Bill,
Well, my recollection was wrong--the city ordnance reads like this:
"Service entrance Conductors not having overcurrent protection prior to entering a building or structure on the property served shall not exceed 10 feet in length after entering the building or structure."
It's not an issue for residential installations, as it's all service entrance panels with the main OCPD (and the branch CBs too) outside the house.
Hoo-boy, that flying splice sounds scary. We had a case locally where some guy on the board of directors of a local suburban/rural utility company was caught stealing power at his home, bypassing the meter. That cut his political career short!
And back to your original post, the 6'/12' rule, straight from the National Code, is what's used locally. But there are a few areas whree my AHJ is a little tighter than the NEC; for instance, my AHJ requires one 15A general lighting circuit for 500 SF in service calcs (instead of 600 SF derived from the 3VA/SF general lighting load table).
Cliff
