know, you know, we did some starters the other day on this trolley at Lake Lanier that allowed people to ride up and down he’s very very steep heels to the lake and the star do had you know you could set anywhere from you know like three amps all the way up to 30 amps on there. So if you got in a certain range, it would trip it before you burn up the motor right and the impedance of the fault current path must be low enough to generate sufficient fault current to actuate the overcurrent devices. If that is not low enough, the overcurrent device will not work. Therefore you have no safe device. I can remember many many moons ago I’m no match 2530 years ago when I worked on Piper meals down in Savannah, Georgia and there were just a rooms and rooms of panels. And I’m talking about miles of conduit of hot circuits. We had no idea where they would go and guys would actually you know try to trip a breaker to where they could work on a circuit or whatever. And at some point these overcurrent devices were so old and And the fault current impedance you know was not low enough to generate a fault current and they would not trip the breaker it’s very dangerous situation and the the arrangement of electrical electric system must be must prevent objectionable current from flowing through the grounding and bonding parts. That means the way that it is your system is designed when you build it, it has to it has to flow just like we talked about, you got a positive on one side and a negative on the other side and they’re racing around the copper wire 100 degree 180 degrees in infinity you know back into back into back into continuously and you know and if there’s a problem, you know, it needs to be able to trip the breaker grounding and bonding equipment must be adequately connected and located where it will not undergo damage. That means the the ground does not get disconnected. Just like we talked about alternative paths to ground. Good electrical continuity in the contact surfaces is a must. My name is George I’m with Argo electrical services. I am a surge protector guy. You can find me on the web at Argo electrical.com Thank You”,

    The post 12 Keys to Understanding Grounding and Bonding Gainesville first appeared on Argo Electrical Services.

    7 min

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