...Today your friendly neighborhood Attic Rat,was summoned to yet one more interesting test of skill and wit..A service,that "bounces" from one ediface to another.The service in question is an overhead,fed from a pole,hits the front house,comes down the side via weather head,and 100a.SEU to the meter.The 100a.SEU(3 wires) leaves the meter,then heads down to the basement(of the front house),where it is brought into a 100a.2-pole breaker disconnect,..from there,leaves the disconnect via SEU(3 wires)and travels the length of the house(outdoors)about 40' to the rear of the house,goes up to a weather head,then gets spliced to a 3-wire aerial,travels some 60',hits another weather head mounted on the rear(carriage) house on the same lot.This then comes down the side of the house,travels another 46' thru a crawl space in the basement,to a Main breaker panel there..ok,we all have a picture of this abortion in our minds eye right?? The rear house panel is bonded at the water main(no sign of a ground rod,or ground hog,for that matter) My query is..if something unGodly should happen to the line outside,..or worse,..in the crawlspace,without that bare equipment ground that SER type cable gives us,..how is the fault going to open the Main disconnect located in the front house effectively?? in other words,shouldn't "they" have run SER,or a 4-wire system to the back house via aerial?My involvement in this mess is because the SEU travelling peacefully down the side of the rear house is probably at least 4,000 years old,and cloth covered.I've seen better cloth wrappings on mummies..Anyway,the cloth(cable jacket) is almost gone completely,and the metal 2-hole straps are perilously close to shorting the conductors they once diligently supported.My mission,should I choose to accept it,is to replace the SEU,although I was thinking of inserting a 100a. disconnect at the rear house to protect the line run thru the crawl-space within the 9th circle of hell that they call a "basement"... What would y'all do...(besides run for the hills)..??
Russ
[This message has been edited by Attic Rat (edited 04-05-2005).]
