Does POCO have the right ???

[goldstar]

Up here in Northern NJ in a lake community (and many moons ago) it was customary for homeowners to do their own work (including construction, plumbing and electrical). There are many situations similar to the one I'm about to describe. A residence had a service drop attached to their house (by local POCO) from the street behind their house, over the roof to a hook on the front side of their house. It was crimped on onto the feeders and down into the meter pan. Subsequent to the house being built the homeowner built a deck onto the side of the house and since that point you could reach up and grab the crimped service conductors (obviously a code violation). POCO had never cited them for a violation. Recently a tree branch came down and ripped the service from the side of the house. I re-installed the service the way it was originally installed without disturbing any other electrical work (including the old meter pan). It was inspected by the local AHJ and passed. The POCO now tells me that a mast is required to bring the attachment over the level of the roof.

Do they have the right to do this ? Is this residence "grandfathered in" ? I can cite at least 5 other residences in the area that have a similar installation. Should they be subject to the same installation criteria as this residence ?

Just looking for opinions - not code references.

Thanks,

Phil,
Gold Star Electric

 

[physis]

Re: Does POCO have the right ???

I can't say about your area, but here our POCO, PG&E, used to provide everything up to the very end of the service drop. A friend of mine has 10 acres in a rural area and not so many years back I put in a service pole for him because the utility doesn't do that any more. He also had to pay about $3000 in engineering costs, done by the POCO, to basicly do a service drop, I mean just on paper. And if I don't have my facts mixed up, if there weren't already a transformer, on a pole ten feet away, he would have had to buy one.

As far as granfathered, I don't think that works if someone touches it.

It's a different world today for sure.

 

[jimwalker]

Re: Does POCO have the right ???

just because the deck was not noticed does not granfather it.They changed the conditions so now must upgrade to meet ahj and poco

 

[charlie]

Re: Does POCO have the right ???

Sam, I can't imagine Pacific Gas & Electric would do that. I suspect the facts have been misrepresented to you. When you say ten acres, that leads me to believe that the projected revenue would not cover the cost of the new construction and the customer either had to provide a portion of the service or pay for the installation. The last part of that is very common since the electric utility is expected to get a return on its investment within a prescribed period of time by their public service commissions. If that didn't happen, the rate payers would be paying for your service.

Jim, I agree with you. We are required to meet the requirements of the NESC and when they are violated, we are required to "fix" them. Where a customer creates the violation, he will be charged for setting a pole or any other work that is required of us. In addition, he is responsible for any work he has to do to clear up the situation on his end. If it has been that way for twenty years, it is still not "grand fathered".

 

[physis]

Re: Does POCO have the right ???

He also had to pay about $3000 in engineering costs, done by the POCO, to basicly do a service drop, I mean just on paper.

You mean that part Charlie? Because I think you're right, I think that would have been the cost if they (PG&E) sank the pole. Sorry, it's been some years.

But still that was the engineering cost. not installation. The city is auberry CA.

 

[charlie]

Re: Does POCO have the right ???

The problem with engineering is that if you do a lot of it, you have developed spreadsheets or purchased programs to do the crunching for you. If you don't do much of it and are asked to go into an area that you don't work as much, you have to develop everything from scratch. I suspect that is where the engineering costs came from.

In this case (assuming the costs were actually that high), he would probably saved money if he just paid PG&E to do the job and pay them the differential.

 

[physis]

Re: Does POCO have the right ???

By Charlie:

assuming the costs were actually that high

It was rather confiscatory. If it were reasonable it wouldn't be worth mention. I didn't actually see PG&E's proposal but I have no reason to suspect it was exagerated.

If anything my friend would have wanted to say the job was worth less so he didn't have to buy me as many porterhouse steaks and beers.

Would you also beleive they were going to take several days to get around to plugging the meter in? Their office out there was a whole different experience than the city.