Here’s a full picture of the inside of the box with the monitor installed.
1 Like
Well, it all looks fine.
Only thing I can imagine is that either the outdoor unit isn’t kicking on (full) when you are expecting it.
AC1 is outdoor and AC2 is indoor air handler, or something like that?
Without opening the panel and putting a clamp meter on the known AC 1/2 wires I can’t think of a quick sure-fire wire to verify other than correlating the Sense signals (or power meter realtime) with the utility meter … but that’s a tricky proposition.
1 Like
I do not believe that you have clamped the mains. I think you have clamped the feed running to the sub panel (indoor).
The service disconnect per the label is the 150 amp in the middle. Its a little hard to tell from the photo, but I think the 4 black wires on the right side of that go back underneath the bus bar into the meter side of the panel. Then the red / black at the bottom feed indoors.
The fact that you don’t see your AC confirms that for me because if the red and black were indeed your main connection to the meter, then you would see the AC usage.
Also, I’m not sure how a disconnect in the middle of a bus bar would even work if the mains were coming in from the bottom of the bar.
2 Likes
I tend to agree … though the feed wires look out-sized compared to the “main disconnect” … but I guess with the short hop to the meter that might be expected.
You probably, @jjknudsen, are looking at having to put the clamps in the meter box itself.
1 Like
It looks like 4 x #4 from the disconnect underneath to the breaker. Agreed it feels odd, but otherwise nothing in that picture makes sense as to how the bottom feeds could be the mains with other breakers on the bus bar that aren’t protected by a disconnect.
OK, I think what y’all are saying makes sense. I’m guessing I’m not even allowed in the meter given that it’s locked out (tagged out?). I get electricity through my city, does anyone know if cities are amenable to this kind of installation?
If I can’t move inside the meter, I guess I’ll just bring the device inside to my main panel.
Indeed @ben
People have had good experiences, it seems, with getting their utilities to allow a Sense to be clamped on the main right at the meter.
1 Like
BTW: What’s your indoor panel rated at?
I popped my pre-meter box off to put Sense CTs on the pre-meter mains. I think the city/utility would have a hard time making the case that I did something wrong.
1 Like
This is my indoor panel.
Your clamps are not far enough upstream. You are going to have to move them as your A/C is t powered by the indoor panel.
Where your clamps are now it’s only catching your indoors panel. You have several breakers in the outside panel that Sense is not monitoring.
Specifically A/C 1 and A/C 2 not monitored. A 20 and 30 double pole breakers
These would be your outside condenser/compressor units.
Here’s what things look like inside my Meter panel. My electrician drilled a small hole for the CT cables between the boxes.
@jjknudsen I am also in Utah. I installed my sense on the exterior, in that same panel, with the antenna pointed down through one of the holes. I haven’t had any problems in two years.
The 4 wires in the center are the feed from the panel, the two at the bottom you have clamped are the feed to the indoor subpanel.
My AC is on my subpanel, but I did have a single breaker to an exterior outlet in this main panel. I was able to fit the subpanel mains and the black wire from the other breaker in the CT clamp.
Any chance you can fit your 4 AC black wires in the clamps with the subpanel feed? You’d want to identify which ones are which leg. I believe it’s every other. So two will go in the clamp with the black wire, and two with the red wire (you may not have enough slack to stretch that far).
Hadn’t thought about the wires for the A/C’s running through the clamps. That could work (I’ll pop open the panel here in a bit).
I popped my Antenna out the bottom of the panel yesterday and it slightly improved my wifi signal. It’s bizarre though because it seems to go offline every morning for about an hour.
Excellent point and it looks like that could work in this case, just.
@jjknudsen, Would still try and do what @kevin1 and others have done if you can. You’re not tapping the electricity or otherwise interfering with anything the utility could be peeved about … inspectors are humans and they are more likely to be intrigued and want to buy a Sense themselves than be litigious.
I’m not an electrician so take my opinion with a grain of salt: From what I can see the outdoor metered feed is 150A not 200A so the 200A indoor panel (& feed) seems a little aggressive (i.e. oversized) … I think that’s why the big feed wires threw me vs the #4 meter-to-main-breaker wiring. Not that the setup could be seen as unsafe because the 4-gang breaker is 150A … and I guess the wiring for 150A and 200A to the indoor panel could be the same anyway. In theory I believe your indoor panel should even be de-rated below 150A due to the AC1+2 breaker load as well.
Ya, I hear what you’re saying. I just don’t want to hire an electrician and I’m not so sure about the consequences of cutting the tags myself. Where I’m at I get electricity directly from the city as opposed to some big power company. That seems it could work in my favor. There’s enough slack to run the A/C wires through the clamps so I’m going to try that today. If it works, I’ll probably stick with that. If not, I’ll call an electrician.
And I hear what you’re saying with the oversized panel. I’m in a brand new home and it seems that this is how they wire all the homes they’re building around me.
1 Like
So I ran the wires that came off the breakers through the clamps and now I’m getting readings for the A/C which is great news. I think I’ll stick with this configuration for a while as I consider how I can move the clamps onto the mains inside the meter.
I’ve gotta figure out how to boost my wifi signal outside though. Even with moving the antenna to run out the bottom of the box I still keep getting intermittent drops.
Thanks all for the help! Such an awesome community here!!!
2 Likes
