I have been having a life and haven't spent any time on this board in a few. Wow! you folks sure can sure whip up a lather over nothing.
I am quite suprised that no one has mentioned pole mounted services. REA specifications call for that hole to be used to exit the ground wire for clamping to the poco ground wire (# 6) extending to the copper plate on the pole bottom. This is done with a split bolt or sometimes with a compression fitting. This way, your ground wire only has to be 18 inches long. Of course, here in the Ozarks, routinely 200 Amp SE's are tied in with #6. Since the Coop lineman is the closest thing to an inspector that most rural installations ever see, that's what you get. I just completed a surge arrestor installation on a chicken farm last week and want to return with my camera, many of you will be shocked and appalled at the shoddy workmanship and disregard for the code. (example: a sub feeder to one of the 5 houses consisted of 2- 2-0 Al & the neutral was a # 10 TW...)This job was just across the Okla. line...
An aside: In southern Indiana the poco required the ground wire to be connected to the GR terminal inside the main breaker with no connection allowed inside the meter base. Their rationale was that ONCE a kid had been playing with a bare ground wire, pulled it out, and then stuck it back up into the little hole... the poco got sued...of course. Now everybody else has to adapt. I was taught to encase my ground with a piece of 1/2' emt and found out by accident that if the run is at all complex, insert the # 4 solid before bending the pipe...sparky's late night, unmarked truck outen state 'lectric
[This message has been edited by Almost Fried (edited 12-04-2006).]
