Any electricians in the house?

I spent about a dozen years in HVAC/R part of which was in Spokane, most of which was with a Lennox dealer in Coeur d Alene. Frankly, I've seen almost as many problems with "licensed" electricians as homeowners. At least in Idaho, "a big thing" for electrical contractors is to hire guys in apprentiship programs, and then (illegally) send them out alone once they have a minimal experience to do "simple" jobs. Bear in mind that sometimes, these guys are supposed to be UNDER SUPERVISION of a qualified more senior electricial

I still remember when the local Chev dealer was doing some remodel of an office space. We had roughed in a new A/C unit, with condensing unit on roof, and also installed a (then these were new) "mini split" unit for a small closet room destined to be for computers.

I had gotten back from a call to our office. The boss directed me to "run down" to this dealership as "the electricians had some question." I don't remember why, but I left my service van at the shop and instead took the shop pickup. I get down to the dealer, here is the situation:

The remodel area was a very small flat roof part of the dealer with a quite low roof, around in back. The electricians had a pickup there, with a camper shell, and NO LADDER. They had backed the pickup under the overhang, and were getting up on the tailgate, then the shell, and then boosting themselves up to the roof, which was at that point about ?? waist or chest high. So that's the FIRST "unprofessional" glitch

But I thought, "well hell" and got up there. The A/C was a compact condenser, and of course so is the mini split and his "question" goes like this:

"Code requires that the disconnect be mounted to the unit and there's no room on it."

I said, "NO, code does NOT require that the disconnect be mounted ON the unit, and if you do, and you damage something, you will be paying for that. Code requires that the disconnect be within sight of and within 50 ft of the unit" (as I recall).

"Well what are we supposed to do". I told them "I don't care if you have to built some sort of stantion or bracket mounted to the roof to put them on, that is your responsibility."

So some days later, I went down to do the startup, and here is what I found.

Yes, there was a shop made stand mounted to the roof, so far so good. Disconnects, and weathertight conduit over to the units, FINE.

But the bracket was so small that getting the door open on one disconnect was difficult (clearance violation), They had lost the dedicated green ground screw on one or both boxes (violation), the green ground was under a mounting screw (violation) and the green ground wire was wrapped BACKWARDS around the "grounding" screw (violation)

On a good note, that outfit later either went out of business, or moved out of town.