RV Pedestal Inspection After Hurricane Helene

[horses]

I'm hoping I asked this question under the correct forum because in my mind its dealing with safety. After the surge here on the Southwest coast of Florida I have been contacted by owners in an RV Resort saying they have been told that their pedestals need to be inspected buy a licensed electrician before they can use them. I believe the resort had a surge of 2-3 feet, but this hasn't been confirmed yet. Other than taking the covers off of the pedestal and checking for obvious corrosion, replacing all devices that had come in contact with the saltwater, and taking the normal voltage readings what would be required to put our stamp of approval on each of these pedestals? I'm hoping someone on this forum has had experience with this situation and I would gladly appreciate any suggestions/recommendations. I want to make sure that I do a thorough job with this inspection. Thanks in advance!

 

[Ken_S]

Search for water damaged electrical equipment.

I would replace everything, however the manufacturer may provide guidance on how to restore it.

 

[Hv&Lv]

When we turn the power back on after a storm, I have seen entire pedestals and even meter bases on fire with all the flooding and debris that gets inside them.
Generally the meters are replaced

 

[horses]

I'm going to the resort tomorrow to look @ the pedestals. I was told by the maintenance guy today in a phone call that the water level didn't reach the 50/30/GFI receptacles only the lower part of the pedestal where the main lugs are located. He also said that his power pedestal is on and working. If the portion that has the receptacles in it and the breakers /meter are above the receptacles, would you still recommend replacing the pedestal? I will reach out to the manufacturer once I've done my site visit to get their recommendations.

I was thinking the power may have been turned off because they wanted the pedestals inspected before the power was turned back on to so if the that they didn't explode when they were reenergized as you mentioned, but that's not the case.

 

[David Castor]

For any components that were actually flooded, you need to refer to manufacturer's instructions for cleaning, re-use or replacement. If there's any doubt, I'd recommend replacement, which won't be popular, I suspect.

 

[horses]

Thanks for all your comments. After the 4 days of inspecting the pedestals, we have some where the water level reached the level breaker are at which will require the breakers/receptacles/ and the main loop feed lugs in the bottom to be replaced. There was just a handful that the saltwater didn't come up to loop feed lugs in the bottom of the pedestal and will not require any replacement parts. However, the pipes coming in to the bottom of each pedestal have saltwater in them, but as we all know underground conduits all have water in them especially in Florida. The feeder wires are XHHW-2 so they are rated for wet locations so I will make the owners aware of the water in the conduits but beings the wire is rated for a wet location i doubt they will want to change anything with those underground feeders.