On Tue, 26 Jan 2016 09:59:12 -0800 (PST), DerbyDad03
wrote:

On Tuesday, January 26, 2016 at 10:19:32 AM UTC-5, TomR wrote:
In ,
typed:
On Mon, 25 Jan 2016 09:24:56 -0500, "TomR" wrote:

In ,
typed:
On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 19:04:40 -0500, "TomR"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Sat, 23 Jan 2016 10:54:21 -0500, "TomR"
wrote:

wrote in message
...
On Fri, 22 Jan 2016 23:35:44 -0500, "TomR"
wrote:

That's what the "drip loop" is there for. Around here if the
inspector doesn't find that "drip loop" he is very likely to
give you a deficiency report.

On the property where I had the water-inside-panel problem,
there is a drip
loop up at the top of what I think maybe is called the mast
head (or something like that), where the power line from the
pole meets the service
drop that goes down into the top of the meter box.

Where it comes out of the bottom of the meter box, there is no
drip loop.
It just runs down into the building and into the top of the
electric panel.
I don't know that I have ever seen a drip loop on that part of
the service
line coming into a building (below the meter), but I never
really looked carefully to see if there is a drip loop there.
Since the water was coming
from inside the meter box (getting in through the top of the
meter box), and
was running INSIDE the wire going from there to the panel, I
don't know if
a
drip loop in that line would have prevented the problem of
water getting into the panel inside the house.

If the wire from the meter droops below the conduit exiting the
meter box to the inside of the building, water cannot follow the
wire into the building and into the panel.

I may be wrong about this, but I think the purpose of a drip loop
is to have
water that is on the outside of the wire drip off at the low
point of the loop rather than running down on the outside of the
wire into a structure etc.

The water is not IN the conduit. It gets into the meter box, and
with no drip loop the water runs down the cable into the conduit
(which goes out the back of the meter box), With the loop, it runs
down the wire to the bottom of the loop and drips off - then runs
out drainage hole at the bottom of the meter box.

Maybe we are not both talking about the same thing. I am not
exactly sure what the term "conduit" means, but in my case I was
using the term "conduit" to mean the heavy gauge, gray-wrapped,
"service feed" that runs from the bottom of the meter box down into
the building and into the top of the electrical panel inside the
basement. It is the same kind and gauge of cable as the service
drop that comes down along the outside of the building and goes
into the top of the meter box.

Using my definition of "conduit" to mean that cable that runs from
the bottom of meter box down into the building and into the top of
the panel, my "conduit" DID have water running INSIDE that conduit
and into the panel. The water was not running down the outside of
the "conduit", it was INSIDE the gray-wrapped cable and came out of
the inside of that gray-wrapped cable and dripped into the panel.

Not what I was talking about at all --

Sorry to keep dragging this out, and I am not trying to be
argumentative, but what WERE you talking about? -- in particular
when you used the term "conduit". Thanks.

I was talking about inside the meter base - the wires from the meter
to inside - which pass through a conduit. The wires MUST droop below
the bottom of the conduit inside the meter base before entering the
conduit. Frm meter to bottom of meter base and back up to the exit
point of the meter base and out through the conduit to the
distribution panel/service entrance box.

Okay, got it. My electric meter is on the side of the house and has a
service line coming down into the top of the meter box, and a service line
coming out of the bottom of the meter box and going down the wall and into
the house to the electric panel.

Water was getting in through the top of the meter box, filling up in the
bottom of the meter box, and then running INSIDE the service cable that
comes out of the bottom of the meter box. I wasn't able to open the meter
box because it requires a special key, and the utility company was unwilling
to come out and open it for me. So, I was never able to see if there are
any drip loops inside the meter box, but I doubt that there could be since
the service line comes out of the bottom of the meter box. I just did a
Google Images search of "electric service meters" and I saw lots of images
of the inside of the meter boxes with no drip loop inside.

To solve my problem, I used clear 100% silicone caulk and I caulked all
around the meter box, especially at the top, and around the front cover and
anywhere else that water could possibly get in. That fixed the water
problem. I have photos somewhere of the meter box, but I can't seem to find
them right now.

Water in my panel was the main reason that my wife got an $800 bathroom fan.

I had just finished installing a new fan/heater unit in her bathroom,
complete with a timer switch for the heater and a humidity sensor for
the moisture. The fan, the fancy switches, the 12g wire, the 20A breaker,
etc. cost me a few hundred bucks. That was fine, she is worth it. ;-)

What hurt was when I turned off the main breaker to pull the wires into the
panel and then couldn't get the main to reset. I tried about 10 times until I
gave up and called an electrician friend. While I was on the phone with him,
it decided to finally catch. He said to leave it alone and he'd look at it
the next day. After he looked over the panel, we decided that by the time he
found a new main breaker for that old box, which was full and a real mess
anyway, it was probably time to just replace the panel, get more space,
better grounding, etc.

When I took the old main breaker apart, all of the interior contacts were
covered with rust from the water that had gotten into the panel a few years
prior. No wonder I had a hard time resetting it.

That's why I like to say that my wife now has an $800 bathroom fan.

You got off cheap. My panel replacement, including permits and
inspections, came to just over $3000. I went with a Square D QO 32
slot 125 amp panel plus 1 arc fault and 2 2 pole GFIs - and it was
all aluminum wiring - which had to be inspected throughout.