Yesterday I was inspecting a home which has an unusual feeder to the A/C. What is happening is that the feed to the A/C runs directly off the meter box, as opposed to coming from a main or sub panel, through conduit to a 50 amp A/C service box. I did not pull the meter due to utility tamper wire so I can not verify how it is wired inside the meter box. FWIW the homeowner is preparing to sell and is having the inspection in preparation for sale - the A/C was added after the house was built and wired this way over tens years ago by an electrician.
230.72 Grouping of Disconnects.
(A) General. The two to six disconnects as permitted in 230.71 ***shall be *grouped. You can’t have a disconnect off by itself.
The A/C disconnect may not be “suitable for service equipment”.
BTW this is not a “feeder”. These are service conductors since there is no upstream protection
Thanks Greg - I remember this from a class I took last year but could not put my finger on it. The idea being that all electricity can be shut off from one location using fewer than 6 actions as opposed to running all over the house trying to find shut-offs. Am I getting this right?
Bruce
Yep. All 6 disconnects must be in the same area, preferably right next to each other and properly labeled.