Broken underground

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Esthy

Senior Member
Underground, somewhere, 120'+ between transformer and meter can, mostly concrete and brick work, one of the ungrounded line (single phase service) broke. POCO installed temporary service and sugested to find the damage and splice it. Electric service is 45 years old. I don't agree with POCO, they should be replace and new service installed. The existing service is an overload 100 Amps. But if customer insist, because he does not want to tear the concret, what will be the easiest way to find the break under all this concrete? BTW I already replaced 5 services in the same area because of this problem and this is why I don't agree with POCO.
 

Chris6245

Senior Member
Location
Ohio
We use a "Verifier" signal tracer. It uses a radio signal transmitted over the wire and you will loose the signal at the break. Takes some getting use to but they work great. Some equipment rental houses rent them, or you could call a rep and have them give you a demo, say at the address you are working at? LOL...They are worth the money if you do a lot of underground work.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
For underground work, I've had the best results from using a "thumper". I use one made by Von. It sends out a very high energy pulse, about every 5 seconds, and you can feel it as you walk over the ground right over the break. You can hear it too. Pretty neat. You can sorta do the same thing if you have a megger that gets into the 10's of thousands of volts, and thump the cable with the megger manually.
 

HighWirey

Senior Member
Mo education here

Mo education here

Mark, I've heard of a 'thumper' all my life, but have never seen one in person.(kinn'a like that elusive SeaSnake).
When you say you can 'feel it', certaintly you don't mean the voltage, just a ground viberation?

Best Wishes
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
HighWirey said:
When you say you can 'feel it', certaintly you don't mean the voltage, just a ground viberation?
Yeah, just the vibration. If you've ever cut down trees, that thud you feel when the trunk hits the earth... that's what it feels like. You can feel and hear the "thud" through the bottoms of your boots. When you're right over the fault, it feels like someone's beating on the soles of your boots with a rubber mallet.
 

Esthy

Senior Member
Where can I buy one of those in the internet? How much? Tucson is the last stop, I never find anything here. I am looking for "SOLID" #4 and # 6 irreversible crimp connectors and no one hear of those! .... Nobody here in the supply houses know about grounding wedges! .... I was looking for screw jacks and nobody here know about it! .... Thanks for any information you can give.
 

John Valdes

Senior Member
Location
SC.
Occupation
Retired Electrician
In my locality, SC., POCO is responsible for that line. We do not splice their wires. I am certain it is not allowed here. They would have to repair this themselves. Even if they have to tunnel under existing conditions.

When I installed a driveway, the grader cut the service line between the pole and the meter can. I called them and they were here in less than one hour. Dug the trench deeper and repaired/spliced the conductors. No Charge.
 

Chris6245

Senior Member
Location
Ohio
John Valdes said:
In my locality, SC., POCO is responsible for that line. We do not splice their wires. I am certain it is not allowed here. They would have to repair this themselves. Even if they have to tunnel under existing conditions.

When I installed a driveway, the grader cut the service line between the pole and the meter can. I called them and they were here in less than one hour. Dug the trench deeper and repaired/spliced the conductors. No Charge.
Ahhhh...the good ole days;)
 

Esthy

Senior Member
Not here, this particular neighborhood, was build in 1960/62 and the lines, according to POCO belong to the customers (apparentely that was the agrement when it was build) Most of the lines now, because a lot of rats packs, are getting damage. I meet today with POCO and some customers and they are really angry. A particular customers is about 200'/250' from the transformer, I asked POCO to install a pedestal closed to the property and they refuse, unless the customer do the digging and they still charge about $1,000.00 and the digging have to be by hand, there is no way to do by machine. What a mess! All the houses, 180/200, have a 100 AMPs services and because of the condition of those services, all are overloaded. At that time there was only evaporative coolers, now they have pools, spas, ACs, etc. Any experience about this in other locations/towns?
 

ItsHot

Senior Member
Job Security

Job Security

Esthy, This is a sitiuation to install an entire new service. Explain to the customer all the improvements neededand required. Safety!!, room for future,etc.,etc... also in my area the poco mantains there "side" of this. (check my recent post under troubleshooting)
 

DesertRat

Member
Esthy said:
Where can I buy one of those in the internet? How much? Tucson is the last stop, I never find anything here. I am looking for "SOLID" #4 and # 6 irreversible crimp connectors and no one hear of those! .... Nobody here in the supply houses know about grounding wedges! .... I was looking for screw jacks and nobody here know about it! .... Thanks for any information you can give.



I'm afraid Tucson is the second to last stop. Sierra Vista is the last stop. Down here it's really hard to get ahold of such exotic items as 2 pole 30 amp Cutler Hammer breakers. I tried to order a mogul today and they looked at me like I was speaking Swahili, didn't even know where to find it in the Appleton catalog.

As to your issue, a line locator is exactly what you want. Though I can't think of anyone in Tucson who rents them. Electro Rent will rent you one and ship it to you, but as I recall it's a bit pricey and time consuming.
 

nakulak

Senior Member
if the cable/conductors are that old and failed due to years of overuse, I can't imagine why splicing would ever be an option (unless someone cut the line). The customer might not want to pay for the new service, but imagine how they are going to feel about you if they pay you to fix it and it fails again.
 

Energize

Senior Member
Location
Milky Way Galaxy
Esthy said:
Not here, this particular neighborhood, was build in 1960/62 and the lines, according to POCO belong to the customers (apparentely that was the agrement when it was build)

Again, it does not affect my pay, but I am just wondering what effect this would have on enforcing 90.2 (B)(5)(a). Interesting.
 

acrwc10

Master Code Professional
Location
CA
Occupation
Building inspector
Pay POCO Pay!

Pay POCO Pay!

I have done jobs in the past were the poco said " you install it and After it passes inspection we take over ownership."
I would directional bore it if you have to run it new under a finished surface, But try to get the POCO to do it if you can. Unless you can get paid for it :D
 

LawnGuyLandSparky

Senior Member
Esthy said:
Not here, this particular neighborhood, was build in 1960/62 and the lines, according to POCO belong to the customers (apparentely that was the agrement when it was build) Most of the lines now, because a lot of rats packs, are getting damage. I meet today with POCO and some customers and they are really angry. A particular customers is about 200'/250' from the transformer, I asked POCO to install a pedestal closed to the property and they refuse, unless the customer do the digging and they still charge about $1,000.00 and the digging have to be by hand, there is no way to do by machine. What a mess! All the houses, 180/200, have a 100 AMPs services and because of the condition of those services, all are overloaded. At that time there was only evaporative coolers, now they have pools, spas, ACs, etc. Any experience about this in other locations/towns?

Common sense would dictate that at the time homeowners were piling on Central A/C, spas and pools, that their services were inadequate and at some time they would have to bite the bullet.

Do people purchase boats and then complain of docking, storage and maintainence fees? Yes. They're no fun.

Like the saying goes - you wanna play - you gotta pay.
 
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