Service Upgrade Question

ATS

I was asked to quote a service upgrade out of my normal service area. This house is in a city where it was common to run a conduit mast through the attic and extended above the roof. This is a single story house with a hip roof so a mast is needed. Currently, there is SEU from the panel to the meter socket, then SEU from the meter socket running into the exterior wall to the attic, then the SEU runs from the attic into rigid conduit and continues to the weatherhead. I'm thinking that when I upgrade this service, I will mount the meter socket, drill a hole through the soffit and roof and install flashing for the rigid mast. When the utility comes back after inspection and makes the final connections, I will go back and either cut the original mast and cap, or cut off flush and install a couple new shingles if the customer has any leftover from his recent roof replacement. Is there a better way? I have never done a service like this because you just don't see many in my service area. Thanks for any tips.

mdshunk

You must run the mast straight from the hub on the meter and through the roof. You can't run SE cable into the inside of the soffit (what I assume you're calling "attic") and into the bottom of the pipe.

Utility comes back the next day for you? That's weird. Normally, have them disconnect first thing in the morning (or do it yourself) and have them come back a few hours later to reconnect. That way, you can get the old crap torn out and reuse the same holes in the roof and cover the old wound on the wall where the old meter can was with the new meter. Matter o'fact, I just finished two service upgrades today (long day). One was a CT service, and one was a cable riser service.

ATS

No MD, this mast originates from the attic, not the soffit hence it is set back a ways from what you would expect. You would not be able to use the original hole, since it is set back the new mast would not line up with the original. The original SEU leaves the meter socket, enters the exterior wall and then the attic/ crawl space then it enters the rigid conduit and then to the weatherhead. It exits the roof about a foot back from where a typical mast would enter the soffit and then through the roof. Like I said, it's different from the services I see in my area but it's a friend of a friends and they want me to do the job. The original mast is too small and can not be used as it is a foot or so back from the where the soffit ends. Weird, I know, but it seems to be quite common in this town.

ATS

BTW, 2 sevice upgrades in 1 day! By yourself? I had a helper yesterday and it still took us 8 hours albeit the house had a back-up generator and some extra stuff that needed to be done.

mdshunk

A long day, mind you. A bucket truck makes the work faster, and cutting and retapping yourself speeds things up since you don't have to wait around. I do a hell of a lot of service upgrades, so I've pretty much got them down to a science. The first one was a CT service. Just new triplex, new SE cable, and a new panel in the house. The sedond one was a gravy 100 amp cable service, with back to back meter and panel with not too many ckts. With a bucket truck, you can have the outside work on the typical cable service done in about an hour, unless you have trouble driving the ground rods. If you're on a ladder or have other site access issues, it might take 2 or 3 hours for the outside work. The inside work can take any amount of time at all, depending on whether you need to make a place to mount the new, bigger panel and if you need to wire nut onto all or none of the branch conductors to make them reach the appointed spots. I have a bucket of tools, specially laid out for service upgrades. Sorta my "bag of tricks", so to speak. Making yourself up a set of clips to clip onto the service drop makes the work a little quicker, since you can give yourself light to work by and use real power tools.

ATS

Any tips on this particular job? Just cut the original mast when the service point of attachment is relocated to the new mast? This is what I'm thinking, I don't really see another way because the original conduit exiting the roof does not extend all the way down to the meter socket, it ends in the attic/crawl space and then the seu continues down the inside of the exterior wall and then exits near the side of the original meter socket. I have no idea why these services were done like this but you see them all over this particular town.

mdshunk

If it was me, I would remove that old mast and silicone something over the hole temporarily and let them have a roofer patch the hole. Let roofer's do roofing. That's a weird way to do a mast service anyhow. I've never seen it done quite that way. Either straight up from the meter hub, or sometimes you see commercial services where they'll bend a big offset in the mast and bring it out in front of the rain gutter so they don't have to penetrate the roof. I've never seen cable brought up from the meter, and a mast just sleeves the cable starting in the attic. I wonder how the bottom of that mast is supported? I'd guess it's just sitting on the edge of a block, and perhaps there's a strap around a rafter. I suppose when you cut the cable down below, it'll slide right up. Still weird, anyhow. I've never seen line side meter conductors inside the building for a residential service, except for hot sequence metering in apartment buildings.

ATS

I'll see if I can post a pic next week of these services. Just today I noticed a few of these that have been upgraded where the original mast was used and new seu was run through it. I couldn't bring myself to do that.

mdshunk

Consequently, who's the PoCo? You didn't, by chance, see who's inspection sticker was on these meter cans of the services that were re-run in that manner, did you?

ATS

Don't even get me started on the poco. NYSEG, New York State Electric and Gas. Now that I'm fired up again, I'll explain. Went to the service call for half the house being dead. I found zero volts on one line coming in from the pole. Well, turns out the power company ' superviser ' had already been to the house for the trouble call and told the homeowners it was not the poco's problem and the service needed to be upgraded. He came to this conclusion without the use of a meter of any type. Conveniently, he had in his pocket, the business card of "his guy", a local ec that "could help them out". This poco superviser actually came back again 2 days later to the house and asked the homeowners if they had called "his guy" yet and when the upgrade was scheduled. The homeowners are an intelligent pair and thought something was wrong with this situation. That's when I got the call. I told them that they didn't absolutely need to have the service replaced and this problem is within the pocos responsibility. They trusted my opinion but still opted to have me replace the service due to it's age.The NYSEG superviser is still insisting they have the service upgraded before they replace their defective conductors. I told them they could fight this but they are choosing not to make waves. The poco planner will not return my calls and I assume he is peeved because his buddy did not get the job. ($3,200 to replace a 100 amp service with the same). I was telling this story to a friend of mine who lives 5 miles from this house and tells me the same thing was said to him when he called the poco for a dropped line, a service upgrade was needed and it was not their responsibilty. After he made a stink, they repaired their connection at the pole. I am not exaggerating or embellishing here, this has really got me peeved and I'm thinking about filing some sort of formal complaint here, this shouldn't be happening and it makes me wonder how many homeowners this person has bullied into upgrading their service using his guy when it wasn't needed and without competitive bidding.

mdshunk

Sounds like the good old boy system at work there. Perhaps you should find out what the cut is to the PoCo to get a little of that work. Either that or you can lodge a complaint with the public utilities commission. To be fair, I have been on trouble calls where the PoCo wouldn't retap a downed service drop because the customer equipment was visually in an unsafe condition. Doesn't sound like it was in your example, though, and that's plain wrong.

ATS

No nothing unsafe, just old. I guess I'm just mad that they showed me the $3,200 estimate AFTER I told them what my price was!

mdshunk

3200 seems steep for 100 amp, but I'm not sure what your area is like. I could do a simple 100 amp cable riser service for 800 bucks and make money. I don't normally do them quite that cheaply, though.

ATS

Steep is right, that's about 3 times the going rate for the area. Makes me wonder how much kick-back this poco guy is getting, no wonder he won't return my calls.

RobertWilber

sounds more like a complaint to the district attorney than the PUC ...
[pattern of fraud]

ATS

I just did the job today. Out of the blue, this guy shows up and starts pounding on the door while I'm alone working in the basement. Sure enough, it's the poco supervisor. He starts questioning me right off the bat. I assume to his dismay, I had all the answers he was hoping I wouldn't. Authorization number, etc., etc. He asked why I didn't call for a disconnect, I told him I was authorized to perform my own disconnects and temporary re-connects and the job is legit. I then tell him the inspector will inspect the job on Thursday and call it in. After a few more minutes of questioning, he tells me I seem to know what I'm doing and then he lightens up and we start swapping war stories. (C'mon, I'm not gonna make a stink until AFTER my check is cashed). Then he said he was just there checking on the pole, according to the homeowners he's been there 4 or more times just checking on the pole. For all the trouble this guy goes through, I'd guess he's getting a pretty sweet kick back from his guy.

mdshunk

It wouldn't have been beyond me to ask his what his normal "referral fee" was, just to see how the conversation might have progressed. Who knows, you might have fallen into a batch of new work.

ATS

I thought about it but this job here was an 85 mile round trip for me, but I can't complain, I made a good buck on it. I'm sure I'll see this guy again, maybe then I'll ask him.