ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area Do you pull your own meters?

Maintenceguy... you should contact the POCO in the area your working at and ebstablish who you are with them, they very well could let you pull the meter without a fine, but if that tag on the meter is tampered with someone going to answer for possible electric thief, if not you the homeowner is. also you do need to be aware that the power company dont follow NEC, meaning there not a fuse out there to just protect the meter your working on, the POCO fuses to protect there transformer that could be serving more loads then the meter your at. so you need to be aware of that. every POCO has different standards and policies, most very simular, but you need to get there standards book.

We are not allowed to pull meters. They all have a "Barrel Lock". I would love to have a key for emergencies. An allen wrench won't do it.

I asked a guy at the fire department and they don't have keys, that doesn't seem right does it?

It's a small Coop and there are only two linemen and sometimes they are both out of town.

PSE&G use to use a special barrel key that only they could use. I haven't worked in their area for a while now, but I don't think that they changed their locks since then. Also there are brand new meters out now that are hooked up to the POCO, (By telco, wireless or broadband) so that they can turn on (and turn off) the power right over the air for people who don't pay their bills.

Yeah our meters are read over the lines via RF. We have a time of use program and they say that they are going to have the capability to switch the time of use loads (hot water and ETS heat) from their end to manage demand. Sounds a little to big brother to me.