Keep Your Meter Clear

NOVEC needs safe access to your electric meter to change it, perform routine maintenance, or respond to emergencies. For your safety and the safety of NOVEC employees and contractors, please keep electric meters on your house, detached garage, barn, and other structures accessible.

NOVEC service technicians need a minimum unimpeded working space of 7-feet high, 3-feet wide, and 5-feet deep around the meter. No fence, overhead deck, house-mounted flagpole, ivy, shrubs, or other outdoor items should be within this area.

If NOVEC technicians cannot access your electric meters safely, you may receive a written notice that either asks you to remove all obstructions or says NOVEC has removed them to perform the necessary work.

Please keep utility enclosures accessible

Most of NOVEC’s customers receive power from underground cables that connect to green transformer boxes, pedestals, and other enclosures. Transformer boxes may look benign and idle, but they are busy receiving high-voltage electricity and reducing the voltage before sending current to homes.

“Our service technicians inspect our boxes and other enclosures routinely,” explains Mason Hollcroft, NOVEC’s construction manager. “We sometimes need to work inside them during power outages.”

NOVEC asks customers to avoid “hide and seek” — when lineworkers have to find enclosures hidden behind ornamental grass, shrubs, and seasonal decorations. “Once we find the enclosures, we have to remove obstructions to open the doors,” Hollcroft explains. “Searching could delay power restoration when there’s an outage.”

Please do not hide enclosures or hinder their access. Safety stickers on enclosures say to keep obstructions at least 10 feet away from the doors and 5 feet from the sides and back.

Digging near enclosures can be deadly

Planting involves digging. “Digging near a padmounted transformer box or other enclosure can be deadly,” warns Rick Carpenter, NOVEC vegetation management manager. “Underground power cables go into and out of our enclosures. Cutting into a power cable with a shovel could cut off power to a whole neighborhood, but most importantly, it could kill the person holding the shovel.”

Before picking up a shovel, call 811 — the national call-before-you-dig phone number — at least three business days prior to planting or constructing. The service will have NOVEC and other utilities mark their underground cables, pipelines, and other facilities.

Learn more at call811.com.