Repair Responsibility

Your Meter Box

It’s very important to understand an essential fact about your connection to the TEC electrical grid. Your connection has two parts, the meter and the meter base. The meter is round and typically enclosed in clear plastic or glass. The meter base is typically a rectangular metal box mounted on the outside of your home or place of business. The meter is owned by TEC, but this is not true of your meter base; this important part of your electric system does NOT belong to TEC.

The meter base is the responsibility of the member. If it’s damaged by weather or by any kind of accident, repair is the member’s responsibility. TEC cannot, by regulation, connect power to a damaged meter base.

Members can feel tremendous frustration at this restriction. It’s understandable–after waiting for power to be restored, who wouldn’t be frustrated by having to wait to have your power turned back on?

Still, if your meter base (or the mast pipe, on top or below it, which contains the service wire) is damaged, per National Electric Code (NEC) regulations a professional electrician must repair it to NEC code before TEC is allowed to restore your service.