On Jan 14, 2:16*pm, wrote:
On Mon, 14 Jan 2013 00:10:46 -0500, wrote:
On Sun, 13 Jan 2013 16:20:29 -0800 (PST), "
wrote:

He just clarified that 4th unconnected wire is
one of the insulated conductors. *So, like he says,
if that is what;s there, then it's apparently a 240V
service that might have been 3 phase before.

I would still like to see a picture. If that messenger is truly "not
connected to anything" (not bonded) it is a NESC violation and a
safety hazard, no lineman would allow to happen.since they are the
ones who are in danger,

I bet *that when we actually look at it we find it is crimped onto the
strand between poles where everything else is bonded. There won't
usually be a direct connection to the transformer and maybe that was
the confusion.

How much clearer can I make this.....
One of the insulated wires is NOT connected to anything, (on either end
of the cable). *It's not taped or capped in any way, it's just there
doing nothing. *This might be a code violation, I'm not sure, since the
wire does nothing. *I'd still think it should be capped somehow. *But if
this is code, I'd think the Po Co would have capped it.

The bare wire IS the neutral and is connected that way. *The other 2
insulated wires are connected in the normal manner that any 240V
overhead cable would be.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

As far as I can tell, this is the one and only post in which you
specifically said "One of the insulated wires is NOT connected to
anything". Feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

In your OP you said:

"A large store downtown has a heavy FOUR wire triplex feeding the
building. 3 wires are black insulated, the other is the bare
neutral. The thing that caught my attention to it, is that the 4th
wire is not connected to anything."

Since you mentioned 3 wires, and then the "other one" and then said
"the 4th wire is not connected to anything" many of us followed that
sequentially and assumed that the "other one" and the "4th" were one
and the same. There was no way for us to know that the "4th" was one
of the 3 insulated wires.

In your 2nd post you said:

"Yep, the bare wire is the support, but it's also the neutral. There
are 3 insulated wires wrapped around the bare one, not the usual two."

Once again, no mention of which of the 4 wires is not connected.

You had the advantage of a visual, all we had were your words, which
were not very clear. Had you referred to the "4th wire" as one of the
insulated ones, as you did in this post, there would have been
absoutely no confusion. e.g. "The thing that caught my attention to
it, is that one of the 3 insulated wires is not connected to
anything."

In addition, it was not clear to us that the wire was not connected at
either end. You said:

"I noticed it because there is a deck on the building next door, and I
was on the deck last week. The entrance head is probably only 12 feet
up from that deck, it's easy to see the unused wire."

From where we're sitting, all that we can envision is the end you told
us about: The entrance head. You never mentioned the other end of the
cable until now.