tallgirl
Senior Member
- Location
- Great White North
- Occupation
- Controls Systems firmware engineer
My employer's IP law department has finally given me permission to publish the subject matter of an invention disclosure I submitted (and for those of y'all who care, I drove the patent review board in the direction of rating the invention "publish" so it could be disclosed freely). Oddly enough, I actually get paid to write this stuff 
A technical question has come up and I don't have the answer to it.
One of FEMA's "guidelines" in "Principles and Practices for the Design and Construction of Flood Resistant Building Utility Systems" (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/fima/pbuffd_chapter_3-3.pdf) is raising all of the electrical components above what they call the "Design Flood Elevation" (DFE). Since some regions have a realistic maximum flood elevation higher than where POCO's allow the meter to be mounted, I was wondering if it's realistic, practical, legal, or whatever, to have a disconnect located between where the service conductors come from the utility and the meter. What I have in mind is only for when the service conductors enter from above. For example, if the weatherhead is located 25' above grade, and the DFE is 8' above grade, this additional disconnect (and don't ask questions -- until this is published on IP.COM I'm going to be vague ...) might be located 12' above grade and be located between the POCO and the meter.
(The question has been answered by PM. Thanks to those people who responded.)
A technical question has come up and I don't have the answer to it.
One of FEMA's "guidelines" in "Principles and Practices for the Design and Construction of Flood Resistant Building Utility Systems" (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/fima/pbuffd_chapter_3-3.pdf) is raising all of the electrical components above what they call the "Design Flood Elevation" (DFE). Since some regions have a realistic maximum flood elevation higher than where POCO's allow the meter to be mounted, I was wondering if it's realistic, practical, legal, or whatever, to have a disconnect located between where the service conductors come from the utility and the meter. What I have in mind is only for when the service conductors enter from above. For example, if the weatherhead is located 25' above grade, and the DFE is 8' above grade, this additional disconnect (and don't ask questions -- until this is published on IP.COM I'm going to be vague ...) might be located 12' above grade and be located between the POCO and the meter.
(The question has been answered by PM. Thanks to those people who responded.)
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