c2500
Senior Member
- Location
- South Carolina
Last summer, I replaced a service on a house that was ruined due to a missing weatherhead cap. Besides the service, a partial rewire was done.
About 5 weeks ago, I was called out due to the arcfault breaker not resetting. It had been raining for a few days, and combined with the wind there were several times the rain was blowing sideways as opposed to down.
The arcfault was fried due to water getting into the panel. The meter can had alot of water in it, which I attributed to the wind causing rain to get into the unused holes in the weatherhead. When it was dry again, I went up and sealed the entire weatherhead area with silicone. Plus I went over all joints with silicone. I had alread sealed the back mounting holes, etc. when I installed the can and panel.
I was called back today, and once again there had been alot of water infiltration into the panel and meter can. This time, there was no evidence of water coming on the wire jacket. However, there was water in dripping from the left upper lug. Water is wicking through the inside of the wire, flowing down, dripping onto the lower lug, running down the jack into the panel. We had an inch of rain last night.
The service was hooked up on a Saturday night at 9:30 pm. They crimped the wires together, but only wrapped them with electrical tape. The customary antioxident filled crimp and plastic cover was not used.
(The poco screwed up their paperwork, and that is why the hookup was done at such an odd time...it was susposed to have been done several days earlier)
Has anyone ever run into this before? I will be on the phone in the morning with a POCO engineer.
Thanks,
c2500
About 5 weeks ago, I was called out due to the arcfault breaker not resetting. It had been raining for a few days, and combined with the wind there were several times the rain was blowing sideways as opposed to down.
The arcfault was fried due to water getting into the panel. The meter can had alot of water in it, which I attributed to the wind causing rain to get into the unused holes in the weatherhead. When it was dry again, I went up and sealed the entire weatherhead area with silicone. Plus I went over all joints with silicone. I had alread sealed the back mounting holes, etc. when I installed the can and panel.
I was called back today, and once again there had been alot of water infiltration into the panel and meter can. This time, there was no evidence of water coming on the wire jacket. However, there was water in dripping from the left upper lug. Water is wicking through the inside of the wire, flowing down, dripping onto the lower lug, running down the jack into the panel. We had an inch of rain last night.
The service was hooked up on a Saturday night at 9:30 pm. They crimped the wires together, but only wrapped them with electrical tape. The customary antioxident filled crimp and plastic cover was not used.
(The poco screwed up their paperwork, and that is why the hookup was done at such an odd time...it was susposed to have been done several days earlier)
Has anyone ever run into this before? I will be on the phone in the morning with a POCO engineer.
Thanks,
c2500
Last edited:
