This month’s article was written by Ronnie Johnson, our Director of Engineering & Electrical Services.
Mother Nature has certainly kept us on our toes this year. Although it is now warm and sunny, I’m sure you can recall the major snowstorm that hit us in early May. We had just over 300 customers lose power as a result of heavy snow breaking off tree limbs and driving them through the overhead power lines. Moving throughout the streets after 15-16 inches of snow was difficult, and accessing the rain soaked backyards (where most of the downed power lines were located) was an additional challenge.
The damage from the May storm was unique in that the majority of outages were actually individual service outages. With so many individual services out, there was no way that OPU’s eight man line crew could restore all the homes in a reasonable time without outside help. We received assistance from five other communities to restore power to all our customers as quickly as possible.
With the event behind us, we thought it a good time to talk about overhead service verse underground service, as well as which part of the service is owned by OPU and which part is the customer’s responsibility.
For an overhead service, the point of ownership change is at the connections made at the house. Everything downstream of the connectors is customer owned equipment except the meter itself. This includes the meter socket and all the piping (known as the mast) that goes up the side of the house above the meter socket. Many home owners had their masts damaged during the storm. When that happened, we would typically cut and clear the service wires. Then the customer would have to contact an electrician to repair or replace their equipment before we could restore power.
For customers that want to have their service converted from overhead to underground, OPU charges a flat $175 fee. However, the customer is required to provide us with an appropriate ditch to place the new underground wires in and upgrade their service equipment. Typically, the customer’s equipment upgrade would include removing the overhead mast, upgrading to a new meter socket that accepts the underground wires, and installing a new riser pipe from the meter socket to one foot below grade level. For an underground service, the customer owns and maintains all the service equipment at the house except the service wires feeding the meter socket and the meter itself.
An underground service is generally not affected by trees, wind or snow storms. However, when there is an outage on an underground service, it normally will take a lot longer to find, longer repair, and costs considerably more to restore service.
For any customers interested in converting their existing overhead service to underground, please contact the OPU Engineering department and we will be happy to help you through the process.
