Wires

[Tree Pig]

By the way, C-less, thanks for the red rep. By doing so, you give me the opportunity to show the rest of the folks at ArboristSite what an ass you are.

You said to me: "Does the OP really need belittling? I don't think so, he already knows he lacks knowledge on the subject, that's why he's asking the question here in 101"

I challenge you to quote any part of my post that belittles the OP. Telling someone they are unqualified is not an insult, it is simply a fact. What I told Greener was life-saving information. I phrased it as directly, simply, and convincingly as I was able to do. If you know a better way to tell someone not to do something dangerous that they should not do, perhaps you should offer that information.


You and I have had some conflict in the past, and I have refrained from commenting negatively towards or about you. I thought we had reached that agreement. "Reputation" is no longer meaningful on this website, so neither red nor green rep has any real value. Since you chose to pick a fight with me, I am simply responding in kind. Rather than starting some silly red-rep war with you, I am putting your comments into the public forum.

No worries man everyone here already knows it anyways, everyone here should neg him for this because its all he does talk cap then whine to the mods about everyone else... he is a punk.

 

[Carburetorless]

Why is that? I'm curious.

I used to like the 10' rule, but I can't get the utility tree services to do anything anymore. I have had two trees scheduled for removal since mid-april. As best I can tell, they have never even looked at them.

All I asked for was to "make-safe". This was two pin oaks that are towering over some back-yard primaries. I don't know the voltage, but I would guess 14.4k; there are three of them.

The 10' rule has no real meaning for me anymore. We know we can't get very close, but we also know we can't get the utility to do anything for us. Absolutely NOTHING. The tree services won't even answer the phone anymore; you have to call the main line, get an ignorant operator that takes a report, then they make banal, vacuous statements about how they can only pass on the request.

I think I'm going to start climbing trees, cut a branch off to straddle the primaries, then leave real quick before they catch me there. I'll bet they start responding then.

It's probably just bad timing, due to the all the recent storms, they're likely up to their eye-holes in storm damage.

 

[Carburetorless]

No worries man everyone here already knows it anyways, everyone here should neg him for this because its all he does talk cap then whine to the mods about everyone else... he is a punk.

Talk "cap"; What are you calling for close air support? You're not even taking fire. Sorry, no support available, your target.

 

[pdqdl]

No storms in my area. That is an east coast problem right now.

KCPL is just being lazy. They are trying to make sure they don't spend any extra money that the tree services could absorb. They won't even do a service line drop to a house without going through this inane process:

1. Tree trimmer calls dispatch & requests a line drop.
2. KCPL takes ten days to send out a tree supervisor to determine if a service drop is necessary.
3. After ten days go by, tree trimmer is supposed to hear from the tree supervisor to see if his tree qualifies; presumably a schedule is set at KCPL's convenience to get the line dropped.
4. ...I don't know what happens next. It has been over ten years since we have managed to get them to do a line drop for me.

When the service lines are a real problem, we just cut a branch off, hang it up real high on the wire, then notify them of the electrical hazard. Then they send someone out within the hour.

About ten years ago, they would set an appointment if you gave them two days lead notice. Then your only problem was getting them to keep the appointment.

 

[beastmaster]

I did a job Tue. that had the primary's right up next to the trunk of a tall pine. It took a month for them to schedule a power drop. They had to send out notices to all the people that would be effected. I was able to swing 80% of the branches and lowered a few I wasn't sure of. The power was off all day from 9:00am tell 7:00pm. They had two bucket trucks and a big wig in his pick up there all the time. Probably 5 guys just setting around. I did have one limb go a stray and bounce off the dead primary lines, shaking them up a little, and had the Big wig come over and inform me that even though there was no power going to the lines, the grounds were still connected and if bounced enough could still be conductive if they were to touch a live wire further down the way from the drop. Not sure what he meant, but I did get the tone and was a lot more careful.

 

[fearofpavement]

Regarding wood power poles, North America is one of the few places that I have been that uses them. Most countries I have been to (a lot) use either steel or reinforced concrete. So I think that the reason we use wood pine poles is because they are cheap and readily available, not having anything to do with the cellulose structure within.

 

[802climber]

I did a job Tue. that had the primary's right up next to the trunk of a tall pine. It took a month for them to schedule a power drop. They had to send out notices to all the people that would be effected. I was able to swing 80% of the branches and lowered a few I wasn't sure of. The power was off all day from 9:00am tell 7:00pm. They had two bucket trucks and a big wig in his pick up there all the time. Probably 5 guys just setting around. I did have one limb go a stray and bounce off the dead primary lines, shaking them up a little, and had the Big wig come over and inform me that even though there was no power going to the lines, the grounds were still connected and if bounced enough could still be conductive if they were to touch a live wire further down the way from the drop. Not sure what he meant, but I did get the tone and was a lot more careful.

Sounds like they had just the hot offline where you were working, so that if the hot and neutral were to bounce and arc together a little ways up the line, the neutral would become hot where you were at. Neutral could be hot with backfeed anyway. For example some jackass running a generator during the power outage could dump a deadly amount of amps into that neutral (ground).

 

[Kodiak42]

Just this winter I had I large limb fall on my service line and it looked like it could pull down my service line from the house to the main. I stayed away, I had the all the equipment to remove this limb from the line since this is one of things I do for another utility, but this wasn’t my companies property and as much as I would have like to helped those guys out I knew it wasn’t my fight I’m just a customer at that point and things needed to go it's course. It was really hard wondering if that large limb were going hanging on the service line would pull every thing down from the house.

A crew arrived 8 Hours after I called and removed the limb, no problem. They had numerous other things to take of care of before they came my way, but they made it and three guys pulled it down.

Long story short, call your local electrical utility for trees and branches on power lines don't tempt fate.