im an electrical contractor in ohio.Deregulation went into effect the first of the year.so our local power company..Ohio Edison sent all contractors a letter saying"Because distrubution comp. now only provide a portion of customers service,they receive only the distrubution portion of customers bills.They do not cover the expense of services requested by customers.This would include service calls requiring line crews to disconnect and reconnect electric service in order to accomodate contractors doing work at a home or bussiness,i.e. service revamps,dropping a service for tree removal,service for siding jobs,open and close pad mount transformers,etc.Since the cost of these services is not included in our tarrifs,additional costs are required.They will charge customers $200 for disconnecting/reconnecting services.This cost is based on the ability of the customer/contractor to schedule this work with 4 working days notice.Same day notice will be billed at $300.Is this what you guys have to do to get a revamp done in your area?

You bet. I had to get a 12KV service shut down a few months ago. The shut down was in the morning and power back up was about 8:00PM the same day. (over time for the line crew) Simply shutting down and turning on a padmount switch cost the customer $1300.00.
But what do ya do?

Me, i have no problem with an ariel 240/120, however i do like to have the power co. shut the x-former off for a lateral.

I got the same letter from Ohio Edison, and you know to start off, when they call you by your first name the news is not good.
I did a 200 A revamp/reconnect last month, and wanted to have OE put a pole in so got hold of their engineering depart and met the engineer on site, the shortest run was 134 feet and that went over top of a flat roofed trailer to attach the service to the garage, so I suggested planting a pole on the other side of the driveway he said well that would be ok but, $1500. for the pole, and another 500 to bring the tri-plex to the pole and 200. to connect. So took the easy way out and put the mast up 8 feet abovt the trailor roof, but this is getting rediculous.
After I got my letter I called Ohio Edison, and talked to the person who sent me the letter, and they said, some customer took out a loan to buy a pre-manufactured home, loan was 45,000.00 and in order for OE to hook her up it would be 3000.00 up front, sad part is she was tapped out at the bank, so here she has a new home with no electric, this is crazy.

Unfortunately, most of the time, we have know way of knowing what SoCA Edison's charges will be at the time we bid or commence work on a job.
We've taken to simply excluding "any and all power company charges" from any of our estimates. We don't dare venture a guess.
The SCE overtime rate per man is $132.10 per hour. They seldom work alone.

Earlier this year, the power company would not respond to a non critical outage except during regular business hours. Since dereg there's never a dull moment. Prepare yourself.

Here in NY Con Edisons price for providing a riser for 200 amp service. $1050 dollars. This includes a direct burial splice at the base of the pole and conduit and wire up to the secondary. 3-6 week wait for a crew.

NYSEG's price for the same job $260 includes setting the pole on customers property. Within 10 days of receiving temp inspection.

go figure

Why do they make a splice at the base of the pole? Why not have you leave 20' or whatever of cable coiled and run it without any splice?

Maybe some of you r misunderstanding this,but o.e is charging the customer $200 just to come out and disconnect usually 3 wires.I always disconnected the service at the point of attachment,and then temporaily hooked them back up,o.e then would come out and make permanent connections.I was told that if i cut the wires on the customer side of the permanent connections that this would be ok since im not cutting the power comp. triplex.but they r still going to charge the customer $200 to come out and make permanent conn. GOD BLESS AMERICA i guess

What's to misunderstand??
Regulation determined how much and how many charges would be made to the customer. Deregulation did just what the name says.
They are in business, and it's not free anymore.

You've got to consider what it costs to do the job. (In CA you would probably get 2 men and a boomtruck). They've got to drive there.
If they disconnect and reconnect that's 2 trips.
Most contractors would charge just as much, if not more, to do this service.

Prepare yourself

I thought you had a choice of who to call under dereg ?

Only the company that generates the power. The local utillity still ownes and maintains the distribution. They have been sub contracting more now than they used to. You still contact them for utillity work.

Here in Texas dereg will start officialy in 2002 I think. I should know that answer because I work for the utility.

I think that we will probebly be charging some of the same fees as has been mentioned already but not sure how far it will go.

Right now there are no charges for a temporary disco or reconnect for change orders. But I believe there to be a charge for reconnects after disco for non payment.

Also in place now is a charge for a temp bypass cable if the cust owned URD drops are bad. It's $95 right now but I think that it will double or triple if the cust takes this option. We'll see.

Also as of now there are no charges or fees when it is determined that causes are inside trouble. This is one charge I would love to see because I myself am so tired of going into raggedy apartment complexes to reset a breaker because the cust is too lazy to do it thereselves. It has gotten to be rediculous. These cust down here are spoiled rotten beyond belief.

We are in for a change that is for sure, but our company said we are not expected to encounter the trouble that has plagued Calif.

We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

glenn35

I think you can thank this stupid Deregulation for the recconnection charge.

Another aspect of dereg. in the U.K. has been the almost complete dropping of basic safety tests.

As I've said several times, we have no permits or inspections, and anyone can do a complete re-wire.

Back in the "old" days, when the guy from the Electricity Board (as it was then known) came along to install the meter and connect or re-connect power, he would at least carry out a few basic tests: Check for ground on main ground busbar, insulation test line-to-neutral and L/N to ground, etc.

If these tests failed on he saw anything else considered dangerous, the utility had the right to refuse to connect power.

Now that the 200 different companies are run by the bean-counters instead of the engineers, they don't bother with any tests. Connect the meter, in goes the service fuse, and if it doesn't go bang, they pack up and leave.

Why should they bother? If there's 5A leakage flowing to earth, all the more profit for them!