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Any Electricians 'round?

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kozball:
Looking for some advice and eventually need some work done.

Bought a rental property that my daughter is supposed to be renting and giving some sweat equity. Yeah I know................. The house has the old screw in fuses with maybe 12 controlling the whole house. The outside meter box is barely larger than the meter itself and appears to have a 1" mast going thru the eave and the service drop wire attaches to a bracket on the roof. Service cable appears to be some sort of cloth wrapped ??? that I have be told is 4 ga. The fuse panel is mounted on the basement concrete block wall directly opposite the meter. House is a 1960's style ranch of about 1000 sq ft main with a full basement. Elect range, dryer and central AC.

OK, what I am wanting to do is to upgrade the service from the weather head thru the breaker box that I want to move to an interior wall that would be in the center of the house under the support beam which is about 15 feet from the current location. My thoughts are.....

Replace the service mast with a 2" basically for strength and attach the drop to the mast. Remove the roof mounted bracket.

Replace the meter panel with a meter-main with 150 breaker outside disconnect and add new grounding rods as needed.

Go thru the wall, then up the wall and across under the main floor with some conduit and connect to the breaker panel which would need to be wired as a sub panel. I currently have a Siemens P1150B3030 to use as the sub panel. I want to keep the breaker on this panel also. Was thinking 2/0 copper for the feeders?

Any thoughts? Anyone interested in taking a look and giving a bid?

By the way, this is OPPD service in north Bellevue.

Thanks

Koz

RobertH:
paging Les.....

Les:
Sounds like you're got a pretty decent handle on this already.  If I understand you correctly, a fused disconnect outdoors at the meter main would work, as unfused conductors would need to by encased in at least 2" of concrete.  2/0 copper is good for 200a in a single family dwelling/single phase 120/240v residential service.  2" conduit size would be your minimum and forget about overhead, go underground.  Utilities hate overhead.  I don't believe a ground rod would be needed unless you have no copper water piping .i.e pex, most generally we have to jumper across water main.  But all that said, contact your local AHJ because they all interpret the code a little different and this advice is worth exactly what you paid for it.   :P

kozball:
A few things. Pretty sure underground is impossible because all current power is from overhead drops. Lots of obstacles like fences and landscaping everywhere. No chance to get a trencher in there.

Sounds like I could use 1/0 for 150 amps?

I understand that with the outside meter-main containing its own breaker, the meter needs to be grounded by its self. Then the inside breaker panel must have  ground separated from neutral and grounded to a separate ground

Koz

Les:
It all has to be bonded.  But of course whomever you hire should know all this.

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