Problem with Local POCO

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flatlander

Senior Member
Location
Diamond bar, CA , Tempe AZ
Hi all , Been some time since my last post. I felt I need to post on this item.

I had a residential customers underground feed go out the other day. It seems that one of the hots failed clear. The POCO was contacted and arrived in reasonable time. I thought they were going to refeed around the break but instead they just fed the working hot to both phases of the panel and left. They told the customer to just reduce what they use.

I called the troubleman to inquire and they told me that " yup that is what they do all the time"
I suggested to them that they need to be aware of multi-wire circuits. The troubleman did not know what it was. I said a 3 wire circuit , two hots and Neutral. I further said two 15 amp circuits and a single Neutral. The neutral carries only the unbalanced load. I got the HUH. and so ? Nothing wring with that he said. I said however the way you just connected the house if one of those circuits have 12 amps on each breaker with the shared neutral you will have 24 amps on a 15 amp wire. He say's no you won't each circuit has their own neutral. I said no not if you have a 3 wire ( multi- wire circuit)
After much time and frustration the Troubleman says " that is stupid" " the house is wired wrong" I said it is perfectly correct. it's been done that way for decades.

He replies with that is wrong and it ain't my problem. I tried and tried but I could not get the point across.

Don't they teach these guy's basic electrical.
 
T

texie

Senior Member
Location
Fort Collins, Colorado
Occupation
Electrician, Contractor, Inspector
flatlander said:
Hi all , Been some time since my last post. I felt I need to post on this item.

I had a residential customers underground feed go out the other day. It seems that one of the hots failed clear. The POCO was contacted and arrived in reasonable time. I thought they were going to refeed around the break but instead they just fed the working hot to both phases of the panel and left. They told the customer to just reduce what they use.

I called the troubleman to inquire and they told me that " yup that is what they do all the time"
I suggested to them that they need to be aware of multi-wire circuits. The troubleman did not know what it was. I said a 3 wire circuit , two hots and Neutral. I further said two 15 amp circuits and a single Neutral. The neutral carries only the unbalanced load. I got the HUH. and so ? Nothing wring with that he said. I said however the way you just connected the house if one of those circuits have 12 amps on each breaker with the shared neutral you will have 24 amps on a 15 amp wire. He say's no you won't each circuit has their own neutral. I said no not if you have a 3 wire ( multi- wire circuit)
After much time and frustration the Troubleman says " that is stupid" " the house is wired wrong" I said it is perfectly correct. it's been done that way for decades.

He replies with that is wrong and it ain't my problem. I tried and tried but I could not get the point across.

Don't they teach these guy's basic electrical.
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Many POCO's due this on a tempory basis until they can do a proper repair. Yes, you are correct that you could have some overloaded neutrals in this case. Is it right?-no, but it is done all the time on a temporary basis.
 
G

GoldDigger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Placerville, CA, USA
Occupation
Retired PV System Designer
texie said:
Many POCO's due this on a tempory basis until they can do a proper repair. Yes, you are correct that you could have some overloaded neutrals in this case. Is it right?-no, but it is done all the time on a temporary basis.
Click to expand...

Clearly the owner should know that "using less power" meant only using one side of any MWBCs he has. He should understand that right? :)

And, oh yeah, his stove furnace and pumps will probably not work, but they are not essential.
 
T

texie

Senior Member
Location
Fort Collins, Colorado
Occupation
Electrician, Contractor, Inspector
GoldDigger said:
Clearly the owner should know that "using less power" meant only using one side of any MWBCs he has. He should understand that right? :)

And, oh yeah, his stove furnace and pumps will probably not work, but they are not essential.
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Well, I suppose we could also say that, "count your blessings", it could have been the neutral that failed. But I've even seen them work around that by taking one of the phases and reconnecting it as a neutral and do without one leg temporarily. Of course, that's all fine and good if the open neutral didn't fry some things.
 
F

flatlander

Senior Member
Location
Diamond bar, CA , Tempe AZ
The only thing that concerns me is that this temp fix may last for a couple of months while the paperwork is secured to dig in the right of way.

The other thing that is worry some is that they think a common wiring practice is stupid.
They guy could not grasp that there is could be a shared neutral in a branch circuit. He thought all single phase current carrying conductors have dedicated neutral. This whole conversation tells me they guy does not know what a neutral is or why it is called so. :?
 
kwired

kwired

Electron manager
Location
NE Nebraska
flatlander said:
The only thing that concerns me is that this temp fix may last for a couple of months while the paperwork is secured to dig in the right of way.

The other thing that is worry some is that they think a common wiring practice is stupid.
They guy could not grasp that there is could be a shared neutral in a branch circuit. He thought all single phase current carrying conductors have dedicated neutral. This whole conversation tells me they guy does not know what a neutral is or why it is called so. :?
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You might want to let that one go, he does not understand and is not willing to learn. He also probably has limited need to know for most of what a lineman does.

What 240 volt loads does this customer have to do without until the problem is fixed? How long do they intend to leave it this way?
 
H

hurk27

Senior Member
Location
Portage, Indiana NEC: 2008
Hv&Lv said:
OK, that is just dumb on the POCO part. I agree with flatlander.
The sensible thing to do is to install a service saver (autotransformer).
We use them for temporary installations on bad URD secondary. Usually for only a couple of days till the locate ticket clears.

http://www.electricalmaterialscompany.com/htm/undrgrnd_srvce_quck_restor.htm
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That is what we do here, the POCO has them as well as many contractors, while ours are not exactly just an autotransformer but we use a regular transformer in an autotransformer fashion with a 240/120 secondary, the primary is capped off, and the secondary is connected in an autotransformer fashion to the service or panel, it will derive a lost neutral as well as a lost hot, I have a 15 and 25kva in my garage mounted on dolly's already wired up, a lost hot can be a little harder on the left over conductors as you are deriving the lost hot from the 120 volt neutral and good hot which will double the load on these conductors, a lost neutral doesn't do this as you are starting with the 240 volts, lucky most all houses around here are all gas heating and appliances and most will calculate to under a 65 amp load so even a lost hot is not that much of a problem.
 
Sierrasparky

Sierrasparky

Senior Member
Location
USA
Occupation
Electrician ,contractor
I have seen those units , how much do they cost.
The only thing I see as a problem is around here the meters are generally locked.
 
J

JoeTroubleShoot

Member
Location
MA
Who does the service belong to? POCO or customer? We will bridge for lights around around here if a customer loses a high side on their own service because it is temporary and you know an electrician will be out within the next day or two. Some times we will put a Service Saver(we call it a One to One) on a customer owned service but usually people are in no hurry to fix their service if they have 120/240 with less available amps.

We put the Service Saver on all the time if it's our UG service. Kind of a double standard, but they tend to hang out at a customer's house longer when the service belongs to them and we don't have a lot of them to go around.

You have to figure what is better for the customer... bridge for lights? Every single company does this. Or is it better to leave the customer without power? It's kind of a game time decision I guess. What are the chances the have both circuits fully loaded after the customer was asked to reduce load? Pretty slim I would bet.

I wouldn't blame the touble man. There are a lot of electricians(this forum aside, so no offense)who do not know their own job.
 
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F

flatlander

Senior Member
Location
Diamond bar, CA , Tempe AZ
kwired said:
Shouldn't matter, you should be able to use this by just connecting it to a double pole breaker in the existing panel if you wanted.
Click to expand...

So how much do these cost?

JoeTroubleShoot said:
Who does the service belong to? POCO or customer? POCO owns the wires to the meter. Customer owns the meter can combo
but usually people are in no hurry to fix their service if they have 120/240 with less available amps. customer does not always know what can harm their equipment and should not be responsible for not knowing. The EC or the POCO is the expert here

We put the Service Saver on all the time if it's our UG service. Kind of a double standard, but they tend to hang out at a customer's house longer when the service belongs to them and we don't have a lot of them to go around.

You have to figure what is better for the customer... bridge for lights? Every single company does this. Or is it better to leave the customer without power? It's kind of a game time decision I guess. What are the chances the have both circuits fully loaded after the customer was asked to reduce load? Pretty slim I would bet. How do you know that. In this case I mention that it could take a month or so. Very easy to overload ,although how many homes are wired with many 3 wire circuits. In my early days the guy i worked for all the mcmansions were in flex. Every circuit was a 3 wire.

I wouldn't blamed the trouble man. There are a lot of electricians(this forum aside, so no offense)who do not know their own job.
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I would. This is basics. I don't expect him to know how to wire a 3-way or how many circuits in the kitchen. I do think that basic electrical stuff like this should be known. Hey He told the customer to minimize usage. He knew enough to tell that but not enough to know why. It would take a less than the weekly tailgate meeting to discuss this.

jaggedben said:
As someone who (like many of us?) has seen charred neutrals on improperly wired MWBCs, all I can say is :eek:
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Agreed!!!!:thumbsup:
 
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J

JoeTroubleShoot

Member
Location
MA
Yeah I agree that he probably didn't realize what you were talking about but he probably should have understood after you explained it to him. I didn't see that it was going to be this way for a month. If it happened where I work there would be a service saver or generator on there by now.

Right after I hit reply on my last post I got a call for a dig up on a customer owned service. We already ran a temp neutral overhead for them and they were digging the new trench and broke one hot leg. I bridged him for lights since the new service will be ready to go in the morning. There was no chance this guy was going to understand MWBCs so I told him to not use anything other than what he needs for the night and I shut off all 240 breakers. I wouldn't have left it that was had I thought this would take longer than a day or two. Most of the time people are irate that we are going to leave them part off and can't understand that they own the service in some cases so we do what makes them happy.

We assume an electrician will be out usually within 24 hours after we're done. He probably just took offense to you calling him out rather than taking it as a learning experience. I agree that they shouldn't be leaving the service bridged for a month, that's not right. Also, just want to add that most POCOs don't want employees taking off the covers of panels either.
 
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Cavie

Cavie

Senior Member
Location
SW Florida
This is why lawyers make lots of mony. POCO is wide open for lawsuit. FPL (POCO) would never touch customer wiring. Period!.
 
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