Smoking meter socket

[Bolson32]

Smoking meter socket question for the sparkies in the group.

We're putting an addition on our house and recently had a new meter socket installed a few weeks ago. Everything has been working great, including AC and heavy loads during construction running compressors, etc.

Last night at about 4am there was a pretty substantial storm, heavy winds, knocked out the power for about 5 hours.

Today while I had a crew hanging gutters on the house one of them said they saw a big puff of smoke and heard a pop. It was coming from the new meter socket. I have one of those Eaton sockets with 8 breaker slots below it and it looks like the smoke came from the meter area, as there was some black coming down from the top section, nothing around the breakers in the panel.

I called Xcel right away, they put in an order but don't seem to be in much of a rush as that was like 8 hours ago now.

Everything seems to be working for the most part, but I'm noticing some lights flickering every now and then, no notable interruptions though.

Should I be more concerned about this? Or is this a fairly common occurrence? Xcel hasn't told us to kill power or vacate or anything like that, I've asked and called back to escalate.

 

[nadogail]

IMHO, You have a Disaster waiting to happen.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

is this a fairly common occurrence? Ummm no

Get an electrician over there stat to check the panel

 

[Walkers]

If you want the PoCo there sooner call 911 about an electrical fire.

 

[BrandonV]

Not good. I'd try to minimize all non-essential loads to minimize the current flowing thru the meter until Xcel can show up (you should call again).

 

[Bolson32]

If you want the PoCo there sooner call 911 about an electrical fire.

Spoiler alert, ended up doing that at 2am after some weird surges. Fun night.

 

[Jim greengo]

Not good. I'd try to minimize all non-essential loads to minimize the current flowing thru the meter until Xcel can show up (you should call again).

Shut the main off,get a fire extinguisher.

 

[BrandonV]

Almost sounds like a loose neutral.

 

[Metal-Marc]

Yikes

 

[Bolson32]

One of the feed wires was installed wrong, bent a wrong way and it compromised the insulation. So it was just arcing right to the box. I'm really pissed that I had to call 911 to get them out here in a timely fashion

 

[Bolson32]

Here's some pics.... Maybe? Not sure they attached.

 

[Metal-Marc]

Here's some pics.... Maybe? Not sure they attached.

No pic.

Also, don't post pictures as attachment, use the picture icon and post them as pictures.

 

[Bolson32]

Tried both but no luck. Just says "oops, we ran into some problems." Seems to be going around lately

 

[manwithtools]

Tried both but no luck. Just says "oops, we ran into some problems." Seems to be going around lately

Picture size is too large, if you took them with a newer smart phone they will be to big (memory wise). Open them in any picture editor and either crop them or resize them to a lower resolution. Then they will post just fine.

 

[Metal-Marc]

Tried both but no luck. Just says "oops, we ran into some problems." Seems to be going around lately

It works just fine. Could be everything you touch goes up in smoke?

 

[sparky 1971]

Almost sounds like a loose neutral.

How so?

 

[BrandonV]

How so?

Had a job site where someone didn't tighten down the neutral in the meter socket coming from the utility and had almost the same signs... part of the meter socket started smoking and each phase started going high/low causing weird problems in the house.

 

[BreeStephany]

For residential services, many utility companies are slow to respond, however, the quickest response I ever got from a utility company was when I called them, stated that I had a 1600A 480V 3ph service that the main bussing BEFORE the main disconnect was arcing on in a rural district... utility company was there in 15 minutes and pulled the fuses on the transformer, we resolved the issue in 2 hours as the customer was screaming at us about downtime, lost profits and potential lawsuits, and had the power back on before noon.

On lower current connections to the utility grid, the utility company generally tends to not be too concerned, especially in cases where the problem service is supplied by its own transformer and utility side fuses, so an outage would only cause one customer an outage, however, with larger services supplied by larger, less readily available transformers, the utility tends to be quicker to respond to resolve issues.

Just my two cents.

 

[Sumboodie]

Marlboro or Newports?

 

[Bolson32]

For residential services, many utility companies are slow to respond, however, the quickest response I ever got from a utility company was when I called them, stated that I had a 1600A 480V 3ph service that the main bussing BEFORE the main disconnect was arcing on in a rural district... utility company was there in 15 minutes and pulled the fuses on the transformer, we resolved the issue in 2 hours as the customer was screaming at us about downtime, lost profits and potential lawsuits, and had the power back on before noon.

On lower current connections to the utility grid, the utility company generally tends to not be too concerned, especially in cases where the problem service is supplied by its own transformer and utility side fuses, so an outage would only cause one customer an outage, however, with larger services supplied by larger, less readily available transformers, the utility tends to be quicker to respond to resolve issues.

Just my two cents.

Yea, ultimately I don't think we were in all that much danger. The fire department was there with a FLIR and the box showed at like 75 degrees, just barely over ambient.

The box is properly bonded and it was just arcing to it occasionally, which was causing brief bits of smoke. It would've continued until the wire completely sizzled off and then we would've been without power. It certainly wasn't hot enough to ignite any wood in hindsight. But, obviously it's concerning while it's happening.

 

[BreeStephany]

Yea, ultimately I don't think we were in all that much danger. The fire department was there with a FLIR and the box showed at like 75 degrees, just barely over ambient.

The box is properly bonded and it was just arcing to it occasionally, which was causing brief bits of smoke. It would've continued until the wire completely sizzled off and then we would've been without power. It certainly wasn't hot enough to ignite any wood in hindsight. But, obviously it's concerning while it's happening.

The issue we had that prompted a quick response from the utility was an issue in bussing itself where 2 sections of switchgear met, so no faults to ground and at the time it was arcing, there was anywhere between 800~1100A of load on the bus.

Prompted immediate shutdown on the customer side of the gear to remove the loads and stop the arcing.

Needless to say, I consider myself a fairly easy going person at work, but as the person who first heard the arcing while being near the front of the switchgear, I wanted to take the PILE of molten aluminum I later found in the bottom of the switchgear and throw it at the person who built the gear... but took a second to cool down, handed the person the aluminum pile and had a somewhat heated discussion about the importance of following torque specifications and having others double check your work to ensure issues like this did not happen in the future.

 

[mm08822]

Was this an underground service where the lateral settled during the rain storm pulling the conductors tight?

 

[Bolson32]

Was this an underground service where the lateral settled during the rain storm pulling the conductors tight?

Bingo, new construction around a new basement, ~6 inches of rain over the last week or so. Since it was ran with no slack, it just tugged it right down.

 

[BreeStephany]

Bingo, new construction around a new basement, ~6 inches of rain over the last week or so. Since it was ran with no slack, it just tugged it right down.

And this is the reason service loops are important!

 

[mm08822]

Bingo, new construction around a new basement, ~6 inches of rain over the last week or so. Since it was ran with no slack, it just tugged it right down.

You need to get POCO or their contractor back out there and dig that up and create slack. Normally a loop of cable is left for exactly this reason. Next thing to happen is the meter pan will pull off the side of the house or pull the sheathing off the house.

Might want to consider conduit to bridge the settling area next to foundation..... meter-vertical conduit, bend( 2- 45's or 1 - 90), then horizontal in trench (in undisturbed soil).

 

[wyliesdiesels]

Had a job site where someone didn't tighten down the neutral in the meter socket coming from the utility and had almost the same signs... part of the meter socket started smoking and each phase started going high/low causing weird problems in the house.

The loose neutral shouldn’t cause the meter base to smoke. It will just cause high and low voltage on the ungrounded conductors

Yea, ultimately I don't think we were in all that much danger. The fire department was there with a FLIR and the box showed at like 75 degrees, just barely over ambient.

The box is properly bonded and it was just arcing to it occasionally, which was causing brief bits of smoke. It would've continued until the wire completely sizzled off and then we would've been without power. It certainly wasn't hot enough to ignite any wood in hindsight. But, obviously it's concerning while it's happening.

what was arcing? hot conductor?

 

[BrandonV]

The loose neutral shouldn’t cause the meter base to smoke. It will just cause high and low voltage on the ungrounded conductors

what was arcing? hot conductor?

Not an electrician but the utility company said "the smoking" (in our case) was the insulation on the neutral burning up on the lug from increased resistance.

 

[Bolson32]

You need to get POCO or their contractor back out there and dig that up and create slack. Normally a loop of cable is left for exactly this reason. Next thing to happen is the meter pan will pull off the side of the house or pull the sheathing off the house.

Might want to consider conduit to bridge the settling area next to foundation..... meter-vertical conduit, bend( 2- 45's or 1 - 90), then horizontal in trench (in undisturbed soil).

They spliced onto it and left a proper loop now. Getting to undisturbed soil isn't really possible with a full basement. They don't trench it in at 12 ft.

The loose neutral shouldn’t cause the meter base to smoke. It will just cause high and low voltage on the ungrounded conductors

what was arcing? hot conductor?

Yep, Hot wire to a tray below the meter socket.

 

[mm08822]

They spliced onto it and left a proper loop now. Getting to undisturbed soil isn't really possible with a full basement. They don't trench it in at 12 ft.

Not what I meant, but since they already added the loop it doesn't matter.