Who's responsible

[growler]

I would be interested in knowing if anyone on this board has every ACTUALLY been fined by a power company? I am sure everyone here has been threatened.

Threatened "Yes", fined "No".

I think some of them just like to threaten electricians.

 

[qcroanoke]

Threatened "Yes", fined "No".

I think some of them just like to threaten electricians.

I have pulled many a meter and just put the old tag back when I was done.
Not any more though, the tags are clear and they can see it's been cut.
Unless it's an emergency I won't cut it.

 

[Rewire]

Threatened "Yes", fined "No".

I think some of them just like to threaten electricians.

I had an old boss that went the full ten rounds with a POCO engineer over pilling a meter that had an arcing panel .The guy said the same thing about call the fire dept even if it burns down the house dont pull the meter ,my old boss then said are you ready to state that in open court? Needles to say he backed off quickly.

 

[active1]

When the POCO originally came out to the house the HO said they checked their connections at the mid-span and at the point of attachment to the house.

I think the HO should fight this and try to get compensated from the POCO. Any thoughts ?

Most POCO's responcibility ends at the point of attachment. They checked their side. Just like the cable company told them to call an electrician.

I would not push the customer to asked to be compensated for damages. Their is a chance it could come back to you. I would not want to be an electrician in a panel at a house when things start to burn up. While there has been questions if you acted quick enough the customer does not know what happened. Except you were the one there when things went bad. Not the cable guy or POCO. Depending on the type of customer you have you could explain till your blue in the face what happened, they wont understand.

Now I guessing the customers not blaming you from the tone of the post. But by pushing the customer to place blame on the POCO will just start a storm. Because you just changed it from their stuff fried because their electrical has not been maintained on the house to it's someones fault. You point them to the POCO. The POCO will almost never compensate a customer. Especially if it was the customer owen meter pan who knows how old that failed. The POCO can just as well blame you. I would almost bet that would be the case.

If you charged them for a service call and they don't blame you. Give them a more than fair price to redo the service. If your too high they may call other EC. Another EC may try to place blame on you to win the job.

Bottom line tread lightly.

 

[scwirenut]

the bottom line here folks is who owns the meterbase, if the poco does, then do not cut their seal, let them do it and make repairs.....however if the homeowner owns the meterbase they can whine all they want and threaten ect. but it would never stand up in court if you cut the seal on customer owned equipment for emergency repairs. this is still America. If the poco dosnt like it, they are more than welcome to provide there own equipment and maintain it. and on another note , the State Licensing Board could care less about this issue , no chance in having license revoked. im amazed sometimes at the BS I read....

 

[480sparky]

the bottom line here folks is who owns the meterbase, if the poco does, then do not cut their seal, let them do it and make repairs.....however if the homeowner owns the meterbase they can whine all they want and threaten ect. but it would never stand up in court if you cut the seal on customer owned equipment for emergency repairs. this is still America. If the poco dosnt like it, they are more than welcome to provide there own equipment and maintain it. and on another note , the State Licensing Board could care less about this issue , no chance in having license revoked. im amazed sometimes at the BS I read....

It makes no difference who own the base/socket. Cutting the LOCK is what could get you in to trouble.

 

[e57]

Locally - here... One could get some grief about opening a seal and pulling a meter - in the form of a light tongue lashing with bad attitude - but more often than not just a hairy eyeball. That said if you blew something up - after you got out of the hospital - there may be some other things in store for you - not known anyone to get that far.

Back to the OP - start over on the service.... But lets examine the service call too.

I had a service call at a residence with an old 100 amp service. Both the POCO and CATV company were there prior to me getting there and left the service as is and told the HO to have her service upgraded.

Was the main off - or on? Important - if it were on, and turned on by the HO or you - that takes the POCO out of liability completely.

Upon my arrival I noticed that the service drop for the CATV had melted. The HO was told that their phones and internet would not work because the amperage on the ground at the CATV drop was greater than 1 amp (I've discussed this some time ago in a previous post).

Lets stop here for a moment - if you know that there is current on the neutral by this damage to the CATV and phones, then it can be assumed to be a lost or intermittent neutral connection. If I had the slightest hint of this on the phone from the get go - I would have asked if the breaker is off, and if not - tell the person to shut it off until I get there. If they felt the slightest discomfort in shutting it off themselves I would tell them to UNPLUG EVERYTHING THEY CAN - FAST!

When I clipped on my amp probe there was actually almost 5 amps on the ground wire. I ran a temporary new ground wire and bonded it to the ground bar at the breaker panel. At the moment it seemed to reduce the amperage at the CATV D-mark by about 2 amps. Suddenly, the freezer in the basement kicked on and all the lights went dim. A few seconds later they got real bright. I got out my meter and measured the voltage at the breaker panel. There was about 78 volts on one hot leg and about 186 volts on the other. At that point I shut the main breaker but I was too late. The over-voltage burnt up the computer, CATV box and melted the CATV wire at the D-mark.

Since you knew, or should have known it was a 'HIGH/LOW EVENT' - you should have done your best to remove all loads, if not all voltage sensitive or expensive loads from being energized - and not have attempted any temporary bypass. A bypass to what I am not sure? "temporary new ground wire (from where?) and bonded it to the ground bar at the breaker panel"

Before doing ANYTHING - I would have walked through with the HO and taken note and made sure certain items were unplugged - then informed them of the possibilities of damage to things that did not get unplugged or disconnected.

Did you check voltages before doing this jumper? If so - where, and under what condition - loaded or unloaded?

When the POCO originally came out to the house the HO said they checked their connections at the mid-span and at the point of attachment to the house. They never cut the tag on the meter enclosure or opened it to check inside. Their position is that the equipment attached to the house is the responsibility of the HO. As far as I'm concerned, by not inspecting the inside of the meter enclosure and leaving the customer with a obvious and potentially dangerous situation is irresponsible on their part. If you look at the attached photo you can clearly see that the service drop neutral is detached from the neutral in the meter enclosure. I think the HO should fight this and try to get compensated from the POCO. Any thoughts ?

The HO owns the service conductors and meter base most likely from the point of attachment to the house. Since most POCO guys are known primadonnas - it can be assumed they don't do what they should ethically, but only what they have to do legally. It sounds as if they did just that. The extra step would be to cut the seal or remove the lock on the meter for you - but that in of itself presents liability for them giving you the idea they may have already checked it. A note from them would amount to the same....

My thoughts would be to chalk it up to a lesson learned, and some changes in how you approach service calls of this type to also reduce your own liability....

That said, I think the damage was done to the destroyed appliances before you got there. These were damaged by the HO's equipment failure. But that is not to say that your actions with the jumper were not the straw that broke the camels back.... Difficult to know or for that matter prove??? (Anyone?)

 

[goldstar]

First off, thanks for all your replies and opinions.

Was the main off - or on? Important - if it were on, and turned on by the HO or you - that takes the POCO out of liability completely.

I'm not sure I made this clear in my OP but the power was on when I got to the residence. The POCO had been there earlier in the day and re-crimped their triplex and left the power on. I'm in agreement with the majority here in that the HO is ultimately responsible for anything going on inside the meter enclosure. However, if the POCO knew that there was a problem with the CATV ground and/or the service neutral (based on what the HO described) why would they leave the power connected ?

Lets stop here for a moment - if you know that there is current on the neutral by this damage to the CATV and phones, then it can be assumed to be a lost or intermittent neutral connection. If I had the slightest hint of this on the phone from the get go - I would have asked if the breaker is off, and if not - tell the person to shut it off until I get there. If they felt the slightest discomfort in shutting it off themselves I would tell them to UNPLUG EVERYTHING THEY CAN - FAST!

The loss of neutral problem was intermittent. I didn't even remove the breaker panel cover until 1 hour into the service call because I didn't see the lights dimming when I first got there. When freezer kicked on and the lights started dimming I just wasn't fast enough to shut down. The computer went and so did the CATV box. At that point I opened the meter enclosure cortrected the neutral on a temporary basis. I upgraded the service the next day (in the rain I might add). This was such an old service that had no ground rods or water main ground. The house has a well pump where the water feed to the well is in PVC.

My only gripe here is that the POCO didn't open the meter enclosure and check for defects. Granted, it is the HO's meter enclosure but it is the POCO's meter and locking tag. They should (at the very least) have opened the enclosure and identified the problem before I got there and before anything burnt up. At that point they would have known about the problem and left the service disconnected. They have done this on past occasions.. It must have been a green crew.

 

[LarryFine]

A few comments, if you don't mind:

Lets stop here for a moment - if you know that there is current on the neutral by this damage to the CATV and phones, then it can be assumed to be a lost or intermittent neutral connection. If I had the slightest hint of this on the phone from the get go - I would have asked if the breaker is off, and if not - tell the person to shut it off until I get there. If they felt the slightest discomfort in shutting it off themselves I would tell them to UNPLUG EVERYTHING THEY CAN - FAST!

Agree, agree, and disagree.

Yes, it's obviously a bad neutral, and yes, turn off the main immediately. But, no, don't turn off and unplug stuff. The imbalance may be temporarily increased doing that, and do more damage than good. Better to wait for someone who can throw the main.

A bypass to what I am not sure? "temporary new ground wire (from where?) and bonded it to the ground bar at the breaker panel"

Perhaps electrode connections? Believing that better electrodes prevent open-neutral issues? I've had POCO guys insist that there would be no problem with a bad service neutral if "homeowners would maintain their ground rods."

One in particular, the POCO was called out first and immediately opened the mains (two 150a MB panels) and then showed the HO that there was no imbalance, and told them that it only showing up with the main closed proved it was the HO's equipment.

I talked with a supervisor and explained that the experiment proved just the opposite. He had his guys come back out and they found a bad neutral crimp inside the pad-mount transformer. They then apologized to the HO. That felt good.