Can a 200A Breaker Be a Service Disconnect

[jim dungar]

Wo

Wonder why that is? Maybe liability or fussy POCOs that don’t want “their” stuff touched?

I was told safety and liability. The same POCO supplies locations where the FD does pull meters themselves.

 

[curt swartz]

I pop meters all the time.

You must not be in PG&E territory. They know when meters get pulled and will threaten legal action and sometimes cut service off to the customer.

Firefighters in my area have never pulled meters. In my opinion its a pretty stupid way to de-energize a service that is under load or could potentially fault during a fire.

 

[Little Bill]

Our POCOs won't allow us to pull meters anymore either. One of them cites a case of an electrician pulling a meter and the jaws came out with the meter. Can't recall if their was any shocking or other damage but do remember the lineman had to come and take it loose at the transformer. That stopped the meter pulling with them. I imagine the others just followed suit.

 

[kwired]

Wo

Wonder why that is? Maybe liability or fussy POCOs that don’t want “their” stuff touched?

CT metering possibly enters the picture some. Though not too common for residential applications, at least for 400 amp and less, it maybe has been an issue a time or two when they pulled a meter then later found out that doesn't always disconnect power from the structure?

 

[kwired]

Firefighters in my area have never pulled meters. In my opinion its a pretty stupid way to de-energize a service that is under load or could potentially fault during a fire.

In the average dwelling with self contained metering, I don't see it as being too big of an issue. Firemen are already wearing sufficient PPE for arc flash, it may be shock hazard that possibly isn't going to be covered by their gear to OSHA standards anyway, what they have is still going to be pretty effective. Not very often is there any extreme high available fault current at single family dwellings. Multifamily maybe, but you likely have a main on those instead of turning off multiple main breakers or pulling multiple meters in an emergency situation. 320 amp sockets - usually have bypass and the bypass handle also opens the jaws - actually somewhat safer to pull those - if you use the bypass lever to release jaws and then flip handle again after pulling meter. But unless they know what they are doing is possible they don't throw the handle afterwards - which ultimately still leaves power inside the building. So it kind of still comes down to having qualified persons assure them there is no power. Maybe wouldn't be a bad idea to have some qualified on staff? Volunteer fire departments possibly do already have qualified individuals within their members at times?