Orangeburg: The Pipe That Won The War

Who needs a pandemic when you have a collapsed sewer line?

This strange saga is complicated and ran parallel with the global virus pandemic so it's been a month of juggling jobs and financial crisis.

It all started when the gas company decided to replace the 6 feet of branch line to my gas meter. Great. Thanks!

You might wonder why there is a pit full of raw sewage in the pit they dug for the gas line. Well, I will tell you why. When they dug the trench for the gas line they discovered my sewage line directly after my toilet was completely backed up with raw sewage. They knew this because there was a 3 inch hole in the top of the pipe through which they could see the sewage that had been building up for the year I've lived here. 

 The gas company discovered the hole and called the city public works to fix the hole...which they tried to accomplish by putting a hose of water in the pipe and pushing out the blockage. This only caused the pipe to overflow with shit into the hole dug for the gas pipe because 120 feet down the alley the sewer pipe had completely collapsed...and didn't exist for about 10 feet.

Conspicuously absent is the pipe that leads to the sewer line.

A separate project to replace the siding of the house...and uncovered 40 inch on/center studs??? and no insulation and lots of weeds and scorpions.

So, the sewer crew got busy vacuuming the pit of sewage....and accidentally tagged the gas line...RUPTURED THE HIGH PRESSURE GAS LINE...which immediately required a COMPLETE NEIGHBORHOOD EVACUATION.

This was extremely dicey because my gas line was being fed by a temporary tank so my pilot lights could stay on...while a gas leak a few feet from my house basically filled my house with gas...while the pilot lights were on. You see where I'm going with this?

new sewer cleanout 

But Oggy acted fast as the evacuation order was given and he shut off all the pilot lights and shut all the valves off. This was significant because there was only one window open in the house and it was filled with gas, and the stove and water heater pilot lights could easily have ignited the concentrated gas fumes in the kitchen.

additional pipe connected to orangeburg pipe by fernco clamp fittings

After the gas company sorted out the gas leak, they tried to fix the sewage that was now bubbling up from the alley. But they determined the sewage line is private and my responsibility so knocked on my door and walked away from a broken sewage line leaving me with no plumbing drain.

one day the whole place will look this clean

Everything with me turns out to be a crisis so this is no different. One day I have plumbing, the next day my neighborhood is evacuated and my sewage is bubbling up into the alley. But I feel this house will be like my van and throw problems at me only at the rate I can deal with them. All I need to do is enter a crisis mode that I perfected in El Conquistador for 10 years and attack the problem head on. Fortunately, I live in a town that is as lawless as myself because even though I technically needed permits to work in a right-of-way, I ignored all that and simply dug until I found some sound pipe and connected the rubber fernco to it.

the final product buried and protected by cones

The Reason I say Orangeburg pipe 'won the war' is because the iron usually reserved for sensible sewage pipe went to tank and bomb factories in 1942 and left engineers with the task of finding an alternative. I'm sure they had huge warning signs in the manufacturing literature that said Orangeburg pipe had a lifespan of 10 years...and under no circumstances should it be paved over or driven over or even buried by more than 4 inches of dirt. I mean, the connections use no adhesive. the couplings are simply pushed on. Why would that last?

But it lasted probably 70 years until a decision to asphalt the end of the alley doomed the pipe to collapse from weight. Otherwise, it would probably still work good.

Is Orangeburg as deadly as lead paint and asbestos? No. It had a short lifespan and people basically wait for a problem to fix it. I'm not sure why no one mentioned this terrible product to me when I was hunting for a house since this area is littered with ruined sewage systems, but I found out in 1 year that I had a sewage pipe that is doomed. I fixed it for the immediate future but I forsee myself digging a trench 170 ft long to replace all of it along with the water line that is in the same trench. The good news is that I will have new water supply and new gas supply and new sewer drainage at some point.

a horse harness on a mule. the pedestal sink was barely affixed to the wall and my solution left a gap that I filled with subway tile. It almost looks like I planned it out, but believe me when I say that blocking water from hitting the wall is not a big priority for me.

Drainage

Here's a project that got out of control. The whole concrete slab in front of the door sank backwards, so rain puddles in front of the door and seeps under the frame into the living room, where it destroys the shopping bag floor cover.

I pondered this issue and decided the best thing would be to destroy the whole slab and re-pour it with a slop toward the lawn and not the door. But that sounded like a big project that could force me into other problems. So Plan B was to cut a channel and dig down and put a french drain and then drill some holes or use lattice pavers so water could drain down to the french drain. But that involved digging a trench a foot below a channel in concrete...

Plan C came when I discovered PVC micro-channel drain for sidewalks or in front of garages. Hey, this might work. So, I cut the channel with a freakin' circular saw and masonry blade, which was tool abuse, but it worked to cut a 3 inch deep slice. Unfortunately, I needed a 5 inch deep cut, so I had more work drilling and hammering the channel open.

 

The weird thing is that when I had only the thin cuts in the concrete we had a rain storm and all the water drained down the thin channels. There was no pond in front of the door. Everything was dry on the other side of the cuts. I think the cuts were enough to solve the draining issue since water always had a lower way out to the lawn. But I was not convinced it would work for a huge rain so I broke out the channel and agonized over getting the channel drain to angle slightly toward the lawn. This was agony because the slab had was pitched badly the opposite direction. So, this created a big lip/drop down when I had the drain slopping toward the lawn. It's a tripping hazard, but I had no choice and envisioned a grate over the drain...or a door mat.

I suspected that when I finally started to cement this in place my errors would become clear and that's what happened. As soon as I had committed to mixing cement I started to visualize what was happening with the water. I was thinking correctly, that I want a sloped drain toward the lawn like a roof gutter, but this is not totally a good comparison. A roof gutter is not water-proof and will leak at seams with standing water. Only a slope minimizes the leaks and maximizes drainage. But a ground level channel drain is UNDERGROUND, so who cares if it leaks? Furthermore, the channel drain is 3-1/4'' deep. So, if the channel drain was dead level, or even sloped in the wrong direction then it will STILL DRAIN as long as the yard end of the drain is not over 3-1/4'' above the grade of the opposite end of the drain. See? The drain would have to fill completely with water, with 3-1/4'' of water for the pond to return. But if the drain was dead level with the slopping slab, even slopping in the opposite direction of the lawn, it will simply fill up with water to the level required to start draining toward the lawn, which was probably 2'' of water, which is still below the top of the channel drain, so I would never see ponding. The water will be captured in the drain until it starts to drain. So, I don't think I needed to agonize about the slope of the drain since standing water inside the drain is not a big deal. It will evaporate in the heat of the sun. But I did agonize over the drain slope as I tried to ensure complete drainage, and thus caused there to be a depression where the slab and the drain do not match.



I think my instincts to get the drain to slope in such a way that there will be no standing water was correct, but I wanted to show how this was not the only way to skin the cat. The difference in slopes between the slab and dead level and a drain slope caused the offset depression that becomes a tripping hazard and another problem to fix.
Again, the solution is to tear all the concrete out and compact the area and slope the new pour in the direction of the lawn, but I have none of that equipment and am trying to solve these problems with what I can assemble myself. I can't justify a $1000 solution to the drainage problem, but I can justify a $40 solution that creates a tiny depression that can be covered with pea gravel or a door mat or a metal grate or something that eliminates the depression but still allows water to reach the drain.

The lesson here is to simplify everything. I do believe sloped cuts in the slab would've solved the problem with minimal effort. Water would've drained down the cuts into the lawn and there would've been no tripping hazard. Hell, make 3 cuts. As long as lawn end of the cut is below the opposite end then water will drain down the cut. The slab remains mostly unchanged. The only cost is the masonry blade. Maybe the cut channel fills with debris and stops draining but that could be solved by making it wider so it can be swept clean.


This solution will work, but it was a little complicated and I'm trying to keep things simple since the house is neglected in general so that any little project can quickly become big if I dig too deep into the problem. Pouring a new slab might be a solution but consider what insanity that would involve as soon as I exposed the area beneath the wall. It leads on and on and the project balloons out of control. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel but I do want to make some attempt to solve major issues like water entering the front door. It's a fine line between doing nothing, doing something that almost works, and doing something that works but creates other problems and creates.
Here's a mathematical graph to represent this.

Valley Drainage

I can't help feeling that the only solution is to tear the garage down and start again. But that seems too extreme, so I tried again to solve the drainage issue of these ridiculously designed roofs. This is Before...my latest work, but after my attempt to cover the earth in asphalt. The roof still leaked with this much asphalt because it didn't drain and the pond slowly penetrated a few nail holes.

Step one was skipped, when I struggled to make a 20 foot long evenly sloping wedge. It involved more math than I care to admit because it goes from a 30 inch wide piece to an 8 inch wide, and each of the three pieces of the wedge had to be centered. It sucks experimenting with money I don't have for these projects but financial stress is the homeowner's default status.

I tried to salvage some of the paper but it was easier to simply cut it so I could put some tar paper, then some ice and water guard (expensive stuff), and the final cap layer of rolled roofing...which I did not affix with nails because that caused the problem to begin with. I used adhesive sealant.

End result, The wedge of OSB, then tar paper, then ice and water guard, then the rolled roofing slipped under neath the older roofing (that sounds easier than it is to do) Then I buttered the seams with adhesive and weighed it down with some stones and bricks that you see on the roof. I knew that once the adhesive cured then the seams would be water tight, but this is no the ideal procedure since it's a clusterfuck of messing with old roofing and working alone on a 20 ft length of rolled roofing. I couldn't manhandle the long rolls of roofing so I ended up with two seams that required real attention since they are the critical aspects. You can also see my butcher job on the neighbor's roof, since I'm doing a patch job and slipping roofing under old roofing that was too delicate to touch and trying to limit the amount of damage.

I feel the lesson of the roof project is still an issue of my attempt to save money by struggling against the grain. The neighbor's roof needed to be torn off to make it easier to build back up again properly, but I did not want to go to that extreme because that would really force me to rebuild my whole roof with a better pitch, rather than this ridiculous mild arch? And I didn't want to do that either. I just want a few years out of this garage before I get extreme so I'm trying to keep the work and material at a minimum since it could be considered throwing good money after bad.

Here's a photo...two different sink drains. The one of the left is the one attached to the roof vent. I don't know the story behind what happened but someone abandoned the drain on the left and attached the sink waste to the drain on the right...or maybe they added the drain on the right through two walls because the left one was plugged. Either way, they didn't provide any venting for the drain on the right. Way to go! So, there was a loud gurgling from both the kitchen sink and the bathroom sink when the water was running because, I gather, the suction was siphoning the water out of the P-trap. Great! So, my demolition revealed what I suspected: no vent. The water just goes directly down into the house drain (which is another mystery that will be investigated one day)  It was a classic case of plumbing 101. Either tie the drain to a vent or... I purchased a basic air admittance valve, and rebuilt the drain to include the AAV.

This might look easy, but the critical thing is to build it with a slight slope down from the P-trap to the final drain pipe. I managed to build it close to perfectly level and the old slip joint connections all dripped, so I have to rebuild them with new pieces instead of being cheap and using the old stuff. Fine. Whatever. I will say that the AAV fixed the gurgling sound. Actually, I don't know how the water drained at all except it siphoned all the water from both traps to create air above it so it could drain. Then I realized the drain that had the vent is basically a direct vent into my sink cabinet, which reeks. So I'll cap it off.

Domestic Futility

Domestic Tranquility Futility:
Home ownership is all-consuming. The problems can't be ignored so my life has recently leaned in the direction of servant to a house. I waited for the rain to show me the leaks and it showed me 4 leaks that I attacked with asphalt cement and fabric tape.

I also finished the laundry room project that involved finding some kind of pipe about 1 inch below the surface of my lawn. I didn't hit this one with a pickaxe because I suspected it was there. I have no idea what this pipe contains or if it is obsolete. I was sure it was cast iron but it changes into some kind of yellow plastic. (EDIT TO ADD: This is FLEXIBLE YELLOW GAS LINE. Most definitely active. buried 1 inch deep, connected to black pipe. They flexed it under the alley)

Very practical solution to avoid dealing with black pipe. Can be connected to black pipe with a transition adapter. BUT CONSIDER BURYING IT DEEPER THAN 1 INCH!

The garage door wasn't too complicated. A box rail, hangers, some finesse with a drill and then a basic frame to hold the corrugated metal. I need some ideas for painting something on the door because it reflects the sun into my face and blinds me to the point I think it could start a fire.

I'm trying to win the award for ugliest roof but there are some very ugly roofs in this neighborhood so I won't even get a ribbon for participation. But in the race for worst conceived roof, I stand a chance. My neighbor's roof pitches down into my roof, which is a very slight arch. They meet like two bull Elks fighting for mating rights over a harem. But there is no slope horizontally so the water puddles on top of the seam and drains onto my motorcycles underneath it. This is going to be very interesting to solve but I have an idea for something called a "Hog Valley" Now I can call it an asphalt cement valley because I covered it in asphalt patch. Believe me, when I was roofing the area I stood on to that this picture I knew that valley would be a problem, but if I even breathed hard on the neighbor's roof, the material tore in shreds. But the house was vacant so I didn't know what to do, spend money fixing a neighbor's house, or fix my roof the best I could and deal with problems when the house next door was purchased and I could talk to the owner.

The worst decision was connecting the two garage roofs into one seam. With no horizontal slope so the water doesn't drain fast enough. Such is life.

My plan to solve the drainage issue with the roof is to build a false, upraised valley on top of this valley using roof decking. Then cover that with tar paper. I plan to use trapezoidal cut pieces of decking that will create an artificial slope in the direction of the yard. It's too complicated to explain and I'm sure any experienced carpenter would advise against it, but my mission with this house is to learn the hard way and possibly create new solutions to old problems. I want to know why something failed. For instance, I learned that any exposed nail head, even if it was obviously nailed down, will probably leak if the roof was installed using zero asphalt cement on the overlapped seams. That's how my roof was installed and all the nails leak. The asphalt cement on the seams at least gives a chance to seal around the nails, but there's a blind nail method that's even better. None of those effective methods were used so they basically laid a roof down and nailed it down, which doesn't last at all. I only want to limp this roof along until I can pay for the metal roof that I will install to the top. That's all.

Clear day between late fall storms.

A view of the man cave, metal door, illegal electrical subpanel, utility sink draining to god knows where, etc. etc. One day there will be a plaque....Oggy Bleacher Worked Here.

Why Doesn't The Roof Ever Leak Over a Bathtub?

Hoarder's Paradise

Fucking hell, the rain was predicted but I could not finish the laundry room modernization of this garage before it hit and forced me to bring my toys off the lawn. Bummer. The garage roof leaks terribly but I knew it would. I didn't know the floor would channel it everywhere and create a mess. The house leaks badly too and not in places I can find....due to there being two roofs.

Continued Progress

It took a battle to get this far. Wooden shutters, old plastic interior shutters, trenches, gas line collisions, pex, washing machine, sharkbites, sub-panels....on and on. It reads like a keyword seminar for home improvement. 

Oggy elected not to jackhammer into the foundation of the house, which is actually a wall since the house is 2 feet below the dirt. So, the PVC comes out at a 45 degree angle. I put a rock there in case someone gets careless.

Yep, a wired back-fed main breaker. And some branch circuits. You electrical geeks will say, "Where is the required retaining clip on the back-fed breaker??? That's a code violation!" Well, those things are hard to come by in ghost towns, so clam down. I ordered one and it's on the way and I'll install it asap.

Light! And a dryer that works. The last stage is the water for the washing machine.

Here's some photos of where I have water and how I have to get it to the garage.

conveniently placed water line is out of sight down an alley.

Any reservations about working around gas lines?

Sub Panel Seminar

The problem with writing about residential electricity is that I have to include a disclaimer to the reader advising them to do nothing with the information I share.  So why write at all? Because it is an exploration of information as complicated as Tax law and twice as deadly. So, promise me you will do nothing with the information I am about to share. 

The basic info, if you don't have time to read further, is 1) if you are putting a basic sub panel immediately next to the primary circuit panel, then you can buy a 125A Main Lug load center. It doesn't matter if you only need 60 amps. Just get the 125 because it serves the same purpose. A Main Lug Load Center won't have its own main breaker and will only have a service disconnect on the primary panel of an amperage hopefully more than you plan on using in the panel but no more than 125A. Got it? 2) If you are putting a sub panel some distance away or out of sight of the primary panel, then buy a "125A Main Breaker Panel" which will include a double pole service disconnect for that panel specially designed for the top of the lugs of a panel. If it doesn't say "Main Breaker" then you are going to have to back feed the whole panel with your basic double pole 220V breaker if you desire (or code requires) a service disconnect in the panel itself. This is what I did because it's a few dollars cheaper, but the time spent in hunting down the right components is not worth it. If I had to do it again I'd just buy the basic 125 Main Breaker Panel because it's plug and play and requires no further research and assembling of components. 

Off the top of my head, I wanted a sub panel 30 feet from the main panel in a detached garage. I used 2'' grey conduit glued together and probably should've used rigid conduit buried about 18 inches deep and it's so obvious that I really pray no one in the future digs it up accidentally since I didn't put caution tape over it when I buried it. Bigger conduit is better in case someone wants to run larger wire for a hot tub or welder in the future. I used #6 black, red and white and a #10 ground. This went to a 125 amp main lug panel with a 60A breaker at the main panel and a 60Amp breaker back fed disconnect on the sub panel. I was required to hammer 2 TWO ground rods and run a ground wire to one and then the other, but I hammered only one ground rod. And the ground bar is not bonded to the panel since this is a subpanel.

Read on if you want more details.

Subpanels are as common as pigeons, but this last month I've really dug into them and still I did not truly get all the information I needed until I finally purchased nearly the correct panel.

It's a common issue: you have a detached garage that has no power. You want power in the detached garage, but not simply a single light or outlet, but multiple outlets, a dryer outlet, a washer, a car lift...etc. So you really want an additional circuit panel in the garage. That makes sense. So you decide how many circuits, what you will use, etc, and determine what size wire you will need, which will determine what size conduit you will need, and what size breaker to use to feed your additional breaker panel. But then you have meticulously customized your breaker panel in your mind and then go shopping and realize you have a choice of a 125A, a 150A or 200A. Well, wait, you only have a 100A main panel, so that would make no sense to have a subpanel that is larger than your main panel. It's not like you can buy a $20 bill with a $5 bill, right? You can't provide 200A, magically, from a 100A panel, so why purchase a 200A panel?
And that is just the beginning of an exploration of a simple, yet detail oriented topic. It's interesting, yet requires a binge of information that can really test your aging brain and make you pretty sure you have dementia, but not so sure that you want to see a neurologist. It will test you. The physical technique is pretty basic, but the research is intermediate.

The whole problem comes from overthinking the concept of panels. They do not come pre-packaged in a box customized for your needs. Nope. That would be too easy. I could probably make a living packaging sub-panels for someone's custom design. A big box store will carry few options for your project, but one of them will probably work.

Multi-space panels require an exclusive main disconnect when they are not adjacent to the main panel supplying them power. Code requires this and it makes sense if you are envisioning turning off power to a sub-panel by sprinting across a yard to the primary panel. A panel in a detached garage 30 feet from the main panel will require a main shut off switch. Right? But if you have customized on paper that you need 75Amps to run your treadmill and electric dryer and lights....then you will find that no such multi-panel exists. You have to build it from other panels. Or, I've learned, you simply buy a 100A main breaker panel and run wire from a 75A breaker in your main panel...and ignore the 25A discrepancy between the two items. You can't use more than 75 Amps, so who cares if the panel is rated for 100Amps? Your sub panel breaker will say 100A, but it's being fed by a 75A breaker in the main panel. That discrepancy bothered me at first, so I tried to figure out a way around it. I wanted a 75A sub panel with a 75A Main breaker that would MATCH the 75A branch circuit breaker in the main panel that feeds the sub panel circuit. Simple? No, it's not simple. Because no such '75Amp Main Breaker" panel exists that I know of. Manufacturers are not going to package panels for every customized demands customers come up with. The problem is a disconnect between the customer who is required to determine his needs...and the products offered, which will likely not correspond exactly to his needs.

Add to this quandary the issue of cost and value and Oggy's unemployment insurance being maxed out and cancelled, and you now have a classic home owner problem....how to get things to work, as cheaply as possible, but correctly and 'by the book'.

Fortunately, I have more time than money lately so I can learn about the details that I've only touched on in the past. I have learned that there are times when the numbers not matching is very bad. Right? We know instinctively that a 120V circuit should have 120V on it and not 440V. That's simple. Wire rated for 220V should not have 440V passing through it. 20A outlets should not have 50A equipment plugged into it. 

So if I have a sub-panel with 100A breaker that is being fed from a 75A breaker then my instinct is that I have done something wrong. I'm right to be cautious and to ask questions. My motto is that electrical work is very easy: either you know what to do or you do nothing. See? Easy. Studying electrical work is like diving into real estate law or tax evasion codes. It's insane. It's not easy. If it were easy then there would not be millions of products with specification pages running into the billions. The research, the learning, the book work, is extremely time consuming and requires focus and a scientific method. But the actual hands on work of basic residential electricity, once you know what to do, is in the range of the average home owner. So, how do you know what to do? How do you wade through the insane number of false leads and bad info, let alone the expensive code book? Time. You spend lots of time learning, following false leads, taking each step to a conclusion. And then making mistakes. See, you should never do anything unless you know what to do. But you will still make mistakes. How is this possible. You can't make a mistake if you knew what to do, right? If you made a mistake then you didn't know what to do. Ah, such is life. You don't know, until you know, and then it might be too late. But if it's not too late, then you move forward.

I hit a gas pipe with a pick axe the other day. It was buried 4'' deep in the middle of my lawn. I knew I'd have a surprise but nearly blowing up the neighborhood was bigger than I thought. I dented the pipe. But didn't rupture it. So I taped it up and moved on. What else could I do? I found out why they buried it 4'' deep when I tried to dig 18'' deep to put the conduit. The ground after 10'' is as hard as concrete and also filled with debris. They, whatever idiot buried this gas pipe, gave up at 4''. I gave up at 10''. Even if you had told me I had a gas pipe buried 4'' deep in my lawn I would've hit it with the first swing of the pick axe, which has a 5'' tip. Ponderous.

So, sometimes the numbers will not match, and you should investigate. Your wire is rated for 60A...but your welder requires 80A of current. Is this a allowable or not? Your sub panel has a main breaker of 100A, but it is fed from a 60A breaker in your main panel. Is this allowable or not? How about this....your sub panel has a 60A back-fed breaker coming from a 100A breaker on wire that is 12 gauge in conduit that is 2'' in diameter. Is this allowable or not?

See, it's a trade with specific details but one thing I've learned is that trying to make "everything match" is sometimes a path to problems, and sometimes a path to avoid problems. IN the case of a subpanel with a 100A main breaker, being fed by a 60A breaker in the main panel....that's actually fine. The 100A sub panel can't get more current than 60A, You can 'try' to access 100A due to some flawed hope that your 100A sub panel will provide it, but the 60A breaker in the main panel will trip. You can't get 100A through a 60A breaker, even if there is a 100A breaker between the 60A breaker and the appliances. More importantly, you won't be able to easily find a 60A main breaker panel because they aren't common, aren't pre-packaged, and have to be custom assembled by YOU. And you will be assembling the 60A sub panel with a 60A main disconnect from a 60A breaker in the main panel simply because you want all the numbers to match, but this is not required for it all to work or for it all to be in line with the electrical code. It's your own code that you are obeying, and that's fine, but in this case you will find that getting the numbers to all match is twice as expensive and time consuming than simply having the numbers not match. And it will all work with both approaches.

The terminology isn't helping either. There are Main Breaker Panels. And Main Lug Only Boxes. But a Main Lug Only box can be converted to a Main Breaker box. And there are Service disconnects, and sub panels. But a sub panel can have a main disconnect. So these terms are all jumbled and a person thinking of a main breaker might think they are talking about a main panel, but the main breaker is just the disconnect to any panel, not necessarily a sub panel or a service source panel. The vocabulary is not self explanatory unless you are a veteran of residential electricity projects.

Main Breaker panels will be pre-packaged and ready to go out of the box, but they only come in a few amperage ranges. Changing the main disconnect on one of these is possible but it's not something you'll likely find in the same store you bought the panel. It's special...and looks like this bolt on variety.

This bolts to the top of the hot legs of a panel. Then the hot wires go into the top lugs. It's 5x more expensive than a similar double pole appliance breaker that does the same thing but is installed in a circuit space by clipping onto the hot tabs and rail rather than at the top of the two hot legs.

Main Lug Only panels are rated for only a few amperage ranges, but can be customized using back-fed basic double pole breakers to a much wider range of amperage. They are also cheaper because they don't use any fancy equipment other than a retainer clip on the back fed breaker. But using a back-fed breaker basically detours the original design of the panel. It's permitted but one has to wonder if this is the best solution when a panel is designed to either have no main disconnect or only be converted with a main breaker like the one pictured above, but you go and get a $9 appliance breaker and control current to the two legs by screwing the hot wires from the main panel directly into the breaker, where the downstream wires usually go, and use it as main disconnect switch. Is that sensible? Instead of using a breaker to send power downstream to an appliance, you put wires in the downstream lugs and use the breaker to send power 'upstream' to the panel legs. Power doesn't care if it's going upstream or downstream in relationship to the breaker. But we're all accustomed to seeing breakers control downstream appliances and a back-fed breaker has a hot panel in the downstream direction that is sending power 'backward' into the panel. I can definitely see this leading to error. But you can customize the panel and get all the numbers to match.

I guess it's possible if you have 200A service to your house and you use a panel rated for 125A then you can have a double pole 125A breaker on the main panel and control current to a prepackaged 125A main breaker panel and you will not have to customize or modify anything and all the numbers will match. But this is only one scenario and my experience is that we estimate our needs and then find that nothing is prepackaged to fit exactly those needs, the prepackaged products will fit 'within the maximum threshold of those needs' and that turns out to be good enough.

Here you can see my main lug only sub panel that I have converted to a a Main Breaker by using a standard double pole breaker (bottom left) to control current to the two  rails. This works, but took more time to assemble the parts than a simple 125A main breaker panel that comes with everything in a box.

So, sometimes, it's up to your own choice what to do. You can spend more to assemble your custom panel, or you can use a pre-packaged 100A sub panel with a main disconnect and feed it with a 60A breaker. But you can't get any more current than 60A from it. And that might bother you because the main breaker says "100A". It's like a lie, staring you in the face. This panel is rated for 125A, has a 100A main breaker, but is only capable of 65A because that's the size of the breaker in the main panel that is across the lawn. I have a hard time embracing that lie. I want the numbers to tell the truth. I want a breaker that is rated for 'Truth'. And they don't sell those at the big box stores.

P.S. do nothing with the information I have shared.