Odd old service done by the POCO - Electrician Talk - Professional Electrical Contractors Forum

**MDShunk** · 08-13-2007, 08:43 PM

Here's a couple pics of a 70's vintage service upgrade done by the POCO on an old home. Back in the day, to encourage use of electricity and installation of electric baseboard heat in homes, the POCO would do a free 200 amp service upgrade if you put in electric heat. This is the mess of panels I took out. I just left them connected by the nipples, because it was easier to take down that way.

The panel in the middle is where the service cable came in, and it had both subfeed breakers in that panel, as well as the other 220 stuff like the oven and the water heater, dryer, etc. The panel on the far left was the "lighting panel", which had all the light and receptacle circuits. The panel on the far right contained all the baseboard heat circuits. Once upon a time, it went through it's own meter to be metered at a special rate. That meter is long gone, and was just jumpered out.

Here is the actual meter can the POCO used during that upgrade. It's a long skinny thing. It has an odd stud-type bypass arrangement in the bottom section. I've never really seen one like this with "stud bypass". I guess you'd put a jumper bar in there between those studs, sorts like an A base meter.

Here's a sticker they had on the panels. "Property of Potomac Edison". Ha! I tore them out anyhow. Potomac Edison was swallowed up long ago. I don't think they'll mind.

randomkiller · 09-29-2007, 03:54 PM

You really get to see some interesting items in your neck of the woods.

**MDShunk** · 09-29-2007, 05:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by randomkiller

You really get to see some interesting items in your neck of the woods.

Yeah, just when I think I've seen it all, I see something else weird. I tore out an old Square D panel last week that had a backstab neutral bar. I've never seen one of those. I need to take some pictures of that one to post here.