ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Burned up main breakers

Steve, absolutely they do. I know of one person (parts runner for a company I worked for) that had tampered with his and after three months he got home one afternoon to find a Sherrif deputy waiting to arrest him. He spent of couple of days in jail, had to pay for an estimated amount of unbilled usage, a fine, and I think a years probation.

Roger

Poco's here use barrel locks, and in extreme cases a larger version that sits on the side & front of the meter pan. That BIG thing has an additional barrel lock on it.

As to tampering, the last one I stumbled on was an apt super who would flip his meter for a few days/weeks, then flip it back prior to meter reading day. Don't know what they did to him, besides the shut-off when the wiring insp showed up to unlock a meter for me.

John

I know in So Cal Edison land, nothing happens in a timely manner. I've called for a meter guy to come out and all but maybe 2 times, they've tried to "schedule an appointment (usually in 3-5 business days)" while someone is left without power. I have no problem snipping seals if there's a reason for it, and occasionaly I'd grind a lockring off and replace it with a regular meter ring. (Never heard any complaints...)In San Diego Gas & Electric land I had a lineman give me a whole box of seals, and told me if I needed to break a seal, just put a new one on when I was done
Some of those San Diego seals ended up used in other places, surely to baffle some attentive meter readers in LADWP areas and elsewhere

Around here if you are nice and know some of the PoCo folks they will slip you a few seals, no questions asked. I have actually had one of the PoCo folks once show me what to beware of on some styles of meter sockets if when we do have to pull meters.

A.D

If they are nice enough to give you a few seals, try to be discrete about it, and don't use them on other companies' meters. If they're giving you seals, it means that either they know your work and trust you not to mess anything up, or they're just being nice and helping you get around the bureaucracy. You don't want to return the favor by getting them in trouble, for breaking procedure or giving away company property.