wiring help please

ugabulldog

I have a 200 amp meter base on side of house (no meter installed yet) with 6 connectors- 3 wires/lines from underground line and 3 wires/lines from inside house, (plus small cooper wire from ground). One of the three underground lines has a green strip, the other two underground lines are solid black. Green line connects to center connector, black lines to two top connectors in base. Are the two solid underground black lines/connectors interchangable? (long story as to why I am asking) thanks.

InPhase277

The short answer is yes, but we should really hear the story just in case there is another solution to your problem...

InPhase277

jcalvin

Might be a good idea to get an electrician to look at it. Even if you know where the wire go, you need to apply no-alox and torque the bolts good. Too tight and you break the meter base which is sometime pricey to fix. Too loose and you can burn up the house with the heat generated from a bad connection.

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Cal

You hired WHO?
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jrclen

I'm wondering why you are making the power companies connections on the top lugs of the meter can. Usually they like to do that themselves.

ugabulldog

The septic tank folks hit the underground conduit and pulled it loose from the base. I had to take off meter base and cut old conduit and put longer piece of conduit to reach base again, now wires are having a hard time reaching lugs. (The septic tank was put in free by wife's uncle's company so i didn't feel right asking them to fix it.)

I bought # 5 flux to re-apply to wires where it came off, I know how tight lugs were as I took them off and I didn't think I would need a torgue wrench to re-tighten, although I could be wrong...

(See first response).... maybe I should call power company and see if they will come back out to re-attach.

Thanks to all who responded and any other advice is always appreciated.

frenchelectrican

To order get the meter socket working you have to get ahold of your POCO to set up a date to come out and they will termated thier connection to the line side of metering box but for load side i rather let a electrician take care that part because there are some code issue may show up with it.

and also the other reason why i say get ahold of your POCO due with secondary drop from the transformer to the metering genrally it is a UNFUSED secondary conductor only primary side is fused so if something happend to underground cable and shorted out it will really burn pretty nice.

most POCO will useally fix or extend the splices they have proper kit and most electrician can do that too.

IMO,.. for safety sake it will be wise let the POCO deal with the service cables between the transformere to the meter box.

[ i did see few ugly failures it is not pretty sight when they go bad.]

Merci, Marc

JGarth

Just from the way you described this condition, you should have a licensed contractor do this.

jrclen

Aren't the POCO wires live to the meter socket? I agree with Marc, those can light things up pretty good if they short. Like out of control welding. I would get the POCO out to redo the connections. They will kill the power first.

ugabulldog

I have an appt set up with the POCO, thanks

jrclen

Good move. Let us know what they do.

ugabulldog

Update: POCO came out and dug up, re-attached conduit and wires. It is a good thing they did because conduit was torn up pretty bad underground. Thanks to everyone who convinced me to get the pros involved.... I will be ready for final inspection next week

Stubbie

Thats great. It is always good to mark the utility trench as a homeowner during contruction phases where they are going to be digging. You can get those little wire flags at home depot or lowes and stick them in the ground so it alerts the septic guys to the location of the trench. Or if old construction have the guy come out and locate it then he will paint it so the septic guys will see where its at.

wire_twister

Any one digging should have gotten a locate before starting work. Good thing the incoming line was not hot yet. Marc, around here the pad mounted transformers used for underground services have fuses in the secondary lines, unlike the pole pigs. I know this from experience, I dug up an incoming service between transformer and meter with a trencher, had it located by the POCO but their marks were off by about three feet. After the short fire show I called POCO they came out repaired the line, I re burried it, they changed the fuse and turned it back on.

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Jimmy

Life is tough, Life is tougher when you are stupid.

frenchelectrican

True Jimmy i know what you mean with padmounted transformer most older one we have around here is not secondary protected just primary size and they are sized pretty good and if ya cut it for anyreason the primary fuse will just poped most padmount transformers useally are 25 Kw size but there are few older 15's around there.

but there are some bigger one my shop have 75 KW 3Ø 480Y/277 transformer that have primary fused as well.

a sidenote you may wonder why i say 75 KW padmount that is the smallest size my POCO can provide on 3Ø system.

Merci, Marc

RobertS

It must be nice. Our POCO won't touch anything under ground. We have to install it, get it inspected, and maintain it. The only thing they do is the hookup at the pole, or transformer.