So the electrician is coming Sunday to help me change out my panel. That means I should be assembling my TS and finally putting it to work!
Had one bit of fun with the grounding rods I had to add. Called the folks who mark the underground cables and pipes on your property on a Thursday; they said they’d be out within 24 hours. End of Friday, no location for the electric feed. I check the PSE site, and it says that sometimes they can’t mark residential feeds because the wires were run by the homeowner/builder.
So on Saturday the electrician comes to estimate the panel change, and I ask about the routing of the service, and he said they almost always run it within 2′ of the foundation. He says keep the rods at least 2′ from the house and we’ll be fine.
So my boys and I spend a good part of Sunday pounding two tall galvanized grounding rods into our back yard, a safe 4′ from the foundation; we dig the trench for the grounding electrode conductor, etc.
Monday I come home from work, and PSE has showed up. They’ve spray-painted a line for the power feed, and they’ve routed it 4′ from the foundation.
So my boys and I missed the 200A 240v service wire by about 4″.
Ugh.
Anyway, no harm no foul but plenty of retroactive excitement.
Replies
>So my boys and I missed the 200A 240v service wire by about 4".<
I've a couple of good stories along those lines.........
First one of our helpers drove a ground rod though a 20'' water main, must have been already rotted because were talking concrete covered steel!! Made quite the geyser. #2: one of the machine shop guys tried to cut through a live 12kv conduit, from before the days of red concrete covering such things, with a chipping hammer, one of our electricians spotted him and stopped him just as the lead sheath on the cable was visible. No one had marked it and he thought it was a drain line.
Duke
The Bill of Rights
December 15 1791
NRA Endowment Member
LEAA Life Member
CRPA Member
must have been already rotted because were talking concrete covered steel!! A MAN did that! Was really tired and got pissed cus he thought he was weak!
Should have use Copper Rods!
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