ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion UglyService

Submitted by S. Wilson


The utilities (So Cal Edison) were moved from overhead to underground. Somebody did a whole neighborhood like this. There are NEMA 3R gutters mounted on top of the old service masts, and the new UG was piped up to them. No support for the gutters, other than the conduits, which are entering through concentric KO's.

Thanks for a great site
..... electure (S. Wilson)

i work for a "Florida power and light" contractor here, so we change out meter cans and meter/mains, we also do ug services and upgrades... and from all ive done, thats just a gosh darn dirty installation there.. lol if it HAD to be done like that i would have: taken one 3" or whatever size pipe was needed to a smaller nema box sitting on one riser, and taken a pipe over to the other riser and connect it with an elbow (perhaps shorten one or both pipes..) , and either spliced in the nema box, or pull in both sets from down below.. then i would have built a uni-strut stand for it atleast.. a ghetto installation if i ever saw one.. 'woulda been ideal to come in from the bottom, and NOT penetrate the roof.. oh well!

-m

such a visibly vile violation!, i can't imagine a utility , never mind an AHJ,that would condone this.

is thgis recent history?

was this an attempt to leave the 7 meters as "existing", and not upgrade to a disco?

electure,

UglyService is a perfect name for this. It was probably the easiest and most cost effective way to do it though.

Bill

Bill,

It is almost always cost effective to cheat the work. Until you have to make it right of course.

Pile of junk.

As far as I can tell, the 7 meters were OK until this went underground.

Tom

electure,

Did the Utility contract out to have this done? Re-reading your post again and seeing the Concentric Ko's part makes me wonder who's signing off on this. Ugliness aside, I wouldn't think that would fly with anyone.

Bill

This was done in the late 70's in L.A. county,CA. AHJ here is normally "by the book", but must have thrown it out on this one. I worked for a company that bid on something of this nature, but we were going to mount the cans under the eaves and rework the existing risers(more $ and probably why we didn't get any of the work). It makes for an interesting skyline of about 8 city blocks. There goes the neighborhood.

so how many people ask
"what kind of lights are those??"

Sparky, those lights may be the wave of the future for SoCalEdison,"blackout lights". I got a chance to talk to the very old EC that I worked for back then. He said that these were funded by the utility, and being ahead of the point of connection were not subject to the NEC or local codes. He's still amazed.

electure,

I had a feeling it was something like that!


Bill