Appreciation post: That foreman who yelled at me for not torqueing面板 joints

Three years ago on a job in Phoenix, I was zipping through panel terminations on a 400 amp service. Foreman stopped me and made me torque every single breaker lug, took an extra 2 hours a panel. Has anyone else found that skipping the torque check on residential panels ends up causing nuisance breaker tripping down the line?

3 comments

3 Comments

xenam842d ago

My buddy Mike skipped torque checks on a panel once and came back the next week to find a breaker had melted itself halfway out of the bus bar. Cost him a whole weekend rewiring someone's garage.

evan_grant702d ago

Burned myself pretty good once rushing through a panel and not torquing the main lug (really smart move, I know). Took me like 15 minutes of holding a rag on my hand before I could even keep working. So yeah, torque checks are basically mandatory now unless I want to look like a half-burned idiot again.

jamesc792d ago

Ask Mike what exact torque setting melted that breaker? Was it under-torqued or did someone crank it way past spec?