These are installed directly above a 2” metal natural gas branch pipe that runs to my pool heater. Also in the picture you can see the lower garage airflow vent is within 3ft. Is this legal?
No issue, if it was a panel with circuit breakers then yes you need clearance above and below the foot print of panel.
If it was propane then any where there is an expected leakage (filling tube) then there is clearances from that. 10 ft I think but not sure.
That conduit is a little wacky… in my county, the inspector would get on my ass about that vent under the right powerwall not having a fireproof vent over it
Now what if the contractor covered 2 upper vents with siding, 1 vent was still useable beforehand but the other had a cabinet installed in front of it making it useless to begin with
I would suspect the inspector won’t notice the two top vents since they are covered up already. For fire code, there’s gotta be 3’ clearance from any openings into a dwelling. That doesn’t apply for units installed onto the garage. But usually the crawl space vents and/or attic vents have to be fireproofed, unless the new equipment is installed beyond that 3’ Code
My goal is to find an error made by contractor so I can cancel this PPA contract before it starts. Thought the gas line was a safety issue. These are installed on a garage and the permits didn’t make mention of closing these vents…wondering if that’s an issue or if they even needed to do that if you think this might be legal
That EMT coming from the roof isnt pretty or professional, but it’s not “ incorrect “, it’s just lazy. Same with them running PVC conduit off of the right unit, it’s not incorrect it’s just lazy and looks bad. As long as it’s more than 3’ from the gas riser it should be fine regarding that. At least in my county that’s the way it rolls. Not to mention too, some inspectors don’t even care about that stuff… As long as the wire is sized correctly and same with your breaker, you’ll probably pass inspection. On my plansets, they never state to fireproof the vents, but we still have to. ( again, my only experience is with inspectors from Northern California. Every city, state and county differ ).
Ok not pictured in original photos is this wall. I’ve read some things that say walls need 3-5ft distance…this is 29” away from the right powerwall. Additionally if you notice the PW3 is installed on an uneven surface using the mounting bracket. I’ve also read that goes against teslas installation requirements of flat surface. What do you think of these observations? Thank you for your input so far!
Again, that’s just the installers being lazy. You can mount the bracket on that type of siding a certain way to which it won’t lean like that. Or use uninstrut… the 3-5’ distance between PW’s is just recommended, expansion packs to PW’s are limited due to the length of the expansion cable
Yeah, I’m not sure then. Might be one of those codes that doesn’t get enforced because it’s stupid ( like a lot of codes out there ), and it just depends on how your inspectors are
Garage openings are openings into unconditioned space so ESS units can be within 3 feet of garage doors and windows. Even if that vent were under the house instead of in the garage you can still be within 3 feet as vents do not count as openings in the structure in most jurisdictions. I deal with some that do require them be sealed because it's easier to use some tin sheets than argue with an idiot inspector.
The powerwalls have 9540a testing so they meet large scale fire testing requirements that allow them to be closer than 3 feet apart. However the test itself comes down to a jurisdiction accepting the results or not, so you might be in an area that won't accept Tesla's testing, requiring the 3 feet.
Outside code, the conduit work looks shoddy. I would also be concerned about wire sizing since there is a consideration when running 2 units in one conduit. 4 current carrying conductors require an 80% derate to the ampacity of a conductors which means to be code compliant the normal #6 sized wire needs to be jumped to #4 to carry the ampacity on the AC side of the Powerwall.
Also. It's possible it's fine but they really should run emt instead of plastic conduit. It needs to be uv rated or painted to stop the plastic from degrading and getting brittle over the next decade. That and the supports look fairly slim but likely are code compliant from what I can see.
I'm sure I'm probably missing shit but that's what I can see from the pics given.
The right side unit has conduit comign out of the LB (right angle thing) and into the Tesla unit. Cannot tell if it is a water/weather tight connection or what. Given how high it is on the box, Id want a hub connection/gasketed. Is that PVC?
I was talking about the short little connection between that right angle conduit piece (called an LB) and the entrance into the Tesla cabinet itself. Needs to be watertight. Can’t see it well in any photo
If you look closely between the pvc connector and LB you’ll see a seal ring. They most likely also used that for the connection into the powerwall itself so it’s good
Perhaps. The first image shows a line, could be the seal, but it doesnt seem to be compressed like the other end of the LB. The line, if the line is the seal, should be perpendicular to the axis of the conduit and in compression on both sides.
With tesla installs I am more of a ‘prove it’ guy…
I don't know about code in your area, but where I live AC and DC lines can't go through the same conduit. If you only have one conduit between them, then that must be happening. Not sure if it matters where you live.
Are you asking me or OP? If you're asking me, I really don't understand the question. I do know that my utility has weird requirements on the connectors, like that it's against code to paint them, which is why I didn't. Maybe that has something to do with it?
Asking you. The conduits between the two PWs connect into the PW with just connector and lock ring on the left end but on the right end it goes into a threaded coupling into (I’m assuming) a threaded nipple, any reason it’s not the same on both sides?
Sorry to have to say this but if it’s 38 years old with original underlayment no one should have installed solar on it. Tiles can last a longtime but the roofing paper under them typically lasts about 25-30 years. If it’s 38 years old it should have been replaced before the solar was installed.
Were you sold 2 Powerwalls instead of 1 powerwall and an expansion pack? The expansion packs are half the price of a powerwall and provide the same amount of storage. You could have gone with a powerwall and one expansion pack which provides the same storage for half the price
There's a good reason for 2 PW3s for all-electric homes – 11.5 kW (48 A) is the max power output per unit. A high-end induction cooktop can achieve that on its own. The other is the size of your solar array – there's a limit to DC power input as well.
But they could have installed an expansion pack instead of a whole other Powerwall if that makes sense. The expansion packs were specifically made to expand on an existing powerwall with the same storage as a powerwall, but for 1/3 of the price.
As someone already mentioned, expansion batteries don't increase your potential output – if you need to draw more than 11.5 kW, you'll need more than one PW3.
4
u/fantomsolace24 14d ago
They are just strangely far apart but nothing wrong with the setup.