Access requirements for irreversable splice

[tls]

We're installing some equipment in a building that's had a service upgrade involving moving the service entrance. The original service entrance and meter were in the room where we're working, with conduit running to distribution panels in another room. The "new" (1957 ) service entrance and meters are in a (different) adjacent room (there's some new distribution here as well) with conduit run between the rooms and an irreversable splice connecting to the old wiring at the old service entrance location, in the old service entrance box.

Practical concerns aside, is there a code reason why we must preserve access to the box containing the splice? It's been suggested to me that since the splice is irreversable, we could permanently seal the box and treat it as simply part of a raceway between the new service entrance location and the old distribution panels, in which case it would be permissible (if perhaps stupid) to wall it in. I don't think anyone else has even looked at that splice since '57.

 

[tls]

To clarify: there's nothing in the old service entrance box except the irreversable splice. It doesn't look like the 1957 contractor's work, and actually I suspect the utility did it in the course of sealing up the old conduit path through the exterior wall, etc.

So now there's a very generously-sized box, one conduit in (from the new entrance) one conduit out (to the old distribution panels), with four irreversably spliced conductors in it, nothing else inside.

Until we opened it up to have a look, we assumed it was actually on the utility side of the service entrance, and we were planning to call them and ask them to please move their splice out of our customer's office to a location they owned. :roll: Oops.

 

[chris kennedy]

Practical concerns aside, is there a code reason why we must preserve access to the box containing the splice?

I believe so.

300.15 Boxes, Conduit Bodies, or Fittings ? Where Required.

A box shall be installed at each outlet and switch point for concealed knob-and-tube wiring.

Fittings and connectors shall be used only with the specific wiring methods for which they are designed and listed.

Where the wiring method is conduit, tubing, Type AC cable, Type MC cable, Type MI cable, nonmetallic-sheathed cable, or other cables, a box or conduit body shall be installed at each conductor splice point, outlet point, switch point, junction point, termination point, or pull point, unless otherwise permitted in 300.15(A) through (M).