brantmacga
Señor Member
- Location
- Georgia
- Occupation
- Former Child
I'm looking for input as to how your power company handles these situations:
Scenario;
The customer's meter was replaced w/ the digital type a few days ago without notice. They only realized it had been changed because whoever did it left some of their tools next to the meter base.
Last night, they lose half their lights. Customer calls poco; lineman shows up and says one of the jaws has burned off and their service needs to be replaced. He puts the meter back in, seals it, and leaves.
I opened up the can, which was still hot, and found one of the load side jaws has burned off. The conductors don't show any damage from overheating.
The outer side of the jaw was severely bent towards the outside of the can, and the inner side was laying in the bottom of the can.
Now, of course this is me speculating, but it looks like the jaw was bent when the new meter was installed; the part that was still remaining didn't show any damage. So it overheats the only side that is in contact and it melts away.
I called the construction supervisor at the poco (REA) and explain this. He said they normally would fix it, but since the meter base is old, they don't have the parts to do it. They won't touch it.
The poco won't reconnect to a new meter base until its been inspected. The inspection department won't pass the job unless the service is completely rebuilt. It's a 150A back-to-back fed w/ SEU. The inspector wants a new 200A w/ a disconnect, and now the service conductors up the mast will need to be changed to 4//0.
The customer is running their fridge and some lights off a 5kw portable generator; they have no heat and we're having freezing temperatures right now. I was prepared to fix it for them today, but poco and inspection dept. won't do anything until tomorrow. I had to tell the customer to call someone else because I can't do it until monday.
I think the customer is getting shafted. What say you?
Scenario;
The customer's meter was replaced w/ the digital type a few days ago without notice. They only realized it had been changed because whoever did it left some of their tools next to the meter base.
Last night, they lose half their lights. Customer calls poco; lineman shows up and says one of the jaws has burned off and their service needs to be replaced. He puts the meter back in, seals it, and leaves.
I opened up the can, which was still hot, and found one of the load side jaws has burned off. The conductors don't show any damage from overheating.
The outer side of the jaw was severely bent towards the outside of the can, and the inner side was laying in the bottom of the can.
Now, of course this is me speculating, but it looks like the jaw was bent when the new meter was installed; the part that was still remaining didn't show any damage. So it overheats the only side that is in contact and it melts away.
I called the construction supervisor at the poco (REA) and explain this. He said they normally would fix it, but since the meter base is old, they don't have the parts to do it. They won't touch it.
The poco won't reconnect to a new meter base until its been inspected. The inspection department won't pass the job unless the service is completely rebuilt. It's a 150A back-to-back fed w/ SEU. The inspector wants a new 200A w/ a disconnect, and now the service conductors up the mast will need to be changed to 4//0.
The customer is running their fridge and some lights off a 5kw portable generator; they have no heat and we're having freezing temperatures right now. I was prepared to fix it for them today, but poco and inspection dept. won't do anything until tomorrow. I had to tell the customer to call someone else because I can't do it until monday.
I think the customer is getting shafted. What say you?
