Meter Socket Height?

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dwellselectric

dwellselectric

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Cape Cod, Massachusetts
Okay I am so confused here. My boss and I did a emergency service change yesterday and the topic came up about meter height. Now I live in Massachusetts and the power company up here is Nstar and my boss told me that there is a height limit for mounting a meter on a house. I looked in the code and couldn't find one. And he told me that it cant be found in the code book because N star requires it.... Has anyone ever heard of such a thing? Because I see meters all the time on poles all the time at crazy heights like 12 feet and what not.
 
Height is a POCO requirement, they're the ones who can tell you that. For my area, the center of the meter needs to be between 4 feet and 6 feet.

Why are some meters so high up on some poles? To keep the HOs there from tapping into the top side of the meter and stealing electricity. I know of one meter near me that's 28 feet up the pole!
 
I'm sure whatever the answer is it's going to be local where ever you go. POCOs are there own entities. I still remember a house I wired that had breakaway walls on the ground floor so the meter had to go second level. I ran GEC, which we ran in 1/2" pvc up the pylon and bent over to the can. When we came back for trim the POCO ran there wires and conduit right up the breakway wall, so when the wall goes, so does their wire. Go figure. :rolleyes:
 
i live down south but i can tell you that southern company (georgia power, alabama power, etc) have a max height of 6ft for the meter. i believe they have a minimum of 3 ft as well. i had a lineman refuse to hook up an overhead pole for me once bc of this. he told me it was so the meter readers have no problems. i used to have a spec sheet from them that contained their additional requirements. maybe your utility can give you one as well.
 
meter height other stuff from poco

meter height other stuff from poco

just go to nstar online and download their code manual ...I live in MA too you can do the same when you are working under national grid's jurisdiction...just download and it's all there.
 
happy power co

happy power co

To keep the power co happy in all areas , they all love 60" TO CENTER OF SOCKET. Of course they dont always get what they want.
 
Oh forgot

Oh forgot

I called for inspection on new service entrance the other day and saw the inspector take his tape and measure the height of meter socket. I looked at him puzzled but didnt comment. I had socket 60 " center which was about eye level for him. Surely he knew eye level for him was between 4 and 6 ft, any way I thought that was a power co thing, not for him.
 
jetlag said:
I called for inspection on new service entrance the other day and saw the inspector take his tape and measure the height of meter socket. I looked at him puzzled but didnt comment. I had socket 60 " center which was about eye level for him. Surely he knew eye level for him was between 4 and 6 ft, any way I thought that was a power co thing, not for him.
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Unless like here in the District it is our responsibility due to we have to give the ok to turn over to POCO.....they call it a TPF (Temporary Pending Final) we check it all to their specs and post the preferred green sticker vs. the red. So the old tape measure does come out here......
 
thanks greg

thanks greg

dcspector said:
Unless like here in the District it is our responsibility due to we have to give the ok to turn over to POCO.....they call it a TPF (Temporary Pending Final) we check it all to their specs and post the preferred green sticker vs. the red. So the old tape measure does come out here......
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They use the same procedure here in Ga and fax the ok to POCO . The green sticker is smiley face here.. Ive never seen the red !!! My sister lives in DC
 
jetlag said:
They use the same procedure here in Ga and fax the ok to POCO . The green sticker is smiley face here.. Ive never seen the red !!! My sister lives in DC
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I only had to use a red, one time, the EC was not on the job and by mistake they ran a #6 to the CEE. No big deal corrected by the next morning and it all turned into green. I did not even turn the red paper work into the office.
 
dcspector said:
I only had to use a red, one time, the EC was not on the job and by mistake they ran a #6 to the CEE. No big deal corrected by the next morning and it all turned into green. I did not even turn the red paper work into the office.
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Guess that was 200 amp or larger service?
 
The meter people must be short around here. POCO specs are for between 48" and 60" to the top of the meter
 
dcspector said:
Trevor.......Ya got me thing about your post. Would it matter regarding the service size for a CEE #4 in the minimum per 250.52(3) and 250.66(B)
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I was thinking you said 'by mistake they ran a #6 to the CEE" that the CEE was rebar. According to table 250.66, typically for a service smaller than 200 amps the bonding jumper or GEC to the rebar CEE could be smaller than #4.
 
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