In ,
HerHusband typed:
Hi Tom,

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 that runs down
to the meter.

If the only issue is some minor cracking or wear in the service
entrance cable insulation, is there a way to just repair the
insulation? ...

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

Just looking at those two photos, it looks like the outer insulation
has deteriorated due to sun exposure. There's no way to tell if the
interior cables have deteriorated also.

In any case, what you have now seems dangerous. You have no physical
protection from weed whackers, mowers, or a stray kid whacking at the
house with something sharp. That exposed cable should really be run
inside a rigid conduit, such as grey PVC.

No matter what tape or other patch you apply to the cable, it's still
vulnerable to physical damage.

The best, and safest, option is to install rigid conduit and replace
that damaged cable.

Thanks for your thoughts on this.

Other than the possibility of water entering the cable and getting down to
the meter box or main panel, I don't see anything dangerous about the wear
in the outer cover as shown in the photos. The cable is high above the
ground level and nowhere near any possible weed whacker action. This type
of cable is used everywhere in my area with no rigid conduit. That is the
norm here and is in compliance with all codes. If the SE cable was going
through a roof and eave, then I'm sure a rigid conduit would be used for
that and it is probably what the code would require. But, other than that,
no rigid conduit is required or used in this area.