I hate this. I would have preferred to see a conduit sleeve the roof and the wire run through the roof or in a mast the entire way… My preference does not mean it is wrong though. This is a new installation that I was just sent a picture of from a client after the old service was replaced.
What say you?
In my part of NY (long island), the POCO requires the SE cable to be protected by a sleeve for the first 8 feet from ground. The exposed SE cable is only allowed on the line side of the meter. I’d check with your POCO. Other than that, no electrical cable should lie directly against granules of asphalt shingles due to abrasion.
We are allowed line and load side SE cable here. Both National Grid and NYSEG allow it. I agree with the abrasion and that why I hate this, but the cable will be hard pressed to move and National Grid’s specifications do not address this situation as it is not a very common occurrence. I asked her to send me a closeup of the meter so I can call my contacts at Grid and see if the ESR has an inspection called in by the city yet. Thanks for your response. Interesting to learn that you can’t have SE cable on the load side of the meter.
Yep…
I don’t get it.
Are you concerned with the telephone cable? I’m not seeing any SE cable outside of conduit below the masthead.
Please elaborate.
The grey cable to the right is SEU cable, not conduit.
Done that way around here all of the time without issue and is considered code complaint. SE cable can be run on the surface of stucco, concrete and brick so I don’t see the roof shingles as an issue.
Ok, thanks.
Thanks, Robert.
Personally I don’t like it but it’s code compliant at least around here. I can see why it’s done that way, electricians are not roofers and a penetration through the roof should be done by a professional roofer. Some electrical contractor’s insurance companies might even prohibit them from penetrating the roof due to potential liability from leaks. So when you need to penetrate the roof the cost can increase quite a bit when you need to sub out the penetration and many customers won’t really know the difference if you run the SE cable like in the photo.
I mostly agree with all of this. I know it is code compliant but alas we are not code inspectors so I wanted to see what some of the opinions on here would be. I have three master electricians in my office that manage our jobs with me and I showed two of them the picture for their opinions from a code standpoint. I asked here hoping you would answer after some inspectors answered to provide the code inspector standpoint. I assumed others would say no dice due to the roof clearance but this is not a normal roof.
As far as where I disagree, I would have made my guys cut the roof. I do not do very much residential work. Mostly large industrial and commercial. However our solar crews have picked up a ton of residential business we have three residential solar crews and a lot of the work involves upgrading the services. Being co-op insured our requirements may differ but there is absolutely no issue with penetrating the roof on our end. I am very close with this individual and when the roof and siding is replaced on the home, it will probably get changed out to a mast, even if just for aesthetics.
Personally, I think that install is an idiotic installation, and should have been installed in a conduit from the meter to the weather head and flashed accordingly.
Anyone looking at this in the future sale of the property is going to look at that and say, “what is that about”?
As I said I don’t like it either but from a code perspective it is code compliant. In reality the average person probably won’t even notice it.
At least around here once the cable penetrated the roof it is considered inside the building. The poco would also have an issue about possible theft of unmetered power.
If it is in a GRC mast? I can’t imagine.
Yes that would be prohibited by the NEC to run a cable in that fashion. RMC or IMC would be permitted to run up through the eave.
230.6 Conductors Considered Outside the Building. Conductors shall be considered outside of a building or other structure under any of the following conditions:
(5) Where installed within rigid metal conduit (Type RMC)
or intermediate metal conduit (Type IMC) used to
accommodate the clearance requirements in 230.24 and
routed directly through an eave but not a wall of a building.
The SE cable is, typically, secured so it doesn’t move with the wind on stucco and brick.
If, however, the SE cable WAS NOT secured properly and could sway in the wind while touching the shingles, that would be a problem of wearing through the cable…IMHO.
