John G posted for all of us...



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. . . . ,

..., my question is..., 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? ...
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?

Thanks all for your replies.

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

*The SE cable needs to be replaced. That type of cable was not UV
resistant and the outer jacket became brittle as a result. What
usually happens is water gets inside and drips down the cable
sometimes going all the way through to the electrical panel.

Is there any evidence of water inside of the electrical panel? How
about the meter socket?

Thanks John.

I think that type of SEU cable is supposed to be UV resistant, and it looks
like the same type of SEU cable that was used in all of the new electric
services that I have had installed by licensed electricians in recent
years -- a total of 5.

This link indicates that the SEU cable that they sell is supposed to be
"sunlight" resistant, which I guess means UV resistant:
http://www.nassauelectrical.com/wire.../ser-seu-cable



I can see that the cable photos that I posted do indicate that the outer
cover is deteriorating and cracking. So, yes, one option would be to
replace the whole cable with a new one. However, I can't help but think
that there may be some type of new protective wrap that could be used since
that is all that is really needed in my opinion. In my dreams, I imagine
someone selling a new flexible PVC or silicone protective wrap that could
just be run vertically along the from of the cable, then wrapped around the
back, and maybe sealed with silicone adhesive caulk.



So far, I haven't found anything that I would consider to be a home run for
that idea. I am still checking out various "silicone tape" possibilities as
well as the idea of a new click-together conduit as someone described in
another post. Of course, at some point in terms of cost and labor involved,
in may be almost just as easy to have the cable replaced with a new one.



About the water issue -- no water in the main panel, and I was not able to
look into the meter box so I don't know if any water is getting in there. I
did once have a problem with water in a main service panel as you described.
In that case, the water was coming from inside the meter box, down inside
the cable from the meter box to the main panel, and then dripped into the
main panel. I posted about that before and the final answer in that case
was that the meter box itself had to be sealed to water from getting in, and
the source of the water in the meter box was not coming from inside the

+1 OP Listen to John G

--
Tekkie *Please post a follow-up*