K8MHZ
Senior Member
- Occupation
- Electrician
On a city owned project, the POCO was late in coming out to disconnect. So we decided to do the dirty deed ourselves. Cover to meter socket was removed. Meter wasn't going to budge. Boss says to use more force, Marky says somethings not right. Boss notices lever in panel and moves it. Meter magically comes right out. Yay! Were good to go, let's rip and tear!
So I take Cheep (my trustworthy Greenlee tick tracer) to the panel we are about to demo and Cheep says 'Back off, Parder, them wires are still hot!'
Hmm....Not that I don't trust Cheep, he is always right, but the meter was on the ground. How could panel be hot? There was no backfeed.
I decided to go get Mr. Wiggy. Mr. Wiggy will tell me if Cheep is jerking my chain or not. On the way out, I run into Boss who was bearing implements of destruction and I tell him not to touch the panel due Cheep's warning. Boss looks at meter laying on ground, gives me a funny look and says, OK.
Well, Mr. Wiggy agreed with Cheep. That panel was still live with the meter totally gone. To me it was like seeing chicken with it's head cut off.
Boss, who was still beaming about finding the lever and not me, suggested we once again move the lever and check. We did, I check, and both Cheep and Mr. Wiggy agree, the panel is now dead.
Hmm.....the meter socket has a meter bypass so the downstream panel can stay hot whilst the meter is pulled. Having one of them sure would save on the electric bill.
Wondering who would make such a contraption (for informational purposes only) I looked at the label and it was a Duncan three phase delta meter box converted to single phase service and using a single phase meter.
I have never seen anything of the like, but being a newb with only a couple decades of experience, I asked Boss if he had ever seen one. He said nope. Inspector shows up, grinned and shook his head. He said he has seen the meter boxes before, on real three phase systems, but did not know there was a meter bypass position for the lever.
Now, we do snip power on occasion, but we never reconnect. It's a local thing and keeps everyone happy. So when the POCO linesman showed up, we asked him if he had ever seen anything like that meter box before. He said yes, many times, but not installed as a single phase service. He muttered something about 'damn narrowbacks', put the meter in and sealed us up. Life was good.
From what I understand, the lever is a safety device that prevents the meter from being removed under a load. The lever not only locks and unlocks the meter, but it places the arcing contacts of a heavy load in a protected part of the device. It's a pretty clever lever once you think about it.
So, am I still green, or are are these meter sockets a very rare bird seldom found in the wild?
Just to add in case anyone is asking, the stab slots for the neutral were jumpered so the lever could not disconnect it. It was also labeled as such.
So I take Cheep (my trustworthy Greenlee tick tracer) to the panel we are about to demo and Cheep says 'Back off, Parder, them wires are still hot!'
Hmm....Not that I don't trust Cheep, he is always right, but the meter was on the ground. How could panel be hot? There was no backfeed.
I decided to go get Mr. Wiggy. Mr. Wiggy will tell me if Cheep is jerking my chain or not. On the way out, I run into Boss who was bearing implements of destruction and I tell him not to touch the panel due Cheep's warning. Boss looks at meter laying on ground, gives me a funny look and says, OK.
Well, Mr. Wiggy agreed with Cheep. That panel was still live with the meter totally gone. To me it was like seeing chicken with it's head cut off.
Boss, who was still beaming about finding the lever and not me, suggested we once again move the lever and check. We did, I check, and both Cheep and Mr. Wiggy agree, the panel is now dead.
Hmm.....the meter socket has a meter bypass so the downstream panel can stay hot whilst the meter is pulled. Having one of them sure would save on the electric bill.
Wondering who would make such a contraption (for informational purposes only) I looked at the label and it was a Duncan three phase delta meter box converted to single phase service and using a single phase meter.
I have never seen anything of the like, but being a newb with only a couple decades of experience, I asked Boss if he had ever seen one. He said nope. Inspector shows up, grinned and shook his head. He said he has seen the meter boxes before, on real three phase systems, but did not know there was a meter bypass position for the lever.
Now, we do snip power on occasion, but we never reconnect. It's a local thing and keeps everyone happy. So when the POCO linesman showed up, we asked him if he had ever seen anything like that meter box before. He said yes, many times, but not installed as a single phase service. He muttered something about 'damn narrowbacks', put the meter in and sealed us up. Life was good.
From what I understand, the lever is a safety device that prevents the meter from being removed under a load. The lever not only locks and unlocks the meter, but it places the arcing contacts of a heavy load in a protected part of the device. It's a pretty clever lever once you think about it.
So, am I still green, or are are these meter sockets a very rare bird seldom found in the wild?
Just to add in case anyone is asking, the stab slots for the neutral were jumpered so the lever could not disconnect it. It was also labeled as such.
