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View Full Version : Warning:BC Hydro looking @ Linemen classes



polerunner
10-26-2007, 11:33 PM
I have been informed recently that BC Hydro wants to investigate going to 3 levels of linemen!! 1) cold lineman, no contact with power. 2) secondary lineman, less than 750 volts 3) primary lineman, as it says. Who or what is driving this I can imagine. They were warned many years ago that this shortage of men was coming. It is here and they will now try to ram this down our throats. I got this from a reliable source gentlemen. If it comes then you know who gets laid of 1st, the expensive guy. Ask around men and put up a fight. If standby causes a rucus then think what this will do. In solidarity......................:eek:

BillyMac
10-27-2007, 12:31 AM
I don't know exactly how things work over there Polerunner but here it would be the Cold lineman that would get laid off first! Livelineman (Hot stick & G&B) are worth there weight in gold as it is a major plus for the company to have them as consumers see fewer outages and that's what they want!

That is if I'm right in what you are saying the primary lineman are the most expensive.

"little beaver"
10-27-2007, 01:29 AM
I have been informed recently that BC Hydro wants to investigate going to 3 levels of linemen!! 1) cold lineman, no contact with power. 2) secondary lineman, less than 750 volts 3) primary lineman, as it says. Who or what is driving this I can imagine. They were warned many years ago that this shortage of men was coming. It is here and they will now try to ram this down our throats. I got this from a reliable source gentlemen. If it comes then you know who gets laid of 1st, the expensive guy. Ask around men and put up a fight. If standby causes a rucus then think what this will do. In solidarity......................:eek:

BCH doesn't mess around with this kind of nonsense. They are probably in the top 5 of best utilities to work for in North America. (the best in my mind) However, there are always a few 'nasayers' that seem to able to dream up this kind of paranoid nonsense. Well, it's good for comic relief if you're having a boring day, if nothing else!!

topgroove
10-27-2007, 12:03 PM
I agree! with the shortage of lineman I wouldn't be too woried about getting laid off. if your not making at least 120 grand a year you should be looking for a different company to work for anyway

polerunner
10-27-2007, 08:03 PM
I am not trying to start or infer anything. The fact is BC Hydro wants to look at having different levels of linemen. There has been a committee formed to investigate this. That is a FACT. I have never worked in Alberta, an area I am told uses this system. But I worked with 2 linemen who came from there. They were hired, put on a crew, and knew little about hot sticking. Think about it, if you could use a lesser trained lineman to do lesser jobs (services etc.) it would free up the rest to set poles etc. I work at Hydro, I enjoy the people there, my boss is great, what else can I say. It just seems to me that a change like this is going backwards. We need to have better trained men not less. Little Beaver, how about the next time you do a service you get $ 15.00 per hour instead of your double dipping $45, you need to get your head out of the sand or where ever it is. :D

billfoster67
10-29-2007, 09:30 PM
Whenever I drive through Canada, I am amazed how clean the system is. You guys still use push pulls. And I love the round arm for snow. Its the best crafted system I have seen. I am used to patching up garbage with 100 year old pole histories.

Whats the deal with the one wire tap, no neutral, and running into a can. Whats the electrical theory? Where is the difference in potential for the pot? Are you using the ground as your neutral, its not like a single phase system like in the US? Can some one give some info on it? Are the pots different?

"little beaver"
10-29-2007, 10:23 PM
Whenever I drive through Canada, I am amazed how clean the system is. You guys still use push pulls. And I love the round arm for snow. Its the best crafted system I have seen. I am used to patching up garbage with 100 year old pole histories.

Whats the deal with the one wire tap, no neutral, and running into a can. Whats the electrical theory? Where is the difference in potential for the pot? Are you using the ground as your neutral, its not like a single phase system like in the US? Can some one give some info on it? Are the pots different?

On the first point, BCH has a very 'clean' system. It's very easy to hot stick on their system as they have always had min 40' poles and a 6' neut. Most of the neutrals are at the 8' level. If there is anything on the pole ie a 3ph bank or an UGR dip,then they go to a 45' pole or higher.

The Y systems that you were refering to with no visable neutral are common to the 'Prairie Provinces', Alberta, Sask and Manitoba. The ground itself is the 'ground return'. Remember that two of the factors that determine resistence is the size of the conductor ie it's cross sectional and the material the conductor is made up off. The ground is a poor conductor as to it's material content, but it's cross sectional (it's size) for all intents and purposes is infinite. Therefore it works well as a 'ground return'. Elimanating the need for a wire. The neutral wire is only for convenience. If you have 5 miles of 1ph with one customer at the end, why run a neutral conductor? Use what God has provided!!

For example in the US, many of the original telephone systems were one wire, 'ground return'. These were very bothersome in heavily treed areas as one little branch on the single wire and you had a ground fault to disrupt the service. (my dad who worked Tel prior to WW II told me that story).

Two winters ago I built a 3 ph system for an Oil Co in Northern Alberta generating off a 'sweet gas' well and back feeding a 480V/25KV padmount Xfrmer. We didn't run a neutral because the system was configured like a V with the Generation in the apex and the two sites at the ends with nothing in between. There was no need for a neutral wire. So they saved the cost of the neutral wire and were able to use mostly 35' poles.

CPOPE
10-03-2010, 07:23 AM
The Y systems that you were refering to with no visable neutral are common to the 'Prairie Provinces', Alberta, Sask and Manitoba. The ground itself is the 'ground return'. Remember that two of the factors that determine resistence is the size of the conductor ie it's cross sectional and the material the conductor is made up off. The ground is a poor conductor as to it's material content, but it's cross sectional (it's size) for all intents and purposes is infinite. Therefore it works well as a 'ground return'. Elimanating the need for a wire. The neutral wire is only for convenience. If you have 5 miles of 1ph with one customer at the end, why run a neutral conductor? Use what God has provided!!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return

topgroove
10-04-2010, 01:17 PM
I would think sooner or later you would run into stray voltage issues. We have way too many dairey farms around here to even consider such a system.