Bit of a diversion

[bren guzzi]

Jumped onto a job with some other crews today.. Bit of a diversion and a few pole changes. This was a little part of the section we'd to do...a spur pole ( T off pole ) with controlling fuses. Back tomorrow for another wee job helping out where we are asked to. :D. In Ireland we mount the fuses on the T off arm but in Wales they like them done like this. " when in Rome " etc....

[Lineman North Florida]

One thing about it, you wouldn't need to run out but 1 section of your pogo to get the fuse door out to
re-fuse.:D

[lewy]

Have they ever heard of fused inline switches? Is the line side of that tapped on solid? For us 200 amp & below we use LLC on the line side.

[bluestreak]

Not being picky is that top side line hot if so that guy on the pole looks **** close. What is the distance from the bottom of the fuses to the ground, looks like 15 ft.

[bren guzzi]

We don't work hot ...EVER. ... all done under a shut down.

Today's job was quite similar but an angle section pole with a T off.

[Rob]

Bren... Did you switch the circuit out or did you drop load? Why not work it hot?

[Pootnaigle]

Ummm werkin it Hot makes their bannannas kinda mushy

[bren guzzi]

Because health and safety at work act 1979 states that all precautions that can be taken to make a job safer must be taken...
It's safer to work dead so it is switched out.. We back feed the line so that section is isolated.. No customers are without electricity ... Any that aren't COVERD by the line being back fed are put on generation. ( generators ) ... We get the job done as safe as possible. And no customers are left without power. If ya design lines with this in mind... You can engineer out hot working. There is no need for hot working.. It's because you look at the problem historically.."THAT'S THE WAY IT IS ALWAYS DONE " .. Your companies priority is to make money " as ours is" Ours aren't allowed by law to endanger our lives... You've been convinced that " the risk is acceptable". We haven't had a linesman killed in the uk ( electrocuted... ) for many many years.. You guys are losing one a week.

[Rob]

I wasn't implying you should be working it hot Bren... Just asking why you didn't. I know now.
When I'm in Dublin I'll buy you a Pint... Or 3 !

[bren guzzi]

I wasn't implying you should be working it hot Bren... Just asking why you didn't. I know now.
When I'm in Dublin I'll buy you a Pint... Or 3 !

It's a date,... :D. Mind you I'm in Wales 10 days a fortnight so you will have to be lucky. Home in Dublin from this morning.. Till Monday. Kicking back.

[Rob]

It's a date,... :D. Mind you I'm in Wales 10 days a fortnight so you will have to be lucky. Home in Dublin from this morning.. Till Monday. Kicking back.

I won't be back there till August next year!

[stulittle]

The Health and Safety at work act was 1974 I think Bren, might have taken a few years to get over the Irish Sea :)

We've also got the electricity at work act over here in the UK which pretty much states "we will not work live unless it's not possible under any circumstances to work dead". We can test live (because you can't prove dead otherwise) but any other live working requires some serious justification.

To give you another example of our network configuration that allows Bren and his teams to work dead but keep the customers on supply.

I had a farmer recently catch a stay wire in a mower. It snapped it and in the process dropped one phase of 11kv onto the ground. The protection didn't operate probably because everywhere was bone dry but it did get switched out by scada (telemetry) once reported.

Within an hour every customer except the one fed from the downed wire was back on supply and the linesman still hadn't made it to site. How ?? Our networks are built in rings with open points and lots of sectional switches. An engineer can operate the switches to "move the open point" to the faulty section.


Stu

[splinter]

That is a great concept to work everything de-energized and certainly lessens the risk of electrocution, but I don't see that happening over here. There is not enough generators in the states to make that a possibility.(I have been wrong before and will be again but what makes you a lineman if you do not do hot work.) I stopped and read my comment and at the moment I stand by it. In my opinion if you kill every line you are working on there is always the risk of back feed from a generator or a crossing powerline. Bren has done nothing but improve this forum and I look forward to his posts and pictures but it almost like we live in different countries.:)

[rob8210]

Nothing wrong with 'killing it' , it doesn't make you any less of a lineman. We evaluate every job for the feasibility of killing it. For example the job we are just completing, we have done mostly dead. All we had to do was cut in some temporary switches, and a bit of switching.

[splinter]

I certainly agree with killing everything when possible. De-energized everytime we could for years and no it doesn't make you less of a lineman to wotk it dead. Just not possible most of the time.

[BigClive]

I certainly agree with killing everything when possible.

Except linemen obviously. :rolleyes:

[bren guzzi]

Except linemen obviously. :rolleyes:

Maybe if we worked live " HOT " we might get one of those defibrillators. I've been trained ( with the karate club ) to use the de fib. It's amazing how many places ya see them now. Which is great. But still none on uk line trucks. :(

Dooh ! Can't believe I've hijacked my own thread. :)

[splinter]

Never seen a man burnt in 40 years,had to be all luck.

[rob8210]

I have been at the trade 25 years, and I am in Canada, I've known fellas to get hurt , burned and killed. We have really good safety record too. I got a small burn some years ago when the lid blew of a transformer without warning.

[Pootnaigle]

Umm I seen three get burnt purdy bad 2 when a transformer bank sploded n the oil caught fire and another when he wuz trying to put a gut on from the top n cut out n fell across the primary