Hi all,

Please bear with me, I think the background story may be useful info. Or just skip down to my questions below.

I'm investigating upgrading my electric service in advance of some future work and have hit a bit of a snag. I have two goals - one being to relocate the meter to allow for a deck and the second to get some free breaker slots to allow for future renovations. I had the job bid by two reputable contractors to bring new 200A underground service from where we /thought/ the service hand hole was to a new panel in a new, non conflicting location, and to convert the existing panel to a subpanel. Neither contractor could locate the service hand hole or identify whether the capacity of the existing service was 100A or 150A for sure, but they both guessed 150.

Today I had the power company out to locate the actual service point to get a final bid, and it turns out we were all wrong. Instead of a 75 foot unobstructed run, I'm now looking at about 210 feet and crossing an unmapped septic system to get to the proposed location. Needless to say, I think that option has now been eliminated. Plan B is now to change the panel out in place and hopefully raise the meter vertically so it doesn't interfere with the ledger board for the deck. The existing panel is an old split bus style and has no free slots for new work. I'm trying to ascertain where I stand on my other goal of moving the meter.

And finally, my questions:

1. Is it permissible to mount the meter such that it would be serviced by standing on the deck with the two runs of conduit running through the decking before entering the ground and the structure? The deck will be approx. 34 inches above grade. The deck would also cover the existing ground rod - are there service requirements for access to that as well? The other consideration is that since the deck doesn't yet exist, the meter would be at least 6' above grade, which could be a problem.

2. I've read (in the NYS Residential Code) that underground splices are permitted in my location. I suspect they're intended more for repair than new work. Would it be considered workmanlike to splice new USE into the existing USE cable for the purposes of increasing its length by the few feet needed to move the meter vertically? Or should I really plan on running new cable to the hand hole? This would allow me to upgrade the service to 200A, though I'm not entirely convinced I need the extra capacity. I'd probably do it if I'm only on 100A though. I'm trying to control costs, since I suspect this new project will have much higher labor costs than the original plan.

3. The length of the lateral to the current meter is roughly 185ft by pacing, not counting the vertical legs and service loops. I see that 4/0 aluminum USE has an allowable ampacity of 180 before rating factors, so I'd guess that's what I'll need for the 150A service, given the length. I haven't done the voltage drop calc though. For 200A, I think I'll need something bigger - do they simply bond together two smaller conductors (1/0 maybe?) at this point? Or is there bigger USE cable than 4/0? Is there a significant difference in the cost of materials between 4/0 and whatever the next step up is?

I'll discuss all this with my contractors in the next couple days, but I wanted to get some extra feedback from this board too. Any feedback is really appreciated.

Thanks!

John