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g/electrical • Posted by u/sparky420 •

Poll: what do you actually torque to spec on a resi panel change? Discussion

110.14(D) says calibrated tool, manufacturer's spec, no wiggle room. Curious how many of us are actually doing it on every resi panel versus doing it on commercial and eyeballing the house work.

No judgment in the poll results, I am genuinely curious where the field is on this. Comments for the reasoning.

📊 Poll

Everything, with a calibrated driver, every time 40% · 21 votes
Lugs and main only, rest by feel 33% · 17 votes
Only when the inspector is standing there 15% · 8 votes
I do not own a torque screwdriver 12% · 6 votes
52 total votes
💬 5 replies

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u/nec_nerd •

The reason this is worth taking seriously: the failure mode is not immediate. An under-torqued lug works fine for three years and then the connection oxidizes, resistance climbs, and it heats. By then you are long gone and the fire investigator is looking at your permit.

A Wiha torque driver is under a hundred dollars. There is no argument here.

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u/breaker_bob •

Thirty years at the utility and we torqued everything, logged everything, and re-torqued on a schedule. Then I went into contracting and discovered that is not how the rest of the industry operates. It was genuinely a shock.

The trades did not get worse. The utility side just has an accountant who can put a number on an outage.

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u/panel_pete •

Voted "everything". What changed my mind was buying the driver and discovering how badly calibrated my hands were. I was consistently over-torquing the small stuff and under-torquing the lugs. Both are failures. The small terminals were getting crushed and I never knew.

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u/ev_charger_eli •

Voted lugs and main. Being honest about it. I torque everything on EVSE work because those are continuous loads that run for hours and I have seen what a warm 50A lug looks like, but on a general lighting circuit I still set the small terminals by feel. Reading this thread I am not sure I have a good reason for the distinction.

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u/admin_jake ADMIN •

You do not, but appreciate you saying it out loud. That is the actual answer for most of us. The continuous-load stuff feels like it matters more so it gets the tool, and everything else gets the habit we learned from whoever trained us.

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