Suggestions on Service

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JohnDS

Senior Member
Location
Suffolk, Long Island
Occupation
Electrician
A buddy of mine is building a house. I'm about to do the service. The service is going to be run in the Schedule 80 Grey PVC pipe on the side of the house along the bottom. Once it gets to the front corner of the house, it will then run up to the weather head. Now, where the pipe goes up to the weather head, there will be a wrap around porch with a roof. Right now no wrap around porch is there so i want to take care of the service, and he said he'll build the porch roof and deck around the pipe.

Questions:
1) Am I violating code because he is building the roof around PVC instead of RMC?

2)Should I use RMC instead where he is building around it?

3)Is it permissable to come from RMC and use an adaptor to return back to PVC? The reason is because i need to make some turns to get back to the meter?

4) Where the pipe turns and goes back to the meter horizontally on the side bottom of the house, he will probably build the porch deck aroundit to hide it. Will this be ok according to code?

Please help me out here guys, i gotta get this done.
 
This sounds pretty ugly, I would do something different. Also around here, if the POCO cannot reach the weatherhead with an extension ladder, then its a no go. That means a roof cannot be under the weatherhead.
 
JohnDS said:
3)Is it permissable to come from RMC and use an adaptor to return back to PVC? The reason is because i need to make some turns to get back to the meter?
Are you using PVC to RMC back to PVC? Got any 300.10 issues?
 
chris kennedy said:
Are you using PVC to RMC back to PVC? Got any 300.10 issues?


No. From the weather head down through the porch roof, then down through the porch floor would be RMC, and then I would convert to pvc once i got through the porch floor because i need to make a couple of bends underneath the porch to get to the meter.


OK so all in all, this is illegal because the porch roof is under the weather head? Please note that the weather head will still be mounted to the side of the house. It's not one of those sevice masts where the weather head is in the air. Hmmm. I gotta figure another way I guess.

Can I put the whole service on the outside of the chimney? The chimney is not brick. It is one of those ones that are boxed out with wood with the chimney duct inside. Can i screw the whole service to a chimney like that? That would eliminate all these problems if i could. What is POCO?
 
JohnDS said:
No. From the weather head down through the porch roof, then down through the porch floor would be RMC, and then I would convert to pvc once i got through the porch floor because i need to make a couple of bends underneath the porch to get to the meter.

They do make bender or manufactured bends for RMC. :rolleyes:

How would you bond the RMC if your entering the meter enclosure with PVC?
 
Why not go underground right into bottom of meter base? Or if overhead come out of the top of meter through soffit and roof?
POCO= power company
 
I'd build a pedestal someplace in the yard or the edge of the road, and put the meter and disco there. Go underground (subfeed) from there to the house.
 
mdshunk said:
I'd build a pedestal someplace in the yard or the edge of the road, and put the meter and disco there. Go underground (subfeed) from there to the house.
That would look a lot better, but around here the POCO will not let you do it because TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) requires them to have the meter on the house. I tried again later for another customer bypassing the front office and directly talking to the engineer, and they said no problem.
 
hillbilly1 said:
That would look a lot better, but around here the POCO will not let you do it because TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) requires them to have the meter on the house. I tried again later for another customer bypassing the front office and directly talking to the engineer, and they said no problem.
How do you do a mobile home under TVA rules then? Surely they don't make you bolt the service equipment on the mobile home, do they?
 
JohnDS said:
No. From the weather head down through the porch roof, then down through the porch floor would be RMC, and then I would convert to pvc once i got through the porch floor because i need to make a couple of bends underneath the porch to get to the meter.
What would protect the weather head and RMC from becoming energized due to accidental contact with an ungrounded conductor?
 
chris kennedy said:
What would protect the weather head and RMC from becoming energized due to accidental contact with an ungrounded conductor?


Ok I see. What if I went right into the ground 18" with RMC. Then direct burial up to below the meter, then pvc to the bottom of the meter?

Can i post a Picture on here? This would be alot easier.
 
mdshunk said:
How do you do a mobile home under TVA rules then? Surely they don't make you bolt the service equipment on the mobile home, do they?


its the same in my town, houses must have the metering equipment installed on them, mobile homes have a seperate pedestal for the equipment.
 
John:

Have you asked the POCO their opinion? Sometimes, when we have touchy situations, we'll ask for a "Designer" or "Coordinator" to drive by for a job-site meeting. He (or she :grin: ) may have a solution they and you can live with.
 
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