Blakeman Brothers Electric Manufacturing Company - Meter Capacity

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brycenesbitt

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This is from a Blakeman Brothers Electric Manufacturing Company (Los Angeles) panel.
Stamped "For City of Los Angeles Approval, use Federal Electric Stab-Lok Simultaneous Trip Breakers".
And contains FPE 50 amp breakers mostly, #6 wire mostly, for all electric single bedroom apartments.

PXL_20230815_003452625.jpgPXL_20230815_003636209.jpg

Is there a way to determine the rated capacity of the meter socket, beyond guessing 60A?
The rating sticker is unreadable. There are no signs of stress.
 
brycenesbitt said:
This is from a Blakeman Brothers Electric Manufacturing Company (Los Angeles) panel. Stamped "For City of Los Angeles Approval, use Federal Electric Stab-Lok Simultaneous Trip Breakers". And contains FPE 50 amp breakers mostly, #6 wire mostly, for all electric single bedroom apartments. View attachment 2566959View attachment 2566958 Is there a way to determine the rated capacity of the meter socket, beyond guessing 60A? The rating sticker is unreadable. There are no signs of stress.
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You have the hint there. You have a 3-circuit distribution panel, each circuit breaker rated at 50A taking off power from a Class 200 GE I-210+ meter. The meter is rated for a continuous current of 200A, so the socket must be rated higher than what the meter itself is capable of.
 
topgone said:
You have the hint there. You have a 3-circuit distribution panel, each circuit breaker rated at 50A taking off power from a Class 200 GE I-210+ meter. The meter is rated for a continuous current of 200A, so the socket must be rated higher than what the meter itself is capable of.
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There are 3 circuits (6 hots, 3 neutrals) coming up from each vertical meter section, feeding 6 poles of breaker. I'd assume 1 meter per 50A circuit, not 3 circuits fed by 1 meter.

-Jon
 
As Winnie stated it looks like a single meter for each two pole breaker which was standard for old apartment buildings back in the day. Why do you need to know the meter ampacity?
 
infinity said:
As Winnie stated it looks like a single meter for each two pole breaker which was standard for old apartment buildings back in the day. Why do you need to know the meter ampacity?
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It's definitely one meter->50a breaker per apartment, plus a common area meter of the same vintage (in that case w/a modern subpanel).

Some of the individual apartment circuits have been altered to allow more draw than the 50A breaker.
The unreadable label promises to say what the panel designers intended as the maximum per socket rating.
The goal here is to understand if there's any problem with drawing up to 200 amps through an individual meter.

The main service to the building is 400amps. It's a 20 unit all electric heat/cooking building.

Separately: I know the pictured FPE breakers don't have stab Locks, and are likely from the era when FPE breakers worked, but still..... Square D QUO breakers or a new panel would give more theoretical safety margin.
 
brycenesbitt said:
Some of the individual apartment circuits have been altered to allow more draw than the 50A breaker.
The unreadable label promises to say what the panel designers intended as the maximum per socket rating.
The goal here is to understand if there's any problem with drawing up to 200 amps through an individual meter.
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Can you explain how this is possible? The meter feeds a 50 amp circuit breaker are you saying that there is a tap ahead of the 50 amp CB after the meter?
 
brycenesbitt said:
Yes, that's what I found.
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I doubt that the meter base is greater than 100 amps. If someone is tapping the condcutors between the meter and the servcie disconnect you have bigger problems than the ampacity of the meter. Do you have any photo's of these "taps"?
 
Found a photo of a Blakeman meter base, that likely matches.
I misspoke above. I did not find a tap, but rather was asked if a 20 amp 240V tap could be added legally and safely. I wanted to start with safety first.
 

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brycenesbitt said:
Found a photo of a Blakeman meter base, that likely matches.
I misspoke above. I did not find a tap, but rather was asked if a 20 amp 240V tap could be added legally and safely. I wanted to start with safety first.
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That looks like an old 60 amp meter base.

If you want to "tap" ahead of the 50 amp CB that could create all sorts of issues. Since you mentioned safety it would be safer to tap after the service disconnect because the conductors would still be protected by the 50 amp OCPD. Either way you need to start with a load calcuation to determine if any additional load can be even be added.
 
infinity said:
If you want to "tap" ahead of the 50 amp CB that could create all sorts of issues. Since you mentioned safety it would be safer to tap after the service disconnect because the conductors would still be protected by the 50 amp OCPD.
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Tapping after the 50 amp FPE breaker does not meet my personal level of comfort for safety, as it would place a new load on a historic FPE breaker. The other options appear murky under the demise of the six disconnect rule though, am I reading that right?

Tap before the OCPD with a new 20A breaker (maximum amps to meter socket 60).
Pigtail from the meter to a new breaker box with a new 60A "main" disconnect, then new subpanel with 50A and 20A breakers. Pigtail the 50A apartment's load back up to the old panel.

The load calc is fine, no issue is present at this location.
 
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