I just bought a 30 year old house. My family is just starting to replace the roof, because the shingles and a lot of the plywood is damaged. My dad pointed out that the power enters the house through the roof, and said I should call the power company to have it routed through the side of the house. Is this necessary? Will it be costly? Thank you!
Although it is always better to run through the side if you can, there is no reason to move it now, you have a roof jack around the conduit so it is as water tight as it should be now. Many of the older homes did it this way so your fine.
There is absolutely NO reason to move the electric supply.this conduit goes directly to your fuse boxyou do NOT want to hear the cost of relocating a fuse box, believe me! What you have is acceptable practice everywhere.
The side of the house is better because the mast usually needs a guy wire to support the load and keep it from bending. The mast and guy wire will move and can cause problems with maintaining a water tight seal on the roof. However there are other considerations such as the height of the house which may dictate that you leave the service mast on the roof. You must maintain sufficient clearance between the incoming service wire and the ground. Typically a two story house has enough height to use a wall mount service entrance while a bungalow may not. Talk to the local electrical utility. They can give you the requirements for your area.
It will probably require you hire a licensed electrician to move the wires to a new panel on the side of the house. After it's been inspected, the power company will come and change the service from the old location to the new.I can't tell you if they charge for this. A simple phone call to your power company's engineer should answer that.
If the wires are in a conduit (pipe), where they go through the roof, that is an acceptable practise. To have them relocated to go through the wall will be costly, as the whole entrance will have to be relocated. I don't know what the regulations are where you live, but here I would have to obtain a permit from the city then hire a electrical contractor to relocate the entrance. When that is completed I would have to get my power provider to relocate the connection, and they would charge for that also.
