Who checks the meter can for bad neutral: POCO or me?

Merry Christmas
Status
Not open for further replies.
Coppersmith

Coppersmith

Senior Member
Location
Tampa, FL, USA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I did a troubleshoot yesterday where I'm fairly sure there is a loose neutral somewhere from the meter can back toward the source. I called in a trouble ticket and asked POCO to check it out. Is it the POCO's responsibility to check the meter can connections or the EC. I asked them to check the meter connections since they were coming out anyway and I didn't want to break their seal if I didn't have to, but I wasn't sure if they do that normally.
 
It depends on your power company. Around here we break the seals to check things out and the power company doesn't say a thing. I think they cannot publically condone it but it saves them alot of time. Also they stink at diagnosing a bad neutral... I would not trust their response

Many times we have called the power company and told them there was a bad neutral. They would send someone out who would say there is nothing wrong. On one house they came out on two different occasions until I called the engineer and told him the symptoms. He immediately said it was a bad neutral.. I said yeah.. so now tell your guys to fix it..:lol:--- They did.
 
Dennis Alwon said:
It depends on your power company. Around here we break the seals to check things out and the power company doesn't say a thing. I think they cannot publically condone it but it saves them alot of time. Also they stink at diagnosing a bad neutral... I would not trust their response

Many times we have called the power company and told them there was a bad neutral. They would send someone out who would say there is nothing wrong. On one house they came out on two different occasions until I called the engineer and told him the symptoms. He immediately said it was a bad neutral.. I said yeah.. so now tell your guys to fix it..:lol:--- They did.
Click to expand...
Had a similar situation, POCO came out and pulled the meter and said all was well. They didn't get a ladder and check the drop connections (their connections) were the loose connection was.
 
Similarly I called PoCo and told them they had bad neutral. They came out with a Beast within a couple hours they replaced pole pig. They also replaced microwave, refrigerator and stove for tenant.

Sent from my SM-G930V using Tapatalk
 
480sparky said:
The POCO here will open the can and look, but it's not their responsibility to fix it.
Click to expand...

Same here, they will look but won't touch the lugs. I had one where they had been out twice and said nothing was wrong. I was 100% certain there was a neutral problem. I had the lineman stay while I loosened the lugs and removed the neutral conductors. You couldn't see it without taking them loose, but the inside of the lugs and the stripped ends of the conductors were so corroded there was no continuity.
I fixed that but also insisted the lineman look at his splice/tap to make sure it was ok. He ended up also replacing the crimp at the weatherhead.

BTW, we aren't allowed to break the seal and pull the meter.:happyno:
One POCO doesn't have the smart meters and we can (sorta) get by with it but the POCO with the smart meters we can't because the meters will tell on us!:happyyes:
 
Little Bill said:
..............BTW, we aren't allowed to break the seal and pull the meter.:happyno:..............
Click to expand...

Us either. We used to do so all the time. Heck, we'd even swing the service drop to a new POA when upgrading a service. Now the POCO says they don't want us touching anything because, they claim, we don't wear FR and AF clothing. So they send out a local EC that subs that work and they show up with cotton t-shirts and blue jeans.

Go figure.
 
480sparky said:
Us either. We used to do so all the time. Heck, we'd even swing the service drop to a new POA when upgrading a service. Now the POCO says they don't want us touching anything because, they claim, we don't wear FR and AF clothing. So they send out a local EC that subs that work and they show up with cotton t-shirts and blue jeans.

Go figure.
Click to expand...
Beats polyester!

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk
 
KnightPower said:
Similarly I called PoCo and told them they had bad neutral. They came out with a Beast within a couple hours they replaced pole pig. They also replaced microwave, refrigerator and stove for tenant.
Click to expand...

It's a wonder they didn't claim the squirrels ate the pole pig (act of God) to keep from paying for the appliances.
 
Little Bill said:
One POCO doesn't have the smart meters and we can (sorta) get by with it but the POCO with the smart meters we can't because the meters will tell on us!:happyyes:
Click to expand...
My understanding is how likely they will be notified depends on how they have configured things. I think it is typical for them to ping every meter in the system to help detect potential problems - if one doesn't respond there might be something wrong there. Really useful for after storms and other disasters as they can easily see an entire section being out and know where they want to look first when dispatching repair crews.

But outside those kind of situations they maybe only ping everything maybe once a day, a couple times a day, once every hour, etc. If you remove the meter and replace it before they try to communicate with it they will never know it was out.

There may also be times when not all pings are completed, but to continue to fail multiple consecutive tests will trigger a troubleshoot ticket or whatever to check into what is going on.
 
If the meter pan isn't "locked" and just tagged, I will cut the tag, and remove the meter, if need be, to check the connections. If all is in tact and a problem still exists I will have the customer call the POCO and advise them of the problem. IMHO, the meter pan is attached to the house (or building) and ONE OF US, in all likelihood, installed it. We also attach to the service drop but the POCO's in my area come out afterwards and make their own splices or crimps. I will not take the ladder off my truck to check those connections unless I made them or unless the break is obvious at the service connection.

Just had a situation like this last week. Customer said they lost power to "half "of their house. I'm usually suspicious of this type of call because people generally panic when a few receptacles are out. But, sure enough, after removing the meter, I found they lost one phase. Unfortunately for them it was an underground service and the POCO had to dig up their lawn to get a new wire installed. It wasn't installed in PVC, it was direct buried cable.
 
Weekend call some years ago, it was an obvious intermittent connection of one hot. I traced it back to the Meter can, cut the seal, removed the lid and then had second thoughts of pulling the meter. The only thing holding the wires in place were the lugs to the meter. Almost everything behind it was burnt up.

Yanking that thing out would not have been a fun experience. For you guys still being allowed by the POCO to remove meters, be careful.
 
Coppersmith said:
I asked them to check the meter connections since they were coming out anyway
Click to expand...

ptonsparky said:
The only thing holding the wires in place were the lugs to the meter. Almost everything behind it was burnt up. Yanking that thing out would not have been a fun experience. For you guys still being allowed by the POCO to remove meters, be careful.
Click to expand...

Since the line crew was coming out to check their connections, I asked them to check the meter connections so I didn't have to. The scariest thing I do as an EC is pull meters. Something going wrong could be catastrophic. If I could get the POCO to pull a meter without scheduling it two weeks in advance, I would never pull one myself. Unfortunately, I would lose lots of panel change business if I pushed jobs out that far. I don an arc flash suit whenever I pull or reinstall a meter. Call me a wimp, but they scare me.
 
goldstar said:
. . . I will cut the tag, and remove the meter, if need be, to check the connections.

But, sure enough, after removing the meter, I found they lost one phase.
Click to expand...
I usually do this kind of checking with the meter in place, because the house load is necessary to make voltage loss apparent, just as with a bad neutral.
 
Coppersmith said:
Since the line crew was coming out to check their connections, I asked them to check the meter connections so I didn't have to. The scariest thing I do as an EC is pull meters. Something going wrong could be catastrophic. If I could get the POCO to pull a meter without scheduling it two weeks in advance, I would never pull one myself. Unfortunately, I would lose lots of panel change business if I pushed jobs out that far. I don an arc flash suit whenever I pull or reinstall a meter. Call me a wimp, but they scare me.
Click to expand...

Our poco here is very lax, we pull and reinstall meters as a routine matter. I don't like doing it either but if the meter socket is in good shape, it's never a problem. If I see that it's in bad shape, I'll cut the taps and then pull it. Like you, we simply can't wait around for the poco for panel changes and service upgrades.
 
Gee.....If I wasn't retired I'd be highly offended....;) I can't speak for any other utilities, but the ones I worked for as a meter/relay tech did their best to keep customers happy. After all, they pay our wages! The reality is that the customer (contractor) purchases, installs and wires the service drop from the weather head on overhead. Usually on U/G the contractor only installs the conduit and the utility pulls in the service wires. Either way, when a problem occurs behind the meter, since it is a sealed compartment, the customer or his electrician is not allowed to cut seals. In the real world, though, if a well known electrician wants to cut seals to work behind a meter, we look the other way and reseal it after we inspect the panel to make sure it still meets our requirements. It's true that the utility will not repair a bad connection, neutral or otherwise. We are not allowed to work on customer equipment. Not only because management forbids it, but the local electricians would scream that we were taking their work. That said, I've personally identified many connection problems on services and have repaired quite a few, but only because our bosses were too busy to care. But....!!! if a fire broke out later, we could be held liable and the lawyers would be coming out of the woodwork. Welcome to America!
 
Coppersmith said:
I don an arc flash suit whenever I pull or reinstall a meter. Call me a wimp, but they scare me.
Click to expand...

peter d said:
If I see that it's in bad shape, I'll cut the taps and then pull it.
Click to expand...

I would never call another electrician a wimp just because they take extra safety precautions. When it comes to personal safety each person has to do what they think best ( it's your life ).

Like Peter says if I think the meter socket is in bad shape I'll just cut it loose at the weather head.

We are lucky here in that you can normally get a power company service truck out in about an hour or maybe two under normal working conditions ( not so fast after a bad storm when they are really busy).
 
meternerd said:
Gee.....If I wasn't retired I'd be highly offended....;) I can't speak for any other utilities, but the ones I worked for as a meter/relay tech did their best to keep customers happy.
Click to expand...

Our local power companies do a really good job and have a good response time and do try to keep customers happy.

But all utilities are not created equal and I know of other utilities that don't have such a good reputation for customer service.
 
OK, so I just got off the phone with the boss of the crew that checked the connection. First off he tells me they hooked some kind of tester that shoots 800 amps DC from the line side of the meter back and found no problems. So I ask if they checked the load side connections. After all they were right there. He says they don't usually, but calls his tech and the tech says "he looked at it". Didn't wiggle it. Didn't tighten it. Just looked at it. But, he says, I can cut the seal, check it myself, and call for a re-seal. And if I really want to drive an hour across town in rush hour traffic he can have a guy pull the meter so I can check it. Really? Couldn't just check if the wire was loose? This is not what I call good customer service. Oh and P.S., they lost the original ticket and had to reissue it when I called on Friday to check for results.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top