Electrical meter inspection safety advice.

This article describes common safety hazards & defects visible at the electric meter and meter pan or panel, including loose electric meters, frayed or leaky wiring, and signs of overheating.

Inspection of the Electric Meter and Service Entry Cable

Let's start the steps of inspecting a building's electrical service at the meter and SEC cable.

What can se see that is important, without touching or testing anything? Quite a lot.

Pay special attention to water entry at the service entry cable, at the top of the electric meter enclosure, and at the wall penetration where the SEC enters the building as these conditions can send water into the electrical panel where corrosion creates unreliable equipment and water is a hazard.

Fatal Shock Hazard Warning: Inspecting electrical components and systems risks death by electrocution as well as serious burns or other injuries to the inspector or to others. Do not attempt these tasks unless you are properly trained and equipped.

• The frayed service entry cable (shown in photos above) and lost wire-clamping seal around the service entry cable at the top of the electrical meter box (left) send wind-blown rain into the enclosure.

See ELECTRIC PANEL RUST for a study of water entry, rust, and corrosion in electrical panels presented at the 1992 IEEE Holm Conference.

• Capillary action sends rainwater following the outside of a service entry cable 
  
  right into the building if the cable is not sealed at the wall penetration
• The bottom of the electrical meter enclosure acts as a funnel
  
   to collect and send rainwater into the interior of the service entry cable where it is conducted as if in a plastic pipe, right into the top of the electrical panel located below this point inside the home.
  
  A photo later in this article series shows the water entry tracking stains at the SEC in the main panel.

• Dropped sheet metal screws & loose electric meter boxes:
  
  be careful about dropping a metal screw into or onto live electrical parts.

If you see that the electrical meter box is loose on the building wall, do not touch it.

A loose mounting screw can fall into the meter box, shorting electrical components there and leading to a house fire. -- Arnold Road Poughkeepsie NY house fire - J. Aronstein & D. Friedman.

See ELECTRIC METERS & METER BASES for procedures used for inspecting these outdoor components.

Handling Immediate Threats to Life and Safety at a Building Inspection

If in the inspector's judgment equipment is an immediate threat to life and property, such as a boiler whose flue connection has fallen off, we recommend that dangerous equipment be shut down and the appropriate people notified.

SeeSHUT DOWN EQUIPMENT, WHEN TO

In some cases "appropriate people" includes not only the client and building owner, but also building occupants.

Watch out: the very loose electric meter shown in our photo risks fire or death by electrocution simply by touching it. A trained electrician or electric utility worker might pull the meter off of a meter base as a means of cutting electrical power into a building in an emergncy.

But in this case that manuver is dangerous Notice those screws protruding from the back of the meter? Imagine touching it when a screw falls into the meter and causes a dead short between the service entry cable and the metal electrical meter base or box.

To repair this electrical meter safely power should be dropped at the overhead masthead.

These electrical inspection suggestions are not a complete inventory of all electrical safety procedures nor of all electrical components that should be inspected; these notes focus on identification of conditions that may present special electrical hazards for the electrical inspector.

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Continue reading  at ELECTRICAL PANEL INSPECTION SAFETY or select a topic from the closely-related articles below, or see the complete ARTICLE INDEX.

Or see these

Recommended Articles

• ELECTRIC METERS & METER BASES
• ELECTRIC METER BASE vs SERVICE AMPS
• ELECTRIC METER RATING vs SERVICE AMPS
• HOW TO INSPECT ELECTRIC METERS & BASES
• ELECTRIC METER CLEARANCE DISTANCES & WORKING SPACE
• ELECTRIC METER ARC BURN POWER LOSS
• ELECTRIC METER OVERHEAT AL to CU WIRING
• ELECTRIC METER RUNS BACKWARDS
• SMART or DIGITAL ELECTRIC METER READINGS
• ELECTRIC METER & SEC SAFETY
• ELECTRICAL PANEL INSPECTION SAFETY
• ELECTRIC POWER LOSS / FLICKERING LIGHTS
• MAIN ELECTRICAL DISCONNECT
• SAFETY for ELECTRICAL INSPECTORS
• SHUT DOWN EQUIPMENT, WHEN TO

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ELECTRIC METER & SERVICE ENTRY at InspectApedia.com - online encyclopedia of building & environmental inspection, testing, diagnosis, repair, & problem prevention advice.

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INDEX to RELATED ARTICLES: ARTICLE INDEX to ELECTRICAL INSPECTION & TESTING

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