Point of attachment with uninsulated through bolt

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smallfish

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Detroit
I would like to re-fasten my service drop to my house. A tree limb fell on the drop and pulled at the point of attachment, an anchored insulated fitting, pulling the insulated fitting out of the house brick. The drop stayed up off the ground although.

The service drop is a tri-plex with two insulated conductors (both phases) wrapped around bare strands of aluminum (the neutral). Woven with the aluminum strands are several bare strands of steel (the messenger cable).

For the new point of attachment, I intend to pass a threaded metal eyebolt through the exterior brick and place a metal plate against the inside wall, inside the stud run, and nut the metal plate secure. I would then conceal this with drywall.

Outside, I intend to pass the steel strands through the metal eyebolt and rewrap these strands around the bare aluminum and split-bolt all the bare strands together for strength.

Is this an electrically safe installation? The bare steel and aluminum strands are wound together and are attached to the metal eyebolt making this eyebolt current carrying (the unbalanced load) into the walls of the house.

I would like to avoid the use of insulators since tree limbs fall often and could snap in two the insulators causing the service drop to fall again.

Thanks
 
THE WIRES YOU ARE DEALING WITH ARE NOT PROTECTED, CALL A QUALIFIED ELECTRICIAN TO DO THIS WORK.

Also using an uninsulated connector risks changing the neutrals proper path to ground by not using an insulated bolt which is also not safe.
 
call the poco to reattach. the ones here even provide you the eye bolt to install before they get there to attach.
 
smallfish,

If a tree limb falls on the drop, it won't matter the drop is coming down. Also,

if an insulated fitting was not needed, there wouldn't be any. Take a chance

and get yourself an insulated POA. :)
 
besides the insulation issue, when the tree limb falls on the cable, do you want it to rip the bolt out of the side of your house, or do you want the bolt to rip the side of your house out?
 
Gentlemen, check the profile, he is an electrician.

That said, I agree with benaround, there is a reason they use insulated POAs.
 
One of our biggest POCO's gives you the attachment hook which is an big uninsulated galvanized hook. That's their standard which has been working for about 100 years. The other POCO in the area requires the attachment point to be insulated. Either way I don't see a problem.
 
I think I would rather that the service drop end up on the ground ,..than try to figure a way to support the weight of a tree using my house as an anchor:-? Sounds like severe wall damage to me.

How big is that plate ?? the hole in the bricks will be a bit larger
 
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As far as safety goes an uninsolated poa should be ok imo. I did it once before. But......an I hook is not a UL listed poa. So it can not be used.
 
You show your location as "Detroit." That should put you in Detroit Edison (DTE) country. Here's a link to their service standards document: [url]http://my.dteenergy.com/business/builders/pdfs/overHead.pdf[/URL] . Their standards for point of attachment start about page 4-4-7. Since you are talking about the POCO side of the meter, you own the attachment point, but DTE owns the wiring connected to it. They are going to insist on them making any connection changes.
 
benaround said:
I would not want an uninsulated POA on a house with alum. siding.
Click to expand...

Why not? The metal meter pan is screwed into the siding anyway so why should an uninsulated hook matter?
 
Other than screw-in porcelain POA's, which are not allowed by my POCOs any more, I've never seen an insulated through-bolt.
 
You can attach an insulator to the eye bolt. If a big tree falls on it the wall may fall, too.
...........Cut the trees down. Use the trees for fire wood.;)
 
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