# Somebody used extension cord for a service



## MTW

How does this person sleep at night? 










To make matters worse:


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## nrp3

Looks good from my house.


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## Service Call

Horrid. Even used metal straps. An explosion waiting to happen. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## HackWork

I have no problem with it.

I would have gone straight up with PVC and then 90 left at the top. 

Maybe it's due to inexperience with SE cable, but I actually find PVC to be faster than wrestling SE cable. I typically only use SE when there are obstructions that would be hard to get pipe around.


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## nrp3

Locally Eversource does the SE riser for us. Looks good to me.


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## Going_Commando

HackWork said:


> I have no problem with it.
> 
> I would have gone straight up with PVC and then 90 left at the top.
> 
> Maybe it's due to inexperience with SE cable, but I actually find PVC to be faster than wrestling SE cable. I typically only use SE when there are obstructions that would be hard to get pipe around.


Pretty much my attitude as far as the pvc goes. The crappy SE they put out now wont take a bend without wrinkling the sheath and looking like ****. Last couple we have done with pvc and xhhw and it looks a lot better, imho. Doesnt cost all that much more either since 2" PVC is so cheap its practically free.

The older SE was a lot easier to install and have it look good. I dont know what encore and southwire changed, but man, the last service I did with SE looked like crap, no matter what I did.


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## MTW

Going_Commando said:


> Pretty much my attitude as far as the pvc goes. The crappy SE they put out now wont take a bend without wrinkling the sheath and looking like ****. Last couple we have done with pvc and xhhw and it looks a lot better, imho. Doesnt cost all that much more either since 2" PVC is so cheap its practically free.
> 
> The older SE was a lot easier to install and have it look good. I dont know what encore and southwire changed, but man, the last service I did with SE looked like crap, no matter what I did.


The first company to make an extra-flexible SEU cable will own the market. I know Southwire makes an extra-flexible SER cable but not SEU.


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## MDShunk

Somebody used to make neoprene jacketed SE cable. I've torn a bunch of it out. The jacket was probably 3/16" thick. It was silver/grey on the skin, but it was black when you cut it. Seemed like pretty decent stuff. I've never observed a jacket failure on any of it.


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## MTW

MDShunk said:


> Somebody used to make neoprene jacketed SE cable. I've torn a bunch of it out. The jacket was probably 3/16" thick. It was silver/grey on the skin, but it was black when you cut it. Seemed like pretty decent stuff. I've never observed a jacket failure on any of it.



Neoprene? Weird. I've never seen it. We've always had the stuff we have now which snake skins and rots after a few decades.


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## MTW

HackWork said:


> I have no problem with it.
> 
> I would have gone straight up with PVC and then 90 left at the top.


I'm pretty familiar with the new construction market in my area since I am in it. I can say with certainly that almost nobody uses PVC for services on new homes, and it's pretty much the same for service upgrades. It literally is service cable 98% of the time.


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## flyboy

MTW said:


> I'm pretty familiar with the new construction market in my area since I am in it. I can say with certainly that almost nobody uses PVC for services on new homes, and it's pretty much the same for service upgrades. It literally is service cable 98% of the time.


That's how we do it, most of the time, around here. We bring the cable in the customer's basement to warm it up before installing it.


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## MTW

flyboy said:


> That's how we do it, most of the time, around here. We bring the cable in the customer's basement to warm it up before installing it.



I....errr...I mean, whoever installed this didn't have that luxury. :wink:


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## MDShunk

I always had a white rubber mallet in my service change tool bucket to make SE cable comply.


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## MTW

MDShunk said:


> I always had a white rubber mallet in my service change tool bucket to make SE cable comply.


I use the palm of my hand because I'm just that good.


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## MDShunk

MTW said:


> I use the palm of my hand because I'm just that good.


I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but I'd encourage you to start thinking about your hands. I've abused my hands for so much of my working life that when I sit down to relax in the evening my joints in my hands hurt badly enough to nearly bring a tear. It's really something to think about. Bashing something with your fist vs using a mallet. Using a screwdriver vs using a cordless drill, etc.


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## flyboy

MTW said:


> I use the palm of my hand because I'm just that good.


We all know what you use the palm of your hand for.


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## flyboy

MTW said:


> I....errr...I mean, whoever installed this didn't have that luxury. :wink:


Put the cable on the floor of the cab and turn the heat up.


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## MTW

MDShunk said:


> I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but I'd encourage you to start thinking about your hands. I've abused my hands for so much of my working life that when I sit down to relax in the evening my joints in my hands hurt badly enough to nearly bring a tear. It's really something to think about. Bashing something with your fist vs using a mallet. Using a screwdriver vs using a cordless drill, etc.


I'm actually not joking, and yes, I am already paying the price for it. It's time for a nice cushy office job.


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## MTW

flyboy said:


> We all know what you use the palm of your hand for.


Oh, like what, for instance? :whistling2:


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## The_Modifier

MTW said:


> Oh, like what, for instance? :whistling2:


Don't go derailing the thread you dog walking- palming- jahidist you! Tesla's threads are teaching me on how you guys work on defeating the US with your extension cord set ups. :biggrin::vs_laugh:


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## Going_Commando

Man, in the old days the SE threads were epic. I guess that was back when there were more than 15-20 regular posters.


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## macmikeman

Service entrance cable is an NEC accepted method. Because of that I don't protest any of it, except when it is run really fugly like a few of the pictures I have seen posted here over the years. Having said that, I also have seen some badly done pvc riser's as well. I saw one once in a picture here that was so awful I threw up. It was a pvc riser with 7 or 8 hundred unistrut bars and clamps in a 15 foot length of service mast and then to top it off , the handy man who installed it left around a half mile of conductors hanging out the end of his weather head. Truly the ugliest job ever. It was someplace up there in yankee land . A total crime.


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## flyboy

macmikeman said:


> Service entrance cable is an NEC accepted method. Because of that I don't protest any of it, except when it is run really fugly like a few of the pictures I have seen posted here over the years. Having said that, I also have seen some badly done pvc riser's as well. I saw one once in a picture here that was so awful I threw up. It was a pvc riser with 7 or 8 hundred unistrut bars and clamps in a 15 foot length of service mast and then to top it off , the handy man who installed it left around a half mile of conductors hanging out the end of his weather head. Truly the ugliest job ever. It was someplace up there in yankee land . A total crime.


What you saw is something you see up in New England a lot. Especially in Vermont.


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## macmikeman

flyboy said:


> What you saw is something you see up in New England a lot. Especially in Vermont.


It must be a place staffed with losers and drunks. The ones they threw out of NY.


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## HackWork

I build the best service risers.


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## macmikeman

HackWork said:


> I build the best service risers.


..........


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## macmikeman

Most times I run rigid steel masts. I usually try to avoid using any sissy bar, er I mean unistrut on residential properties due to it looks like a Vermont job to me to use them in residential. So I bend box offsets into my risers and then use clamps for securing the mast riser to the structure. Almost all of those type of services with the grc masts are on houses I wired completely from ground up. So I spend the money to make it look good. All built into the price for the project. On service call - service upgrades I bring along some 4/0 alum ser cable and whoop whoop it into place in the shortest cheapest possible route. I haven't learned the prefab pvc method yet , mainly because I don't yet own one of those twenty feet tall Mercedes Benz Sprinter vans and such a rig won't fit in a Savannah short wheelbase van.....


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## MTW

macmikeman said:


> Service entrance cable is an NEC accepted method. Because of that I don't protest any of it, except when it is run really fugly like a few of the pictures I have seen posted here over the years. Having said that, I also have seen some badly done pvc riser's as well. I saw one once in a picture here that was so awful I threw up. It was a pvc riser with 7 or 8 hundred unistrut bars and clamps in a 15 foot length of service mast and then to top it off , the handy man who installed it left around a half mile of conductors hanging out the end of his weather head. Truly the ugliest job ever. It was someplace up there in yankee land . A total crime.


I saw that too, and it was truly awful. It looked like whoever did it drank at least a full 1.75 liter bottle of the cheapest plastic bottle vodka before installing it.


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## brian john

MDShunk said:


> I'm not sure if you're joking or not, but I'd encourage you to start thinking about your hands. I've abused my hands for so much of my working life that when I sit down to relax in the evening my joints in my hands hurt badly enough to nearly bring a tear. It's really something to think about. Bashing something with your fist vs using a mallet. Using a screwdriver vs using a cordless drill, etc.


As I said in another post I have damaged my hands and have constant pain. BUT the cramping when I work is the worse, hurts like hell to the point sometimes it almost drives me to my knees. Left wrist has issues from being hit with a sledgehammer as I missed the chisel early in my career.


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## powerpawn

I don't know which was worse chipping at a 2 ft thick brick wall with a chisel and lump hammer or wrangling round with the early Milwaukee rotary hammers! Those old pistol drills were not for the weak and timid also...


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## Going_Commando

flyboy said:


> What you saw is something you see up in New England a lot. Especially in Vermont.


Every time I drive in Vermont, I look for that service. One day, I will find it.


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## MTW

Going_Commando said:


> Every time I drive in Vermont, I look for that service. One day, I will find it.


I wonder what the poco thought when they saw 30' of wire hanging out of the weather head.


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## ElectricMon

Haha we don't have to deal with that in WA because the state amendments require 2" or larger rigid and the part that sticks through the roof has have 2 straps so that they are making you put a larger or full piece instead of a cut off section so way nicer to do heavy ups since most houses still have oversized conduit and so staple holes or bare paint left from SE cable


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## lighterup

ElectricMon said:


> Haha we don't have to deal with that in WA because the state amendments require 2" or larger rigid and the part that sticks through the roof has have 2 straps so that they are making you put a larger or full piece instead of a cut off section so way nicer to do heavy ups since most houses still have oversized conduit and so staple holes or bare paint left from SE cable


Huh? I ran out of breath reading this.

I'm with HAckworks. PVC conduit / sunlight resistant urd / pvc weather head.


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## MTW

Sadly that house burned to the ground last week due to the SEU cable.


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## lighterup

probably :furious: by the neighbors ... penalty for
not following homeowner association aesthetic rules.


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