- Location
- Wisconsin
- Occupation
- PE (Retired) - Power Systems
I was told safety and liability. The same POCO supplies locations where the FD does pull meters themselves.
Can a 200A Breaker Be a Service Disconnect
- Thread starter Washington Electrical
- Start date
curt swartz
Senior Member
- Location
- San Jose, CA
- Occupation
- Electrical Contractor
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.
- Location
- Tennessee NEC:2017
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrician
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
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
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
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
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?
mikewillnot
Member
- Location
- Rochester, NY
- Occupation
- electrical contractor
Good explanation. I would not call this "not much" though; seems like a big advantage, in some houses, where the water meter's a long, difficult, or impossible run.
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
Many fire departments banned pulling meters 15+ years ago...fire firefighters are not qualified persons to do that type of electrical work.
hillbilly1
Senior Member
- Location
- North Georgia mountains
- Occupation
- Owner/electrical contractor
Depends on who you talk to at the poco’s too. I’ve pulled meters in one Georgia Power jurisdiction, and get cussed out. Another jurisdiction, I would call to have them pull it, and they would say “can’t you pull it? “ We will come out and re-seal it. You just can’t win!
delaware74b
Member
- Location
- Delaware, USA
The local fire departments in my area will pull a meter if it's a working house fire if the electrical utility is too far out (time-wise). They radio the county fire dispatch for eta and priority level, with level 1 being the worst. The fire scene officer in charge takes possession of the meter until poco arrives or takes the meter to their firehouse to meet up with poco rep. In my county, there are 4 local municipality companies and 2 regional companies.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
I mostly understand, yet they typically already wearing more appropriate gear for the task than many electricians would be wearing.
IMO a bigger concern would be firefighters pulling a meter that is only a CT meter and not realizing it did not disconnect power to the structure.
They will shut off a gas valve as well if deemed necessary.
They also are at high risk in many other aspects when they get called to many different scenes and receive training on how do deal with many different hazards. I been up close a couple times when firefighters (volunteer firefighters) are at an incident and was rather impressed with how they handled certain situations even if they were something they maybe don't encounter on a regular basis. My most recent was I was still doing some finish up work in a new home I was part of. I had left for lunch, the husband called me asking questions about the CO alarm, as his wife called him saying it was making sounds. I told him I was going back and would check it out. when I got back she had called fire department and they were there. She went outside before she called. Turns out it was a valid alarm, they had monitors and determined it was too high concentration to safely go in. They masked up with breathing apparatus and went in to check out a few things and then open doors and get some fresh air into the place. turned out to be a wood burning stove that was back drafting, they did want his wife to go the ER and get checked out, they did have her on oxygen for a while before releasing her. CO alarm probably saved her life, had she decided to lay down because of unknown oxygen deprivation she probably would been found dead. Another time a car crashed into town substation, I heard it happen, and noticed power went out where we was at. We walked the few blocks to where this occurred and that car was sitting up against the transformer, occupant still alert. I was ready if needed to tell them to wait until POCO says it is safe, but they kept the occupant calm and stayed away until POCO disconnected the feed to it and informed them it was now ok to enter.
They have to learn a lot about many things just to be able to safely do what they need to do and occasionally still need to take some risks to save a life.