Can a service mast be bent?

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petersonra said:
I don't see that at all. It is either suitable or not, and a slightly bent piece of pipe will work just fine. They bend a little all the time just from the weight of the conductors handing off them. Go around town and take a close look at the masts you see. I bet at least 10% of them are bent to some degree.
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Suitable strength is mentioned in 230.28 but it is still a judgement call to reject it, nothing in NEC to determine what is suitable strength. 110.3 also would leave it at a judgement call.

Size and length of drop conductors is the main factor in determining what is strong enough. So is distance from last suppport (typically the roof) and point of attachment of the drop conductors.
 
480sparky said:
IMHO, replace the thing and sleep at night. Trying to save 40 or 50 bucks on a fix like this is stupid.
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50 bucks ha! I'll explain my rationale. Like I said I was trying to keep the price reasonable.

A stick of 2" rigid is $55.00. Double that to cover markup and added material is $110. The meter can was old and the hub an odd size. I had to reuse the old hub if I didn't want to replace the meter can. The hub was tightly fastened to the old riser with many layers of paint on it and probably the two parts seized together. Assuming I could separate them without ruining the hub, install the new riser, and install the hub on the new riser, I estimated that would take an additional hour of labor. Now we are at an extra $260.

If I broke the hub while attempting to detach it from the old riser or installing on the new riser, I would have then had to replace the meter can. That means I would have had to: run to the supply house; de-term the load wire wires; dismount the can; remount the new can; and re-term the wires. Additional parts and labor (including the above) are now $600. Hopefully the load side wires are not short or too fragile (cloth covered) so they don't have to be replaced.

Did I mention that I had the inspection scheduled for early afternoon so I could get these peoples power back on same day? If any of the above bad things would have happened, the inspection would have had to be rescheduled and they would be in the dark and without A/C overnight. I would have had to reschedule my next day work so that I could come back and handle this emergency. This would likely make these clients and the rescheduled clients very unhappy.

So the bottom line is....by reusing the riser and it's attached hub which I felt was sufficiently strong and just a little bent I avoided the possibility of all kinds of bad things happening and avoided having to ask for a lot more money which would probably hurt my reputation.

ETA: Per the inspector's demand, I installed a guy wire on the mast today. It's super strong now. :) (y)
 
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That's pretty much the exact thoughts that go through every electricians head when they roll up on something like this.

Sometimes circumstances don't allow you to do what you'd normally like to do.

JAP>
 
Coppersmith said:
50 bucks ha! I'll explain my rationale. Like I said I was trying to keep the price reasonable.

A stick of 2" rigid is $55.00. Double that to cover markup and added material is $110. The meter can was old and the hub an odd size. I had to reuse the old hub if I didn't want to replace the meter can. The hub was tightly fastened to the old riser with many layers of paint on it and probably the two parts seized together. Assuming I could separate them without ruining the hub, install the new riser, and install the hub on the new riser, I estimated that would take an additional hour of labor. Now we are at an extra $260.

If I broke the hub while attempting to detach it from the old riser or installing on the new riser, I would have then had to replace the meter can. That means I would have had to: run to the supply house; de-term the load wire wires; dismount the can; remount the new can; and re-term the wires. Additional parts and labor (including the above) are now $600. Hopefully the load side wires are not short or too fragile (cloth covered) so they don't have to be replaced.

Did I mention that I had the inspection scheduled for early afternoon so I could get these peoples power back on same day? If any of the above bad things would have happened, the inspection would have had to be rescheduled and they would be in the dark and without A/C overnight. I would have had to reschedule my next day work so that I could come back and handle this emergency. This would likely make them very unhappy.

So the bottom line is....By reusing the riser which I felt was sufficiently strong and just a little bent I avoided the possibility of all kinds of bad things happening and avoided having to ask for a lot more money which would probably hurt my reputation.

ETA: Per the inspector's demand, I installed a guy wire on the mast today. It's super strong now. :) (y)
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Same logic used by those who, when servicing lot lighting, replace ONLY the defective part (lamp, start capacitor, ballast etc).
 
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