Service drop

Trade jargonOhio homeowner glossaryCC-BY-4.0

TL;DR

A service drop is the overhead run of utility conductors from the pole transformer to a building's weatherhead, where it splices onto the customer's service-entrance wires. The utility owns and maintains the drop itself, while everything from the splice down, including mast, meter base, and panel, is the homeowner's responsibility.

Definition

What it means

A service drop is the overhead run of utility conductors from the pole transformer to a building's weatherhead, where it splices onto the customer's service-entrance wires. The utility owns and maintains the drop itself, while everything from the splice down, including mast, meter base, and panel, is the homeowner's responsibility. NEC and utility rules set its clearances, generally 10 feet over walkways and 12 feet over driveways, which tree trimmers and ladder users must respect.

Category

Where it sits in the glossary

Service drop is part of the Trade jargon group inside the ProFix Directory glossary. Browse every term in this category from the glossary index.

Why this matters for Ohio homeowners

Why Ohio homeowners should know it

This is a term Ohio homeowners encounter when reading contractor quotes, hiring paperwork, or inspection reports. Understanding it well enough to ask one good follow-up question is usually all the protection a homeowner needs.

ProFix Directory keeps definitions short on the index page and saves the longer context — Ohio-specific rules, where the term comes from, and which ProFix tools touch it — for these per-term pages so the term is easy to cite and easy to share.

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See also

License: CC-BY-4.0 — quote freely with attribution to ProFix Editorial Team / ProFix Directory.

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