New electric service question..

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I have a 41 year old house and the electric entrance wire from the transformer to my meter on my house was direct buried in the ground with no conduit protection. Half our power went off the other day so the power company paid and installed new wire in a 3" PVC conduit.

The conduit and new wire goes up the side of the power pole about 60' from my house and the conduit stops a few feet from the transformer.

The part that bothers me is the top of the conduit where the wires comes out is open to the weather. It has no weather head on it. This makes me think that the conduit will fill up with water as we have about 44" of rain a year here in NW Arkansas.

I asked one of the men from the power company about it and he said they always do it that way.

Is this alright?

If not now would I cover the end of the conduit?

Thanks a ton!
 
Go ahead and climb up there and cover the hole.

Or, option 2, if the power guy said it was ok, then it must be ok. And if it is not ok, then they will come back out and fix it, for free, as they are required to do so, should there be a problem with the wires/install.

Not something I would even bother to worry about. If your power goes out they will fix it.

Also, the conduit they use up the power pole is not an uninterrupted pipe all the way to the house, as far as I know. It should be able to drain any water in the soil at the bottom no problem.
 
Dont worry about it. The conduit is to provide protect from anyone digging, and to aid in future line replacement. Some water won't matter and till likely drain out anyway.

Do not put your life at risk by climbing the pole
 
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It is fine. Don't climb the pole. You will just get yourself dead.

It most likely isn't conduit up the pole anyways. Just a pvc cover. The only reason to put wire in conduit underground is if the dirt is full of rocks or going to be driven on.
 
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The original wire should have been in a trench with sand under and over. But things happen.

I would leave it as. The conduit it to protect from rocks, not water.
 
Originally Posted By: SHOZ
Is there any fitting on top?



There is no fitting on the top. Just the end of the 3" conduit open to the weather.
 
It's very hard to keep water out of conduit over the long term. The installation crew might may have packed the top with duct-seal putty anyway. As some of the other fellows have said, the conduit is primarily to provide mechanical protection. An alternative is to install PT boards over the underground portion of the conductor run. I wouldn't worry about it.
 
What's on the other end? Trying to visualize... Is the implication that it goes much higher on the pole end than on the home end, so static pressure could force collected rainwater into the house?
 
Underground conduits will ALWAYS have water in them due to condensation. That's why any wire in an underground conduit has to be listed for wet locations. Having a weatherhead on the end isn't going to do anything. Just accept the conduit is going to fill with water no matter what you do and forget about it.
 
Originally Posted By: JHZR2
What's on the other end? Trying to visualize... Is the implication that it goes much higher on the pole end than on the home end, so static pressure could force collected rainwater into the house?


Yes, the open end on the pole is about 20' up in the air and the one on the house is only about five feet off the ground till it connects to the box.

If what you talk about happens, the water would probably not get in the house but it would get in the meter socket box.

I have looked around the area this morning and all the conduits on the poles are open to the weather except the ones that have a meter socket box below them on a pole in which case they have a weather head.
 
I work for en electric utility. It is all correct.

Weather heads are used on overhead services at the customer location so rain does not infiltrate down into the meter box from above.

There will usually be water in an underground conduit. It will not rise above ground level. it would leak out through the conduit connections.

The method they used on your house has been done 20 million times before with no issue, so worry about something else.
 
I've noticed it always looked as if the conduit running up the utility pole was open at the top. I just assumed it had some type of sealant like duct seal up top. I also had no idea it's no charge for underground.
 
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