Obsolete Square D parts

[Wire 2 Race]

I have a customer who owns alot of residential rental units. They buy alot of abandoned properties, fix em up then re sell. One of the buildings is a 40 year old ten unit. It has Square D EZ stack 315 four socket vertical meter stacks. One of them is missing the left set of meter jaws. I have called all the local obsolete houses, done Google AND Yahoo searches for obsolete Sqaure D parts nation wide. I called square D tech center, searced E bay etc. EVERYTHING I can think of, but, no luck. Anybody have any ideas where I might find this. I can post pictures if it might help. Thanks

 

[templdl]

Looks as if you have a lot of time spent on this already, most likely nonbillable hours. When you have reached the point where you are, even though you may get lucky and find the part, it doesn't make one feel warm an cuddly when you ahve found that needle in a haystack.
I may have missed the point about the 10 unit that was missing the left set of the jaws which one may assume that it was actually a 9 unit in that the 10th unit could not be occupied.
One may think that someone 'borrowed' those draws to fix another of that then may of burned up and they couldn't find a replacement, do you think?
You would think that the owner would have been away of that, no occupancy=no rent. He should be aware of when and how it happened and if not he's may be playing bumb.
You may need to stop being a nice guy, give the owner the bad news and the facts and he just may have to belly up to the bar.

 

[jim dungar]

The odds are very good that Square D never manufacturered the actual meter socket and jaw assembly.

See if Duncan or one of the OEM socket manufacturers can help you.

 

[jmellc]

One of my former bosses used to keep a huge bucket of misc meter base parts. We had some luck with it for a time. Eventually, we never had what we needed or needed what we had. Lots of hit & miss there.

If you can't find parts and replace the eqpmt, maybe keep the old unit or loose parts and see if they come in handy later on. If you are in an area where 1 or 2 supply houses and 1 POCO mostly covered things, you may find parts very handy, as you will have fewer brands/variations to deal with. One place I used to work, Milbank was virtually the only meter base we ever saw in that county and QO was the panel in about 90% of the houses or commercial buildings.

 

[cowboyjwc]

There's a couple of places here in Los Angeles that you could try. I don't have any contact information, but if you can't find them, let me know and I'll see what I can get you.

 

[brian john]

Meter stacks at best are JUNK, obtaining parts for newer meter stacks is next to impossible, much less 40 year old stacks.

40 years old

REPLACE IS WARRANTED.

 

[jmellc]

Meter stacks at best are JUNK, obtaining parts for newer meter stacks is next to impossible, much less 40 year old stacks.

40 years old

REPLACE IS WARRANTED.

No question about that, but we are in a market today where no one wants to pay for anything, or cannot afford to. If I happen to have parts and can do a fix, that brings in some money. I find that someone else can always give a cheaper price on a rewire of any type. If I have parts no one else has and can fix it, that gets me a bit of business instead of losing the whole thing to a handyman.

 

[kbsparky]

Post a pic! And then another pic of a "good" socket for comparison. I have a few Square D meter stax around here ...

 

[zog]

No question about that, but we are in a market today where no one wants to pay for anything, or cannot afford to. If I happen to have parts and can do a fix, that brings in some money. I find that someone else can always give a cheaper price on a rewire of any type. If I have parts no one else has and can fix it, that gets me a bit of business instead of losing the whole thing to a handyman.

We are also in a market today full of lawyers, think about that for a while.

 

[jmellc]

We are also in a market today full of lawyers, think about that for a while.

True, but if I can't eat it doesn't much matter if I avoid the lawyers or not. I seriously wish I could sell more new stuff but right now I can't. That is a fact of life I have to live with at the moment.

 

[renosteinke]

"we are in a market today where no one wants to pay for anything, or cannot afford to"

WHEN are we ever not in such a market?

Oddly enough, when it comes to renting out these well-worn properties, they expect to charge the same as one would for a brand new unit in the nice part of town.

I'll stop my rant here- lest I get all fired up. The more I deal with these slumlords - and it's worse now, now that many here think I'm "one of them" since I bought such a property myself - the more cynical I get. (I bought the place for ME to live in!)