Help needed/ have you ever had this happen?

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c2500

Senior Member
Location
South Carolina
Last summer, I replaced a service on a house that was ruined due to a missing weatherhead cap. Besides the service, a partial rewire was done.

About 5 weeks ago, I was called out due to the arcfault breaker not resetting. It had been raining for a few days, and combined with the wind there were several times the rain was blowing sideways as opposed to down.

The arcfault was fried due to water getting into the panel. The meter can had alot of water in it, which I attributed to the wind causing rain to get into the unused holes in the weatherhead. When it was dry again, I went up and sealed the entire weatherhead area with silicone. Plus I went over all joints with silicone. I had alread sealed the back mounting holes, etc. when I installed the can and panel.

I was called back today, and once again there had been alot of water infiltration into the panel and meter can. This time, there was no evidence of water coming on the wire jacket. However, there was water in dripping from the left upper lug. Water is wicking through the inside of the wire, flowing down, dripping onto the lower lug, running down the jack into the panel. We had an inch of rain last night.

The service was hooked up on a Saturday night at 9:30 pm. They crimped the wires together, but only wrapped them with electrical tape. The customary antioxident filled crimp and plastic cover was not used.

(The poco screwed up their paperwork, and that is why the hookup was done at such an odd time...it was susposed to have been done several days earlier)

Has anyone ever run into this before? I will be on the phone in the morning with a POCO engineer.

Thanks,

c2500
 
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hunt4679

Senior Member
Location
Perry, Ohio
Ive seen this several times! Just last week on a church remodel and service upgrade the 400 amp disconnect switch that was supposed to remain was all rusted and corrided inside when i opened it. the water has been flowing through the utility crimps through the inside of the wire into the disconnect for the last 25 years. Water was still dripping from the inside of the outter jacket.
 

brian john

Senior Member
Location
Leesburg, VA
It was years ago but investigated a panel that was rusted out and saw the same thing, local utility told me?us replace the meter and panel. They wanted nothing to do with replaceing the drop.
 

1793

Senior Member
Location
Louisville, Kentucky
Occupation
Inspector
Last summer, ... Has anyone ever run into this before? I will be on the phone in the morning with a POCO engineer.

Thanks,

c2500

In photo #1 it appears the Drip loop is not very big. It looks to me that water could be running down the conductor and then into the Meter Can.
 

don_resqcapt19

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
retired electrician
The ends of the service entrance conductors need to be below the weatherhead, or pointing down, to prevent this. It sounds like the water is running in the spaces between the strands under the insulation. I have seen this happen before. It is not near as common with the use of a crimp splice to the service drop, as appears to be the case here, but it still happens when the service entrance conductors are pointing up.
 

fondini

Senior Member
Location
nw ohio
bigger drip loop,i've delt with this several times, always increased my side of the loop by about 2' and it cleared the problem.
 

c2500

Senior Member
Location
South Carolina
The drip loop is bigger than it appears. All of the holes in the weatherhead are filled with clear silicon. Even where the wires enter the weatherhead. The problem is the wires, where they connect, are higher than the weatherhead. This is allowing the water to flow in. The crimps are not weathertight. If the crimp was a foot, maybe 8 inches lower, water could not flow into the meter can.

c2500
 

jclint07

Member
Location
south missouri
I've seen water in meter can from service conductors fed from UNDERGROUND service. Service conductors went up POCO pole to transformer, where the POCO crimps spaced each copper strand apart to let water in. Problem was when weather got below freezing, water in wires turned to ice, pushing wire out of lug, leading to my service call.
 

al hildenbrand

Senior Member
Location
Minnesota
Occupation
Electrical Contractor, Electrical Consultant, Electrical Engineer
I will...(thanks by the way)..but they don't use the NEC....right????
In my work areas, the customer owns the conductors on the house side of the PoCo installed compression splice (the Service Point). The conductor on the house side of the Service Point is controlled by the NEC.

My experience with the PoCos I've worked with is they try real hard to avoid creating NEC violations by their procedures.
 
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