ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
Sometimes those come apart as you pull the meter. Not what you want to happen while energized. The damage is done. Don't add to it.
Meter utilized as disconnect
- Thread starter xformer
- Start date
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
I have a hot stick, it comes in handy.
We don’t need authority to issue fines.
We just pull the meter and leave you in the dark a couple of days
Fred B
Senior Member
- Location
- Upstate, NY
- Occupation
- Electrician
I've on occasion pulled meter but with permission. Usually because they can't get a crew out and there was an urgent need, they don't fuss, but they also need to know you and that you are qualified. Some of the northern areas that I work in they give me a standing okie dokie to pull the meter to do work or check system issue and a handful of seal tags for when I'm done and then call them to inform them what was done and when they get a chance they will come out and put one of their numbered tags.
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
In most areas that's all tightly regulated and power companies can't do that
I like you and don’t even know you..
But if you can break the rules why can’t we?
For the electricians we know, I’ll give them some seals. Let them do it right and don’t bother us with it.
The electrician/POCO world work like all other industries.
It’s all in who you know.
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
How would you know about all the rules in "most places"? Just within a couple hundred miles from here there are lots of different POCO rules.
ptonsparky
Tom
- Occupation
- EC - retired
Exactly. They knew us, and we knew them. We both had phone numbers that worked.
I like you and don’t even know you..
But if you can break the rules why can’t we?
For the electricians we know, I’ll give them some seals. Let them do it right and don’t bother us with it.
The electrician/POCO world work like all other industries.
It’s all in who you know.
Carultch
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
There's some standards that tend to be relatively consistent about utilities, or that you can generally expect a utility to have, that you will notice after you've seen enough examples.
As I understand, Texas has a lot more idiosyncrasies than the rest of the mainland US, from what I've seen in your posts. Maybe part of it has to do with most of Texas being an electrical "island", instead of part of the two main electrical grids of the 48 states.
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
My point is that I believe that "most" of us in here (the irony of that statement does not escape me) don't deal with enough different jurisdictions to be able to state sweeping generalizations about how most of them operate. BTW, not all the AHJs I have dealt with have been in Texas.
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
Yes I'm just making an educated guess. I am pretty sure I am correct that the vast majority of power companies are tightly regulated as to the fees they can charge and there are specific procedures for disconnecting power to a building. In other words they can't just willy-nilly charge a fine or disconnect power as a punitive measure for cutting a seal or not following their procedures. Anybody is welcome to do an analysis of the tariffs of all the power companies and provide me a detailed analysis with charts and graphs and if it proves I am wrong I will certainly admit it
.
electrofelon
Senior Member
- Location
- Cherry Valley NY, Seattle, WA
- Occupation
- Electrician
You do have a very good point there!
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
It is evidence of the potential for tampering. They like to make statements even if not truly enforceable to deter such activity. In smaller communities where the POCO employees get to know most of the regular electricians in the area, they usually won't care what you do, as long as you don't ever give them a reason to not trust you. I have a padlock key that a supervisor of one POCO gave me years ago. It is the same key they use for all their substation gates, padmount or other similar enclosure locks (if they have a keyed lock on it). I have no business in their substations and never have opened a substation lock. He gave it to me along with a 5 point socket so I could get into a transformer one time and told me to keep them. I still have them but seldom ever use them. Some farm gates have both farmer's padlock and POCO padlock on them if the POCO has equipment somewhere they may need access to on that farm. It does come in handy to unlock the POCO lock to get into those places rather than accumulate another key from the farmer that you will never know what it is for several months later.
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
A long time ago, back in the days of mechanical meters without an anti-reverse device, our utility would give us seals so we could do work without having them come out...but a few too many meters got put in upside down and they stopped doing that.
ggunn
PE (Electrical), NABCEP certified
- Location
- Austin, TX, USA
- Occupation
- Consulting Electrical Engineer - Photovoltaic Systems
An old roommate of mine flipped the meter after I had moved out, but he forgot to flip it back over before the meter reader came by. Oops. I don't know what the POCO did to him because of it but he later became a cop, so it must have not been too bad.
There was also a little bridge on the back of the mechanical meters that when removed, didn’t register anything. We found a few of them years ago. Fooling the new smart meters is nearly impossible now without actually going into the meter itself.