200 to 400 amp overhead service upgrade with 600’ of aerial cable.

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Gelinasm44

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Massachusetts
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Electrician
First time posting here. Full disclosure, I’m in Massachusetts and I’ve been in the trade for total of 18 years, licensed for 12 years, and in business for myself for 10 and this is the first time I’ve had to bid on a project that requires any work with a customer owned 600 foot long aerial service drop.

The existing service to the residence is 200 amps single phase. The Poco owns the aerial drop to the first pole on the property. At the first pole is our 200 amp meter/main. From there, the customer owns the service drop to the house, approximately 600’. The customer is planning an addition with an in-law suite with all electric appliances and electric heating/cooling. Now, without doing an actual service calculation yet, the existing equipment in the customers house probably already warrants a 400 amp service upgrade but the customer has snuck past it up until this point.

My question is, does anybody have experience with running aerial cable in parallel? Trying to give the customer a cheaper option than replacing the entire aerial or somehow getting the service underground, which would be a feat on its own. In theory, it would be most cost effective to just install a second aerial cable in parallel with the existing one and install new 400 amp metering equipment in place of the 200 amp meter main and a new 200 amp panel next to the existing one in the house.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for any help.
 
Common practice with POCOs. A possible problem with a NEC install would be the 1/0 minimum for parallel conductors. Do you have an idea if the size of the existing drop ?
 
Gelinasm44 said:
First time posting here. Full disclosure, I’m in Massachusetts and I’ve been in the trade for total of 18 years, licensed for 12 years, and in business for myself for 10 and this is the first time I’ve had to bid on a project that requires any work with a customer owned 600 foot long aerial service drop.

The existing service to the residence is 200 amps single phase. The Poco owns the aerial drop to the first pole on the property. At the first pole is our 200 amp meter/main. From there, the customer owns the service drop to the house, approximately 600’. The customer is planning an addition with an in-law suite with all electric appliances and electric heating/cooling. Now, without doing an actual service calculation yet, the existing equipment in the customers house probably already warrants a 400 amp service upgrade but the customer has snuck past it up until this point.

My question is, does anybody have experience with running aerial cable in parallel? Trying to give the customer a cheaper option than replacing the entire aerial or somehow getting the service underground, which would be a feat on its own. In theory, it would be most cost effective to just install a second aerial cable in parallel with the existing one and install new 400 amp metering equipment in place of the 200 amp meter main and a new 200 amp panel next to the existing one in the house.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance for any help.
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Sure, you can add another set and run them in parallel. Just keep 310.4 in mind, particularly (B).
 
augie47 said:
Common practice with POCOs. A possible problem with a NEC install would be the 1/0 minimum for parallel conductors. Do you have an idea if the size of the existing drop ?
Click to expand...
Without getting up there and checking yet it’s atleast a 4/0 for the existing 200 amp service, if not bigger to account for voltage drop. I’d be adding a second set matching the size of the first set as long as it meets the requirements for allowable voltage drop.
 
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