Following up to this question.
The fire sprinkler rooms get their electricity from building's end-units. There're subpanels in each room. We are told that main panels in the end-units have a "master" breaker controlling the feed into subpanels.
As stated before, variations are wild: from 4 breakers (double-Main, Alarm, Light, Heater) to just 2 (Alarm, Heater).
Some breakers are "fixed" with contraptions, effectively preventing them from tripping! ??
First question: Does this configuration make sense? I.e. if the main panel's "master" breaker is 20A and subpanel's Double-Main is 100A, what's the point of the 2nd one? Also, this allows the owner of the end-unit to shut off power to the fire sprinkler room. Switching to battery backups should be reported to monitoring company, and will result in somebody showing up to investigate, but still..
Bigger question: There are no electrical meters installed in the rooms. Components that I was able to identify:
• Fire Lite MS-4 Control Panel - 280W,
• Keltron RF774F Wireless Transceiver - 40W,
• Haut 42504 303 03 Heater - 1500W.
Just based on that (leaving out other unknown boxes), maximum total consumption is:
(280 + 40 + 1500 == 1820 W) * 24 hrs/day * 30 days/month == 1310 kWh / month
That is quite a lot. Heaters should not operate 24x7. But even 10% of that is comparable to unit's usage.
Is it possible to install meters between main panels and subpanels, to know precisely how much electricity each room used? How hard is that? Who besides electrical utility and fire monitoring company has to be involved?
Are there any alternatives?