Do I need a new weatherhead or conduit for my heavy-up?

Question

In the ongoing saga of my electric renovation (NEC 2023, Dayton Ohio jurisdiction), I'm nearing the time for a rough-in inspection. I'm finally ready to run the 4/0-4/0-4/0 SEU along the outside of my house, and I want to check a couple things before I start spending money.

1. Above, I've attached a picture of my current service connection/power drop/hookup. It looks... old and bad to me. I can run the new cable to this same spot for the utility company to hook it up, but I'd like to verify it's actually OK to leave it as-is. Is it up to code? Is the utility company going to look at it and say "nope, need a new one"?

2. Right now the current 100A 2AWG cable is just hanging out, clamped occasionally, along the outside/brick of the house. I'd plan on following a similar route with new cable. My understanding is that I don't need conduit - is that correct? If that is correct, what is typically used at the top of a meter (or, in my case, a meter-main) to allow the cable in without water ingress? Looking at my current meter, it looks like the answer is mostly "a whole bunch of silicone caulking." Is that typical?

Answer 1

The answer to your first question is governed by your utility's rules

Generally speaking, as long as a service entrance is securely attached to the building (NEC 230.51), has some form of weatherhead or gooseneck (NEC 230.54), and uses a wiring means permitted by NEC 230.43, the NEC has no quarrel with it. However, individual electric utilities are free to set more strict rules on service entrances in their territory.

The good news is that AES-Ohio, in their service handbook, does permit a 200A or smaller service to be run to an on-building termination without a conduit and mast, as per drawing SH-11-001 on page 39 of the PDF. So, that answers your first question: you are clear to replicate the existing setup with 4/0 SE cable and a suitable weatherhead when doing your heavy-up.

As to getting the SE cable into the meter box...

The main problem with running a service entrance using SE cable is getting it into the top of the meter socket. This is done using a SE cable gland fitting -- Arlington makes a suitable one in their WTC210, but I'm sure other manufacturers have equivalents. However, it may still require some help getting a good, watertight seal, especially since it likely has to be threaded into the hub fitting atop the box, which is not exactly a use case that it was designed for.

I personally would be asking the utility if I could bring the SE cable around and into the bottom of the meter socket, similar to where an underground service enters the socket. This way, you get a nice drip loop that keeps water out of the the meter socket box. It also spares the trouble of trying to mate a SE cable gland connector to a hub fitting.