Neighbors tree+ power line

[StihltheOne]

Last night about 8 or so big wind hit, power went out, I called in the outage, not knowing what happened, but the power was off. I went to bed, and about 11 oor so, the lights came on for a second, huge flash right outside my bedroom window, followed by one more buzz, flash, man I am not kidding it was like the worlds largest welder!!! Yikes!!! I called the REA again, finally got a real human and explained where the short that they were looking for was at!! Sure enough, about 20 min later they were in my driveway and I showed them where I saw the ark. I recieved a very gracious thank you as they explaind that it could have taken all night to find it if I had not called it in!! I felt pretty good about it as I watched them remove the branches, I know that the firewood fairy is coming soon! These trees will be mucho trimmed!! Cool, right next door!!!

 

[husky455rancher]

 

[whitemountain]

Great job! Lucky !!

 

[audible fart]

The firewood fairy??? I guess it must look like john goodman dressed like a ballerina.

 

[woodbooga]

The firewood fairy??? I guess it must look like john goodman dressed like a ballerina.

Yeah, that stood out for me too.

 

[jmcguiretree]

Watch out during storm outages.Some power companys would rather plug the fuse back in at night to find the fault rather than looking first.I mean they like to look for the big ball of fire.....

 

[blakey]

I had that happen a couple years ago, a large branch took out the wires and the power went out. I called it in, and after a while there were explosions and arcing like I had never seen. I was told the fuses or disconnects try to reconnect on their own after a period of time.

 

[Henry G.]

Dont know about your utilities but here we have a number of ways to isolate and test our circuits. First is the circuit breaker in the substation which is designed to give either one or two tests when the circuit "relays" that is when the relays sense a fault on the line. Many circuits have remote controlled pole switches which open after they lose power for 30 seconds. So, we set the circuit breaker at the substation to test once at 15 seconds, then again at 45 seconds. The remote control switch(es) are set in the middle of the circuit, so if the circuit breaker tests good the first test, we know the problem was likely blown in the clear and a patrol begins. If it tests good the seond test, we know the problem is on the back half of the circuit since the remote control switch (RCS) opened before the second test. If the second test is bad, then we know the problem is on the first half of the circuit, and can now use another parallel RCS to pick up the good back half. In addition, many tap lines, especially those that go underground or into country areas are fused, and/or have remote controlled circuit breakers installed on the poles called automatic reclosers that protect just those small parts of that circuit so a problem doesnt wipe out the whole circuit. In addition, their setting are much lower to help prevent damage and fires.
Its expensive to install and coordinate all this stuff, so I imagine many smaller utilities just let the circuits drop and then go out and start poking around, which results in your power being off for hours. Every year I read/hear about ice and wind storms knocking out power to thousands and thousands of people and I cant figure out why: no one back east seems to own a generator which are cheap, and two, why dont they keep the trees trimmed out of the power lines?. I run the grid here btw, day and night, week and weekends.

 

[StihltheOne]

It seems, during my brief conversation with the linemen, that there was more than one "problem" and after they repaired the first, in benounced to them, there was another right outside my window!!! I have to admit, how could they have known that, when I did not, and it was right outside, maybe 100 yards, that is. I feel that they do a really good job, considering the size of they REA. I think that they have about 1000 miles of line to keep going. I have 2 generators, just a little coleman to keep the "have to" things going, and my big lp onan in the camper, just in case! BTW, I absolutely do not connect them the the grid, ever. I simply inplug the devices and plug them into an extension cord I run in. We were out about 12 hours around Christmas, it was only -35 outside. I was ready! Hade the little gen going in 5 min, fireplace fans and refrigerator and a couple lights. Just the thought of being the one that got called out at 1 am to go repair whatever was wrong made me be glad that I was the one out of power, not out working.

 

[Henry G.]

Yes NEVER backfeed into the grid-you will ruin your generator and possibly kill someone out working on the line. An easier solution is to wire/have wired a 50 amp 220V plug right at the meter box which is protected by a 50 amp circuit breaker. Then have a 10-20 foot cord made with the appropriate male connectors at each end. This way you have a 220v plug that you can use for a welder, etc too.
In emergencies, you turn off the main circuit breaker first, check/turn off the 50 amp circuit breaker. Then make your connections to the generator and the 220v outlet with the cord dead, start the generator, let it warm up, then turn on the 50 amp circuit breaker and your whole house now has power. This is in lieu of wiring a transfer switch btw. I posted a switching procedure on the wall so you cant screw up, like starting the generator and touching the end of the plug, etc. This can be done including the generator for around $1000. I know, I did it with a 5.5kw Generac genny.

 

[ropensaddle]

Having been on numerous night time adventures I have seen them spread everyone out on a circuit and close it in briefly to locate fault by flash. I have also seen a fault finder in action which can locate the direction of trouble and minimize refusing. Oh how I still remember ice and wind and a tall pole fuse lol. I was a tree man but done more hotstick work than my service man cause he was getting old and I was steady eddy!
















coming hot!

 

[Henry G.]

Yeah we still have to do that sometimes. The troublemen get up into the bucket and get up high and I close for test, looking for the flash. Sometimes we have block the ground relay to blow it up to find it.

 

[ropensaddle]

Yeah we still have to do that sometimes. The troublemen get up into the bucket and get up high and I close for test, looking for the flash. Sometimes we have block the ground relay to blow it up to find it.

You ever use a fault finder?

 

[Henry G.]

Yes they actually have them pre-installed all over our circuits to guide the troublemen to the problem, and they have some with them they can clamp onto wire/cable when they need to to further narrow them down. Some of them I actually get alarms from remotely and can notify the troublemen ahead of time. Usually, between customer reports, calls to the fire dept, and even through the highway patrol website we usually find the obvious car hit poles, exploding vaults and transformers on fire found fast. Underground is the hardest to find, but we fuse a lot of that except mainline so that helps too.

 

[ropensaddle]

Yes they actually have them pre-installed all over our circuits to guide the troublemen to the problem, and they have some with them they can clamp onto wire/cable when they need to to further narrow them down. Some of them I actually get alarms from remotely and can notify the troublemen ahead of time. Usually, between customer reports, calls to the fire dept, and even through the highway patrol website we usually find the obvious car hit poles, exploding vaults and transformers on fire found fast. Underground is the hardest to find, but we fuse a lot of that except mainline so that helps too.

Yeah my service man I helped used the one you put on the line it helped us locate a very small twig the lodged in the pig tail of a transformer would have been harder without the finder!