Install of Secondary Service Conductors- Electrician or Poco

[designer82]

Who installs the overhead secondary service conductors from the transformer to the service entrance. Is it the Poco or Electrician?

Please see pic in link below.

Thank you

mh2 — Postimages

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[don_resqcapt19]

It varies by the utility. In our area, if the service is for a dwelling, the utility installs it, but if the service is for commercial property, the customer installs it.

 

[infinity]

If you're referring to the overhead drop in your drawing (below) I think that in most cases it is installed by the POCO.

 

[Little Bill]

I deal with 5 POCOs in my area and everyone one of them run overhead secondaries. They all have other differences, but not in the case of overhead.

 

[hillbilly1]

Every poco seems to have their own little quirks! If you do underground in some parts of Ohio, you have to build the service at the street, and run from there to the house. I did one in Tennessee, where with Volunteer Electric, you ran a conduit from the meter to the pad mount, with no more than two 90’s, and if more is needed, you installed a pull box, but they supplied and pulled the cable. Where I’m at, the poco does their own direct burial to the meter. Georgia Power requires a conduit that you can put in yourself, or hire their subcontractor to do it for you, and they pull the wire. Hard to get any of them to do overhead anymore. It was free from the EMC, but now they charge nearly as much as they do for underground.

 

[texie]

As others have noted, POCO requirements can very greatly. I've seen all kinds of odd requirements for customer VS POCO responsibilities for underground services, but for an overhead service I have never come across a POCO that does not do the drop to the weather head. That said, even with overhead services, there can be a great deal of differences among POCOs on the anchor point of the overhead drop.

 

[electrofelon]

It varies by the utility. In our area, if the service is for a dwelling, the utility installs it, but if the service is for commercial property, the customer installs it.

So if this was serving a commercial property, the electrician has to connect a service drop.to the pole and make connections to the pole transformer?

 

[don_resqcapt19]

So if this was serving a commercial property, the electrician has to connect a service drop.to the pole and make connections to the pole transformer?

In all cases the utility makes the connection to the transformer, but yes, the overhead service conductors for commercial are required to be provided by the owner. Note that theydo very few overhead services anymore around here, but even with the underground for commercial, the conductors from the transformer to the building are by the customer.

My brother wants to put a service to a garage that is not on the property with a dwelling so he will have to install the underground from his garage to the power pole, run the first 10' of schedule 80 PVC up the pole, pull and coil enough wire to get to top of the pole, and provide enough conduit for the utility to finish the run up the pole.

Even where the power distribution is overhead, in almost all cases, this utility requires the service conductors to be underground.