Service Entrance
Everything that brings utility power into your home: the overhead or underground conductors, the weatherhead or lateral, the meter base and the wiring into the main panel.
The service entrance is the border zone between the utility's equipment and yours, and the dividing line surprises people: in most territories the utility owns the wires up to the connection point and the meter itself, while the homeowner owns the weatherhead, the mast, the meter base and everything after. Storm damage at that boundary regularly turns into a two-party repair, with an electrician fixing your side before the utility reconnects theirs.
Service entrance condition is also what caps your electrical ambitions: 60-amp and 100-amp entrances with aging conductors cannot feed modern loads, and "200-amp service upgrade" quotes are mostly service-entrance work: new conductors, mast, meter base and main panel, coordinated with the utility for the cutover.
Talking to a contractor about this?
Run the project past a licensed electrical pro first. Calls are answered around the clock and routed to a pro serving your area.
- Service Drop & Service Lateral : The two ways utility power reaches a home: a service drop swings overhead from the pole to the weatherhead; a service lateral runs underground to the meter.
- Disconnect (Emergency Disconnect) : A switch that cuts all power to a building or a piece of equipment.