In ,
typed:
On Sat, 21 Mar 2015 22:16:26 -0400, "TomR"
wrote:

"TomR" wrote in message
...
A friend of mine bought a house and one of the things that the home
inspector noted was some wear or damage to the insulation on the
service entrance cable on the outside of the house . . . ,

. . is there some type of insulation repair product that can be applied
that is made for this type of situation -- possibly gray in color
so it doesn't look bad?

I went to look at the Service Entrance Cable today and I took some
photos. The cable has two distinct damaged areas as shown in the two
photos below. I also took a photo of the meter but I decided not to
post it since it is not my house and the photo shows the meter
number etc.
. . . ,
Here are the photos of the two damaged areas on the Service Entrance
Cable:

http://tinypic.com/r/t7jpd5/8
http://tinypic.com/r/wr10eg/8

That is not a huge hazard because the internal conductors have all the
insulation they need and you get quite a bit of physical protection
from the grounded conductor that wraps around the ungrounded
conductors but you should do something to further protect this.
Before I saw the pictures I was thinking of the old asphalt and fiber
jacket, hence the paint idea. Now, after seeing the PVC jacket, I
think I would go with that split conduit system or some
weather/sunlight resistant tape.
Regular old electrical tape will not hold up long.

Thanks again.

The split conduit system looks interesting and may be an option.

For a quick temporary fix, maybe grey 100% silicone caulk would help. I
also have something called Permatex Ultra Grey RTV Silicone Gasket Maker
that I have used in auto work and which may work well as a temporary patch
for the damaged areas.

Based on what others here wrote, I did a search for "silicone tape" and it
does look like there may be some types of silicone tape out there that would
possibly work. Some of it says that it comes in a 2-inch wide silicone tape
so "maybe" something like that could be run vertically along the SEU cable
and wrapped around it and sealed in the back just as an additional
protection to avoid more deterioration of the existing PVC jacket.

This is for someone who just bought the property, and it may become a rental
home. So, he may want to wait until any initial town inspections are done
and see if anyone mentions that cable as an issue (not likely in my
opinion). Then, after that process is done, do some type of repair or
preventive work on the cable to avoid future deterioration. Doing something
now before any inspection may just draw unnecessary attention to the cable.