They are very common in commercial and industrial buildings.
George I am familiar with Lock outs , I work on switch gear and stand by generators for 23 years . I never seen that particular style . I do not see any reason to make a fuss about it however when someone ask a question . Take care have a good one .
Wayne,
I agree that there is no reason to make a fuss or belittle anyone for asking a question. I rarely post anything on this board because no matter what, it is an invitation to be attacked. In fact, I posted my comment that they are common in commercial buildings and almost immediately deleted it. I am responding only because you commented on my post.
There are many styles of breaker locks. I would not expect a home inspector to be familiar with them because they are not common in single family residences.
Frank Blas, or any other InterNACHI member, can contact me at any time with electrical questions. I will do my best to try to help. Those who know me personally already know that. I get calls and emails all the time with electrical questions. All too often, fellow inspectors tell me that they don’t feel comfortable posting questions on message boards. That is sad.
George you are great it is a shame when we some times do not post because of the attacks .
The board looks to me like a lot of great inspectors seldom post because of this.
I get frequent letters from others wanting info and do not want to ask on the forum.
Thank Geroge
But they are required in residential.
You don’t like anyone making a fuss, because it’s not your house that is being inspected…
They may be required. If the appliances are cord and plug connected the breaker locks are not needed. If the WH s not within sight of the panel a breaker lock or a local disconnect could be used.
Around here we typically only see them on electric ranges in new kitchens or in newer homes.
Do they not allow the cord as the disconnect or are they being hard wired?
IMO, the need for these in residential is overkill. The appliances rarely fail or require service, but when they do someone will know not to turn the breaker on.
Some wall style ovens come with pre-wired tails and cannot be cord and plug connected. For those we’ll see the breaker lockout, just about everything else is cord and plug so no lockout required.
What does “Your Opinion” have to do with anything?
IMO, all Inspectors should know what a lock out is, and where it is required. Not that you think it is a good idea or not…
How difficult is this?
You don’t even have to take the cover off…
But then you must know and report how dangerous Stab-Loc and Zinsco is…
I guess I should take all this back, because there isn’t a NACHI Cartoon for a lockout. Heaven knows you can’t be expected to know something you have to read about it.
Now, you wouldn’t be referring to a Logo, would you? :|__)
A breaker lock in residential is like walking around with a parachute on everyday when you only fly once every ten years. It may be required but it might be used once, if ever. Commercial is a different animal.
That’s right but Again, what is your point?
I’m talking about being able to identify the thing nine times out of ten…
I wonder how many could recognize an elevator if one was discovered in a residence, as they are generally commercial applications?
Hi, first time poster but long time reader.
First off bit off topic but I do a lot of inspecting of homes for insurance companies and not for profits for grants on helping some of the hardest hit neighborhoods rebuilding themselves. A lot of my work is general, seeing code, health and safety violations, writing up a scope of work and putting it out to bid. I’m not going to get every violation as my job is not to do full inspection, but for the most part i’m pretty spot on.
Which brings me to my point, We all know there are a lot of different codes, ways to do things and “creative” ways people have gotten things to work. We all have questions in regards to how we interpret these things. We all know there are a lot of poor inspectors out there. So personally I find attacking this guy for not knowing to be the wrong move.
We should be embracing people who come here to ask questions, even if they are scare or an inspector should know because i’d rather him ask that question here than be too afraid of getting lambasted by the community for asking it and just ignoring what he saw. 50 dumb questions here is 50 mistakes out in the field avoided or fixed. All to often we see things that scare us as inspectors, and thats just what we see, now imagine the things that are dangerous but not as noticeable to the average inspector, he’s unsure of the right answer but won’t post here because he doesn’t want to be called out as dumb or an undertrained inspector.
So personally I think we should be embracing that people come here and ask questions, even if some people dislike that the person doesn’t know them because as a community our job should be to train people to be better inspectors so less mistakes get missed out in the field. I read these forums pretty often, and a lot of the time the question the person is asking about a picture is a legit question but i’m concerned about 3-4 other things I see in the picture also. I think we need to work together more to make people feel welcome to ask more questions here so that the people that have more experience and knowledge on situations can pass that down to the ones that don’t and we can get better inspectors out in the field.
Thank you and I look forward to posting more.
I agree with George!
This profession like all others is a learning process. Some of us know more than others but none of us has all (as in 100%) of the answers. If we all knew everything then there would be no need for this forum.
The OP most likely suspected what it was but just wanted to be sure by getting an input from more experienced individuals.