How to Perform an Electrical Inspection According to the InterNACHI® SOP

according to the internet she home inspection standards of practice the home inspector shall inspect the service drop the overhead service conductors and attachment point the service head gooseneck and drip loops the service mast service conduit and Raceway the electric meter and its base service entrance conductors the main disconnect panel boards circuit breakers and fuses surface grounding and bonding a representative number of switches light fixtures and receptacles including receptacles observed and deemed to be arc fault circuit interrupter protected using the AFC I test button where possible all ground fault circuit interrupter receptacles and circuit breakers observed and deemed to be GFCIs using a GFCI tester where possible and for the presence of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors the home inspector shall describe the main service disconnects amperage rating if labeled and the type of wiring observed the home inspector shall report is in need of correction deficiencies in the integrity of the service entrance conductors insulation drip loop and vertical clearances from grade and roofs any unused circuit breaker panel openings that were not filled the presence of solid conductor aluminum branch circuit wiring any tested receptacle in which power was not present polarity was incorrect the cover was not in place the GFCI devices were not properly installed or didn't operate properly and other problems related to the electrical receptacles and the absence of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors now we're gonna look at three point seven which is the electrical system it starts with your service so on this house we have an underground service it's actually marked right there because they had somebody marked the yard first thing we want to do is pull on our meter tag if it comes apart or if it's cut we want to write that up as a defect you can tell somebody's painted one or not the other makes me think at some point this has been replaced looking our nipple there we have wire and run looks like over to the garage in conduit just want to make sure that's always in conduit open this up we want to make sure we're not too high above the ground now looking at this looks to me like we're missing some of our legend one to kind of mismatched so I would write this up one if missing a dead front cover screw missing or not labeled completely now remember we wanted to look at the air conditioner see what our data tag was to see if we had the right breaker 25 amp that was rated for 20 to 40 so we're okay now standards are practice we are not required to open a dead front cover but we are allowed to open a dead front cover so typically this is how we're gonna tell what our service wires are what are 120 wires are and what are 240 wires are so if it is safe and you are comfortable it is always best to open up the dead front cover there are a few states and jurisdictions that do not allow home inspectors to do this however so you need to check with your local jurisdiction and your standard to practice for your state remember safety is always priority there's more items than electrical panel to report on than anywhere else in the house but it also can be very dangerous if you're not careful now normally we put on gloves and we're shields for the video that doesn't work so well so today we're not doing that but just to understand you do want to wear your protection equipment if I put it on it's really hard to hear me talk things like that so we open up the panel first thing we're gonna do is take some pictures now typically we wouldn't see this by an electrician this extra insulation we are required to have at least a quarter inch so this is not a technical defect but it just tells me we've had people in here that probably weren't an electrician we're gonna look what are our service wires they're aluminum what are 120s well I'm seeing a lot of aluminum 120s there now when we point I either use my plastic stylus or a lot of times we will also have a plastic pen so if I'm gonna show my clients a problem I'm gonna point to it like this don't use a screwdriver you shouldn't get in the habit of using your finger if you do stay a long ways away but a pen works really good so I guess a most electricians wouldn't leave this much insulation we're using what's called fuse neutrals we have a bunch of neutral wires under one screw most panels do not allow that after 1996 now this is the 1971 house so it was acceptable but that area is prone to bad connections so a lot of times we'll see scorch melted wiring when they do that here's our grounding and neutral busbar because it's the main panel here is our bonding strap so we want to look and make sure our busbar on a main panel is bonded to the case then we're gonna go down and look at our breakers to our wire sizes correlate to the breakers on these they do 30 amp 10 gauge here we have that's copper on this one that's a 14 gauge so it's a 15 now you'll notice these wires look really big when you're using aluminum wiring we have to upsize one so a 20 amp uses the 10 gauge wire a 15 amp would use a 12 gauge unlike copper which would be 12 and 14 so we want to look make sure all the breaker sizes are correct for the wiring then we're gonna come over here look do the same thing on this side now these are 15 so these are 12 gauge because they're aluminum 10 gauge 25 that's okay this is another copper wire so it's 15 and 14 that's okay and up here 50 for the range that's okay so we have aluminum service wires we have copper and aluminum for our 240s and we have copper and aluminum for our 120s so that goes in your report now whenever we see aluminum wire not are 120 circuits you do want to call it out for further evaluation by a licensed electrician we have had a lot of problems with aluminum wiring so now they typically they recommend replacing the wire or redoing all the terminals with either copper and currents or lumic ons so they also usually recommend putting antioxidant which I don't see any here now code does not require any accident it allows you to do it but a lot of jurisdictions require antioxidant so we write it up when we do not see it on our connections so we've looked at our wires we look at our bus bar we looked at our service lugs now we're gonna look at the shell itself do we have wire bushings are we missing knockouts newer electrical is now required to bond this nipple here so on a newer service we would expect to see a ground wire coming out of here as we're looking here on this age we have one ground looking to see if we have a driven rod here it is right down here goes underground so we can't see it but it's going through that conduit now a lot of times we will have a water ground so newer construction will have two ground wires coming out one typically goes to either a ground rod or you fer the other will go to the cold water line when we pull off the screws we want to make sure there are a flat tip screws if that screw hits a wire like right here we want it to push that wire not poke it if it's a pointed screw it can pierce it and actually short that wire out so now when we're done here I would document what breakers are off they have the AC breaker off they have this breaker up but it's not being used so there are a few openings we would take another pitch and then we would put the dead front cover back on now remember standards of practice we are not required to remove the dead front cover like I say some jurisdictions do not allow it when you can and when it's safe it's a good idea because that's where we're going to see a lot of problems now we keep extra screws in our bag just for that reason if you drop one and you lose it you want to be able to you know make it right I don't replace missing screws as a habit I write them up as missing but I do keep some extras that I buy at the hardware store that are the right screws for the right panel in my bag now the panel is old enough we don't have any arc fault breakers we also don't have any ground fault breakers which would lead me to hope that we have GFCI outlets in the bathrooms and kitchens at the wet areas now we did feed a sub panel which I don't see where it's labeled on here and like I say they're not labeled completely but that sub panel was probably for the basements I saw was in the basement so we may have our faults down there I would take another picture that shows everything is exactly how I found it now that initial picture is great because if you accidentally turn something off you've already taken a picture before you touch this so you know which breakers were where so then you want to close the rain cover and to those of you that aren't in Colorado New Mexico Arizona or Nevada it is very odd to see an electrical panel outside because of our lack of humidity most of our panels are outside but most places around the country you're not going to see the panel live outside like this that's kind of a unique thing for us here that's wrapping up the electrical panel now we'll move into the inside of the house okay we just came for the main panel I like to do all my panels at the same size so when we did our initial walkthrough we noticed that there was a sub panel downstairs in the mechanical room laundry so we talked about this briefly first thing we want to look for his legend okay we do have a legend we have our screws on this one we do have an arc fault breakers that we can test but it's a GE panel we've had good luck with GES so again you're not required to pull this off but it's a good idea you'll notice I brushed it like this to begin with that way if it was hot or had a problem your hands would go like this it would be stuck would be like this so since we're gonna take this sub panel apart and now understand we call it a sub panel but electrical codes called them all distribution panels there is no such thing as a sub panel thing is if you call it a distribution panel most of your clients won't know what you're talking about so we're gonna take off the dead front notice I'm standing in front of the panel we're supposed to have three foot clearance basically floor to ceiling in front of any panel and that's for safety if I'm having to reach over something it's not safe for me to take off the dead front cover so then I definitely would not be taking it off so we have our proper clearances in front we've already checked it so now we're gonna take apart our our dead front and like I say make sure your jurisdiction allows it some states some some SOPs do not but for the rest of us most of us are allowed to take up dead front covers now we never want any wood contact so we want to make sure yes it does come out all the way so somebody just frame this out because there's not a lot of space here so this is the sub panel and it's in the house which means it's attached so therefore we have to have a four wire system so we have a hot a hot a neutral and a separate ground because that is a 10-gauge ground now new standards we cannot have over a 30 amp breaker we're no longer allowed to over fuse our ground where's we should also have an isolated non bonded neutral so it can't be connected to the case and then we have to have a ground that is connected to the case so we have our grounding busbar we have our neutral busbar we have our main lugs so we have a 240 circuit 10 gauge so we had a 30 amp breaker upstairs feeding this looks like we might have an over fuse let's look at that no we don't so it's just a different age wire this wire is a little thicker than this insulation but they're both 12 amp breakers over here we have our arc fault 15 amp circuit we have a 20 and a 15 here so our breaker size correlates with the wire we don't have any extra knockouts we have our wire bushings we have at least a quarter inch of insulation on those this style here with that bushing they terminate right there you can actually see it right there if this was a main panel or it was a detached structure that they wanted to use its own grounding system right here it says bond there would be a green screw right there some of the times the panel is shipped with that green screw and it has to be removed so you always want to look for that Bond's group and with a sub panel it you typically shouldn't be there on a main panel it should so now we're gonna put the panel back together put the dead front cover back on okay you want to make sure you put everything back together be safe and remember like I said we not wearing the safety goggles on that today because of the voice but normally you want to wear your face protection all of that kind of stuff to be safe so you want to put your screws in and remember just like the main panel we want flat tip screws so now we're putting the sub panel back together now once this is together then we'll have to check a representative number of outlets will after check our smoke detector locations our carbon monoxide detectors and our lighting systems again took another pitch so that everything's exactly where it was we have everything back together and so now we're done with our panels and we'll start going our interior electrical right over here in the storage room we see a missing junction box cover basement storage rooms garage a lot of times you'll see where people added things and those are definitely areas along with the Attic that you want to look for missing junction box covers things like that for interior electrical we're required to test a representative number of outlets we turn all the lights on us for coming to we'll know it like this where there's a ball burnt out because it could be a bad fixture also not just a bulb so if there's something not working we want to know it but I like to test every outlet that we can easily get it like over here I'm not gonna plot unplug a TV I'm not gonna unplug a computer things like that there's two types of testers you know this was $10 this one's a little bit more if we're doing newer construction a lot of times we'll just use this one but if we're using a house this house has aluminum wiring so I like to get this out if we're doing an older house if we're doing a flip especially because there's a lot of false ground things like that that this will find that this won't now we do use this to trip our GFCIs it's just a little faster than this so we'll just come we'll plug in that tells me that circuits good now the basement on this house doesn't have aluminum but when we get to aluminum wiring we'll check our voltages and our voltage drops at 15 amps because if I have a bad connection with aluminum it'll show up with this with this here it won't it'll just show up like this so we just go around like I say I test all the ones we can get it you're only required to do a representative if you're gonna do that I would suggest you do at least one in each bedroom or at least room these air work type things some of them have the oil on it I would never unplug one to test it because if you spill up that oil or that wax leaks all over so they tested good now the other thing you want to look at is location of the outlets typically we don't want to have any place that we have to have more than a 6-foot cord so if it's a newer construction we should have quite a few outlets older houses a lot of times we'd only have a couple outlets in each bedroom so now this one I'm not gonna move the couch to get it and in here I'm not unplugging their things but we have one right here we can test we are gonna run the ceiling fans as part of the electrical lighting system so if they vibrate we're gonna call it out things like that that's a little bit of a librarian I'd put it in the report it's not too bad though actually it's settled down it's probably just because I moved it by pulling on it now coming into the bathroom we are supposed to check all GFCIs so I like to trip them with a quick tester it's just much easier just check it it reset just fine fan light came on sounds like we have a bluetooth fan so we'll turn that one back off so we don't turn on anybody's stuff but so just check that and the rest of the outlets in here our haps things plugged in there just not easily accessible okay now depending on the age of the house you know the house may or may not have GFCIs when I look at these outlets these are new outlets so they should all be GFCI protected because of the kitchen however if you have a 1970s house with original outlets they may not be GFCI so we'll check these reset just fine we'll check this one over here current standards are every out in the kitchen should be GFCI which would be even like these down here you're not required to take out outlook and switch cover plates however if they're off you want to put it in the report and it's actually a good time to look and see what's been done to the wiring these were off when we got to the house so I could look in here remember the upstairs of this house has aluminum wiring so as I'm looking right here this device says this switch is rated for Co ALR which means it's an aluminum rated light switch they also make outlets that are aluminum rated now if we look inside here we see these purple connectors those are called a luma cons they are endorsed by the compete Consumer Product Safety Commission for aluminum wiring these red wire nuts are now no longer endorsed prior to 86 they were but so my report would say the red wire nuts that were used to pigtail aluminum wiring did not appear to be currently rated for useful aluminum wire now it's on the ground circuit you will see that quite often because he's a luma cons and complem crimps are expensive the wiring outs are pretty cheap since the ground doesn't carry current a lot of electricians will put just wire nuts in the ground circuit now down here we have the same thing and if I look it says Co ALR so that outlet is rated for aluminum wiring if I looked and I had aluminum to it and it was not rated for it said copper only I put a note in my report that the outlets and light switches did not appear to be rated for useful aluminum wire normally we talked about this outside of the panel when we have a little bit of wiring we want to see anti-oxidant however when we have the seal ALR because of the base metal they use right here when current has run through it it off gasses and you're not required to use dielectric antioxidant grease on the connectors when you have a co ALR all letter switch and like I say remember you're not required to take off cover plate but if they're missing you do want to put it in the report okay again I like to check outlets and every accessible outlet in the room but when they have things like this plugged in that will make a big mess you spill it so I typically will not test this one or if I do I'll just test the other one like that one now that light switches upside down what that tells me is this top section is on a switch so it's a switched outlet the age of the house that wasn't what was normally done so somebody's changed that again plugged in here so I wouldn't test those both of the bedrooms did not have any accessible outlets they had everything plugged into him but the bathroom we can check the GFCI again so it's wired correctly it trips and a reset fan comes on so we've checked our electrical here smoke seal and a seal so they've actually done more than they need here we could have just got by with this it's great though to see more and in the bedrooms we have our smoke detectors we are required to check for the presence of smoke detectors and carbon dioxide detectors that's part of our electric inspection and as you look in here all we can really test is the light switch because there's just so much stuff we can't get it at any of the outlets so my report would say several of the outlets were not accessible due to the occupants belongings and that's where your original pictures would show in because I said well you didn't you know and he had a bad outlet in the bedroom it's like yeah look at this I can't see anything in the bedroom so that's where your pictures make a big difference and then again that room was locked so we can't go in there okay so we have completed the electrical inspection for the house now this house did not have a fireplace so we do not have a 3.8 section so three-point-nine is attic ventilation roof cavity basically so that's where we're gonna go to next [Music] you [Music]

Channel: International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI)

Views: 39,204

Rating: 4.865922 out of 5

Keywords: International association of certified home inspectors, InterNACHI, NACHI, become a home inspector, home inspection training, home inspection education, gromicko

Id: zq-xgQ1u_9Q

Length: 24min 20sec (1460 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 20 2019