Poco service drop size disagreement 200a residential Upstate NY

newservice said:
To say “ there IS no spec that utilities follow on drop sizes, I find that totally unbelievable. There has to be. I was told it’s the NESC, but can’t find it..
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It may be unbelievable, but it's true.
We size by experience and we also get to add in load diversity.
 
I do think that it is fair to say that if one arm of the utility says 'this service drop should be replaced', and another arm of the utility says 'we're going to leave the existing service drop', that the OP should have some leverage to push the change...
 
electrofelon said:
Linemen are an odd bunch. In my experience, 1/3 of them are cool, and the other 2/3 are grumpy miserable A-holes. You probably got the latter and "we're not listening to those idiots in the office...." Hopefully the engineering dept will notify someone who can do something that someone isnt following procedures.
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Man, you hit the nail on the head with that statement.

I started as a lineman, went to school late (40) and went into EE.
So I've seen it from both sides.
I’m blown away at some of them. I will admit, engineers tend to go big on some things,
But some lineman will feed 4 houses off a number 4 aluminum triplex and still believe it's ok..
 
winnie said:
I do think that it is fair to say that if one arm of the utility says 'this service drop should be replaced', and another arm of the utility says 'we're going to leave the existing service drop', that the OP should have some leverage to push the change...
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Agree totally. Push the issue.
If the customer has problems down the line inevitably it will be blamed on the electrician first, because they are the easiest targets.
 
Hv&Lv said:
Agree totally. Push the issue.
If the customer has problems down the line inevitably it will be blamed on the electrician first, because they are the easiest targets.
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I threatened a utility loss prevention officer with a slander suit after the customer demanded that I pay for the whole house fan that died of under voltage due to voltage drop. The client said that the loss prevention officer for the utility had told her that the loss of her whole house fan and the damage caused by the fire department opening up the ceiling around the fan to search for concealed fire was entirely caused by my failure to install the fan properly. 1st problem he caused is that I had not installed the fan I had only wired the servicing switch and provided a flex pigtail for the Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning company to use to wire the fan. I opened up the panel cover and pointed to the big green sticker that said my work passed inspection. I then showed her the meter reading at the dryer outlet that was about 15 wire feet from the Service Equipment. We all know that although it is not an enforceable rule the generally accepted practice is to hold voltage drop to 5% or less. Hers was over that by enough to put the nominal 230 volt motor below its lower voltage limit. I don't remember the exact numbers because that was decades ago.

I called the power company loss prevention guy who had fielded her initial complaint and I recorded the call. [You know how you sometimes get a recording that says that says "This call may be recorded for quality control and training purposes" The plain reading of that gives you as the caller permission to record the call for "quality control."] The utility's defense attorney could not even ask me what I thought that means because that would call for a conclusion. The loss prevention officer doubled down and said that I was incompetent and lacked the knowledge necessary to evaluate the effects of the voltage drop on the equipment. I answered "That is slander so you may need to get yourself a personal attorney." I had 62 first cousins and 3 of those are lawyers. One of them stepped up for me and wrote a Nasty Gram to the utility's legal department. She argued successfully at the preliminary hearing that the voice announcement gave me permission to record the call and the back peddling began. My Grandfather was the speaker of the State house of delegates. I asked him to request a Public Service Commission review of the damage and he did. The Public Service Commission ruled that the damage was the fault of the utility for failure to train and supervise their staff in the evaluation of voltage drop on their outside plant's adequacy to deliver service to the State's citizens. The loss prevention person had only made the slanderous statement to 1 person, other than myself, but in my written response to that claim I said that I was entirely dependent on word of mouth advertising and his remarks would deter the customer from making positive remarks about my work. I also wrote that he had damaged my reputation and recklessly harmed me financially. The utility paid me $1,000 dollars for that damage. That would be a little over $8,300 today.
 
hornetd said:
The client said that the loss prevention officer for the utility had told her that the loss of her whole house fan and the damage caused by the fire department opening up the ceiling around the fan to search for concealed fire was entirely caused by my failure to install the fan properly.
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Yeah this kinda thing is the exactly the reason an EC should always have a paper trial with utilities. the POCO's have legal departments that can go after customers to recover costs of upgrades. The customer is often obligated to notify them writing of the calculated load, then its up to the utility to deliver voltage to ANSI C84 at that load. Voltage drop at the calculated load should be minimal at the service point. Each state's public utility commission probably has different rules but generally speaking they use ANSI C84 or the unofficial C84 'extended' that covers every system and all uncommon voltages.
 
Follow up, they replaced it. At least I think they did, the line guy called me from the site and said he had an order to change it from a #4 to a #2. So unless he for some reason didn’t, they fixed it…It took multiple calls and photos to the Planner, who was saying change it all along. She said the minimum for an 1P 120/240 for the drop was a #2 triplex and I went and measured it as best I could to a 4 triplex.
Anyway you catch more flies with honey. As I said to the inspector, ( whose only comment on the poco was they are ridiculous) , Whenever possible schedule an appointment ! That way you can make sure they do what’s required.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease, and that would be me.
 
electrofelon said:
Linemen are an odd bunch. In my experience, 1/3 of them are cool, and the other 2/3 are grumpy miserable A-holes. You probably got the latter and "we're not listening to those idiots in the office...." Hopefully the engineering dept will notify someone who can do something that someone isnt following procedures.
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Id say this has been my experience as well, you nailed it. Too smart of the idiots in the office. I actually once complained another time they didn’t change the drop, and the lineman who didn’t called me up and said I was “ a little baby”.
I think he was disciplined
 
I'm betting at some point a supervisor told that lineman wink-wink-nod-nod use your judgment and take what engineering says with a big grain of salt, it'll save money. And that all went just fine for years until you got involved. 😁
 
I have a copy of 2023 NESC. Here is everything it says about conductor sizing and OCPD.

Article 161. Electrical protection
A. Overcurrent protection required
Conductors and insulation shall be protected against excessive heating by the design of the system and by overcurrent, alarm, indication, or trip devices.

So there you go.
 
winnie said:
Sell the customer on a home energy monitor.


But if they are like most homes, their actual usage will be well below the NEC calculated usage.
I have a 100A service. My article 220 calculated demand is north of 120A.
I don't think I've ever exceeded 50 A of consumption in the few years I've had an energy monitor.
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+120% on that.
There's matching research that found the same thing https://eta.lbl.gov/people/brennan-less
 
hornetd said:
I called the power company loss prevention guy who had fielded her initial complaint and I recorded the call. [You know how you sometimes get a recording that says that says "This call may be recorded for quality control and training purposes" The plain reading of that gives you as the caller permission to record the call for "quality control."] The utility's defense attorney could not even ask me what I thought that means because that would call for a conclusion.
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Here in NYS I do know you can record any conversation you are a part of, without any notification to the other party(s).
 
winnie said:
Sell the customer on a home energy monitor.

If they actually see excessive voltage drop, use that to push the power company.

But if they are like most homes, their actual usage will be well below the NEC calculated usage.

I have a 100A service. My article 220 calculated demand is north of 120A.

I don't think I've ever exceeded 50 A of consumption in the few years I've had an energy monitor.
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Very true. Article 220 is extremely conservative. On a dinky converted cottage I had to put in a 400A service because they had a chunky mitsubishi hyper heat system, electric heat, an electric resistive makeup air unit for the range hood, and some other stuff. Turns out, the customer hadn't turned on the electric heat in years, and they had an oil furnace they used for heat when they were even there in the wintertime, but it didn't matter as the book says I have to calculate it with the makeup air running, the heat pump running, and the electric heat running, as they aren't necessarily non-concurrent loads as the electric heat was in rooms where there weren't mini-split heads.

My Emporia energy monitor has been quite eye opening. I have a 100A service with electric appliances, electric heat in the bathroom, a hybrid water heater, and a Fujitsu heat pump system I've been using for heat the past few months. My monthly peak 15 min demand is 4.2kW. My heat pump needed #10 on a 30 amp circuit, with a circuit ampacity of 24A or somesuch (can't remember the exact #), and the peak 15 minute demand on that is 1.92kW, which is 8 amps. Whoever wired the electric range used 10-3 romex, so thats on an 30 amp circuit breaker, and its now a QO breaker, and its never tripped, even when cooking big meals. It's just crazy how we have to keep putting in bigger and bigger services, and people scoff at the thought of a 100A service, and yet we use a fraction of it. I guess they had to make a 1 size fits all approach, and based everything on electric heat and 1 stage old school HVAC equipment, but man, most houses would be just fine on a 100A service.
 
going_commando said:
Very true. Article 220 is extremely conservative. On a dinky converted cottage I had to put in a 400A service because they had a chunky mitsubishi hyper heat system, electric heat, an electric resistive makeup air unit for the range hood, and some other stuff. Turns out, the customer hadn't turned on the electric heat in years, and they had an oil furnace they used for heat when they were even there in the wintertime, but it didn't matter as the book says I have to calculate it with the makeup air running, the heat pump running, and the electric heat running, as they aren't necessarily non-concurrent loads as the electric heat was in rooms where there weren't mini-split heads.

My Emporia energy monitor has been quite eye opening. I have a 100A service with electric appliances, electric heat in the bathroom, a hybrid water heater, and a Fujitsu heat pump system I've been using for heat the past few months. My monthly peak 15 min demand is 4.2kW. My heat pump needed #10 on a 30 amp circuit, with a circuit ampacity of 24A or somesuch (can't remember the exact #), and the peak 15 minute demand on that is 1.92kW, which is 8 amps. Whoever wired the electric range used 10-3 romex, so thats on an 30 amp circuit breaker, and its now a QO breaker, and its never tripped, even when cooking big meals. It's just crazy how we have to keep putting in bigger and bigger services, and people scoff at the thought of a 100A service, and yet we use a fraction of it. I guess they had to make a 1 size fits all approach, and based everything on electric heat and 1 stage old school HVAC equipment, but man, most houses would be just fine on a 100A service.
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I've gotten demand data from the utility for several commercial buildings my client has. The numbers are so crazy low, I'm always double checking that the POCO sent me the right address or that I missed the multiplier or something 😂
 
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