Thank you for your explanation. This here seems to be the crux of the issue:
tapping a single service on a structure does not make it two services
So they are allowed additional sets of service conductors
permitted by 230.2, Exception No 3(b) (to be "tapped"
from ONE service drop), however they cant be tapped to anything other than the
service drop itself? I.E. NOT other
overhead service entrance conductors?
So each set of "overhead service entrance conductors"
shall start at a
service drop (As defined in the 1981 NEC) and
not a tap?
The Art 100 Definition's of Service-Entrance Conductors, Overhead System.
2014 NEC said:
Service-Entrance Conductors, Overhead System. The service
conductors between the terminals of the service equipment and a
point usually outside the building, clear of building walls, where
joined by tap or splice to the service drop or overhead service
conductors.
1981 NEC said:
The service conductors between the terminals of the service equipment and a point usually outside the building, clear of building walls, where joined by tap or splice to the service drop.
It does not say "a tap" or one tap. I dont see a tap from a tap being prohibited.
1981 NEC said:
230.71 Maximum Number of Disconnects
(A) General. The service disconnecting means for each service or for each set of service entrance conductors
permitted by 230.2, Exception No 3(b). Shall consist of not more than six switches or six circuit breakers mounted in a single enclosure, in a group of separate enclosures, or in or on a switchboard.
So they (in 1981) could have ran from 54 disconnects in 9 enclosures, 9 risers to 9 weather heads and had 9 taps to one
service drop at one location and that would comply with the 1981 NEC. But 9 mains in 3 enclosures does not.
Once they used one mast they are no longer meeting the definition?
I await the 1984 code book in the mail..........
Thanks in advance!