A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts

[topgroove]

CL&P Will Remove Pole-Top Devices



By DAVID OWENS
Courant Staff Writer

April 3 2006

Although Connecticut Light & Power Co. insists that a trouble-prone pole-top device cannot be conclusively linked to the fire that destroyed a restaurant and four cars last May in Farmington, the utility company plans to spend $4.5 million a year over the next three years to remove every A.B. Chance porcelain cutout from its system.

CL&P's decision to remove the A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts came about during a state Department of Public Utility Control investigation into the performance of such devices and the fire that destroyed a Dunkin' Donuts restaurant along Route 4.

Tragedy was averted in that fire when a cool-headed restaurant manager locked the restaurant's front door and herded customers and employees out the back to safety. Police and firefighters said it was a miracle no one was killed.

The fire was touched off when a 23,000-volt power line fell to the ground, the town fire marshal determined. A failed A.B. Chance cutout is suspected of causing that line to fall.

CL&P estimates 23,800 A.B. Chance cutouts remained on its system at the end of 2005 and that by targeting at least 8,200 a year they will all be gone by the end of 2008. There are 170,000 cutouts on the CL&P system.

Cutouts are protective devices placed on utility systems that halt the flow of electricity if there is a surge, protecting transformers and other equipment the same way a circuit breaker protects a home. A.B. Chance, a division of Orange, Conn.-based Hubbell Inc., is one of the largest suppliers of cutouts to electric utilities.

A spokesman for Hubbell Inc. said he would have to read the draft decision before commenting and did not respond to subsequent requests for comment.

The DPUC, in a draft decision issued last week, adopted CL&P's removal plan and ordered the utility to report once a year until the A.B. Chance cutouts are gone. Mitch Gross, a CL&P spokesman, said the utility does not comment on draft decisions. He also refused to comment on what prompted CL&P's nine-fold increase in its removal plan.

The DPUC investigation was ordered by Gov. M. Jodi Rell after a Courant investigation into the May fire found that A.B. Chance cutouts fail at a troubling rate in northern climates, including New England, and pointed to the failed cutout as the probable cause of the Farmington fire. A similar incident in Goshen in April 2004 damaged a home's electrical system and some appliances. At least two other utilities, Pennsylvania Power & Light and the Washington Electric Co-operative in Vermont, are removing A.B. Chance cutouts from their systems. The Vermont co-op has gone so far as to label the Chance cutouts as "lemons."

In its draft decision, DPUC heeded CL&P's call not to attribute the fire to the failed cutout, although hearing officer Donald W. Downes did find that "failure of a cutout manufactured by A.B. Chance Co. is the most probable cause."

"Regardless of the cause of that fire," Downes continued, "Chance cutouts are known to be failing at an escalating rate, presenting safety issues to the public and to utility employees. The department believes that it is important to remove the devices from the electric system in a deliberate manner, and therefore it will monitor their removal."

In testimony to the DPUC, Lauren E. Gaunt, a principal engineer for CL&P, said the company's experience with A.B. Chance cutouts is that they fail at a higher rate than cutouts manufactured by competitor S&C Electric. In one statement to DPUC, Gaunt said a study in 2000 determined that two S&C cutouts, out of 84,000 purchased, had failed during the previous decade, yielding a failure rate of 0.002 percent. During the same period, 42 A.B. Chance cutouts, out of 66,000 purchased, failed. That yielded a failure rate of 0.06 percent, a failure rate 30 times higher than the failure rate of S&C cutouts.

During a follow-up study in 2005, the A.B. Chance numbers were even worse. The failure rate had increased to 1.3 to 1.4 percent, Gaunt testified during a DPUC hearing in January.

Last September, a CL&P spokeswoman said the company planned to remove 4,000 A.B. Chance cutouts a year from its system. Gaunt, in testimony to DPUC, said that process would have taken 10 to 12 years. He did not explain why CL&P decided to replace the cutouts at a faster pace.

CL&P told the DPUC that it stopped buying Chance cutouts in 1998 because Chance moved its factory to Mexico and CL&P was not confident Chance's quality control practices met its standards.

Two CL&P managers, in a letter to the Hartford office of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, attributed the failure of A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts to cracks in cemented connections to metal hardware as well as cracks in the glazing on the porcelain. The cracks allow moisture to get into the porcelain or the cemented connections. During the freeze-thaw cycle, the cracks widen. Those cracks can allow electricity to go where it shouldn't, such as the metal bracket holding the cutout to a utility pole, or cause the entire cutout to come apart.

CL&P no longer installs porcelain cutouts. The new cutouts have polymer insulators.

CL&P says that the remaining A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts on its system do not pose a significant risk to the public or to its employees. A lawyer for the state Office of Consumer Counsel, in a brief filed with DPUC, disagreed.

"The hazard posed by these faulty pieces of vital equipment could be rather grave," William L. Vallee Jr. wrote. "It is entirely possible that loss of life and extensive property damage could result from the continued use of this equipment in the field."

An official with a union that represents CL&P line workers said he remains concerned workers will be at risk working with the Chance cutouts. The draft decision "definitely puts some constraints on the company, but it doesn't help us as far as a procedure to do it," said John Unikas of Local 420 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. Cutouts "should be de-energized before we tackle them."

DPUC plans to render its final decision on the investigation April 19.
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

[42linehand]

I work for a union contractor in CT and I am currently employed by a small utility Company. We are still installing porcelain cut outs. I would hope that this info would be dispersed to all utility companys as well as local unions. I will give CL&P a big adaboy for their efforts to remove these hazards.

[57hand]

Who is responsable for financing a project of this magnitude? On a nationwide and even a global scale it would have to take millions upon millions of dollars to implement the replacement of these cut-outs. I personally feel that CHANCE should be held accountable. Does anyone know if they(CHANCE) are taking resposability?

[doug]

Have These Cutout Given Anyone Else Probelms In The Us.like Texas
Or Is Just In Cold Weather Areas Like Up North.
I Have To Agree That All Those Co. Using Mexico To Make There
Products Could Have Problem With There Product.i Think There Is
Little Quality Control.profits Or Everything Else!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lets All Be Safe And Protect Ourself.

[topgroove]

Its mostly a cold climate problem. The constant freeze-thaw cycle is what causes all the problems. Some sort of defect in the manufacturing process allows tiny cracks to form in the porcelain. moisture gets in the tiny cracks and over time the freeze-thaw cycle destroys the cutout.

[CenterPointEX]

CenterPoint Energy/ Reliant / Houston Lighting and Power in Houston went to Chance switches about eight years ago... Prior to that they were using Kearneys... I loved the Kearneys... I could hang a Kearney door blindfolded... They almost always opened when they operated... In the middle of the night you could weld a door shut to save it for daylight... About the only problem they had was that after a lot of faults a small piece of the brass tip where the barrel contacts the top of the switch, sometimes breaks off... I carried new barrels on the truck and we were back in bussiness... When the Chance switches failed, rarely did a new barrel fix it... The switch had to be replaced... The Kearneys last forever too... Thus they can command the price they do... They are good switches... How much does it cost to send a lineman up the pole to replace a chance... not to mention the lost revenue from the meters not spinning...

The Chance barrells are bastards to hang.. the horns that hold the door are made of crap... they warp under heavy load... they get bent easy before installation... when they blow, sometimes the barrell just jumps up and down and stays closed... If ya got a good fault on the cable or line, the barrell will then start tracking over, small at first then grow a fire till the barrel melts apart and operates the circuit, catches the pole or fire or burns a building down in the process... sometimes when the barrel does open in a fault, and it flips down hard it swings out of the saddle and comes down after the lineman on the end of the long stick... How do I know? I been the lineman on the end of the longstick...
.... On top of the door they got two differant kinds of metal with a little dowel pin that runs thru the whole mess. In the midde of the two pieces of metal they got a crap spring that is the cause of most of the problems with this switch... In manufacturing it sometimes gets wedged in there a little cocked which messes with how tight the door is held in... The metal in the springs on some is harder than on others probably from lack of quality control.. But in any event they are crap and when the get heated up one time from fault current or heavy load they turn blue and the integrity of the metal is defunct... It is At this point when they don't open after the fuse melts... The metals expand and contract at different rates causing all the stuff on top of the switch to warp... I complained to anybody that would listen when we first started using them; imagine that, but to no avail... The answer I got, was that this switch was one third the price of the Kearneys... Made in Mexico by slave labor don't ya know... The design from the get go is bad... Then add to that slave labor putting it togather...


My brother is a buyer for a large plumbing company... a company invited him to Mexico to take a tour of their factory... During the tour it was explained that quality control integrity was maintained by always having more experienced hands working with scrubs at maintained ratios. The color of their smocks indicated their level of experince... Green being the least experienced... as this was being explained my brother looked around and noticed that out of the hundred guys in this section there were only two without green smocks... He commented to the fella running the tour, that they should at least break the experienced smocks out when the tours of American buyers are run thru...

After about three years of using these things the company outlawed them on Cap Banks... and we went around and replaced all the chance switches that had been installed on the caps...

Just curious... How do the Kearneys fare in the ice?

[42linehand]

The problem is in the cold weather climate. A problem that we see up here is that on the top of the porcelain cutouts their an indention in the porcelain about the size of a half dollar. In the winter time water gets in their and turns to ice. When the ice expands it breaks the porcelain.

[t-shooter]

The real story here is that there was a lineman in the donut shop on his day off when the cutout broke and primary came down. He was the one who told the manager to lock the front door and take the customers out the back door. He did not want the credit for it. He was the real hero in this case. I work with him.

[CPOPE]

Porcelain insulated cutouts have been in use in the electrical industry for many decades. The cutout is a pole-mounted device used to disconnect or reconnect equipment to a source of electricity. Throughout that time the designs and manufacturing processes have changed somewhat but the basic insulating material used has always been porcelain. Porcelain was the material of choice by manufacturers not just for cutouts but for most electrical equipment that required an insulating value, for example, insulators, arresters
and bushings. Porcelain, being composed primarily of sand, was an abundant raw material, was inexpensive to manufacture, was durable and didn’t require any specialized or advanced technology. However, porcelain for all its advantages did have drawbacks. In the early 1980’s large numbers of porcelain insulators began failing. “Cement growth” was causing insulators to crack. The expansion and contraction of the adhesive interface which joined the porcelain to the hardware (connector) caused stresses on the porcelain. These stresses caused small cracks to appear in the porcelain which eventually lead to an electrical and/or mechanical failure of the porcelain insulator. Transmission and distribution insulators had been the focus of the industry’s attention throughout most of the 1980’s and 1990’s. Many tens of millions of dollars have been spent to rectify the problem of defective porcelain insulators. During the past several years many utilities throughout North America have seen increasing failures of their porcelain insulated cutouts. The mode of failure is very similar to that of insulators. Small cracks in the porcelain initially appear near the interface between the porcelain and hardware. These fractures eventually lead to a mechanical failure of the cutout. Cement growth is the likely cause of the initial cracks. The breakage of porcelain insulated cutouts at Newfoundland Power is of concern from a safety and reliability perspective. During cutout operation the porcelain can break causing the cutout to separate into two parts. This creates a hazard to line personnel operating the cutout and can cause outages to customers. Multiple Canadian utilities in the Atlantic region including Nova Scotia Power, Maritime Electric and New Brunswick Power have experienced similar problems with porcelain cutouts during the past few years. Throughout North America, utilities such as B.C. Hydro, American Electric Power and Public Service Electric & Gas have been concerned with the increased rise in the number of cutouts failing on their distribution systems. A survey of Canadian utilities conducted in 2001 by B.C. Hydro identifies the increasing concern of several utilities about this trend.

Hazards of Porcelain Cutouts
The cutout is a pole mounted device used to disconnect or reconnect electrical equipment to a source of electricity. Every non CSP transformer has a cutout attached to it. Each cutout has a fuse built into it designed to melt when an overload occurs in the transformer itself or the wires serving the customers attached to the transformer. Throughout the Company many hundreds of cutouts are opened and closed every week. Each one of these operations is done while the cutout and the lines and other equipment adjacent to the cutout is energized, therefore each time the cutout is operated there is a potential hazard from cutout breakage. The lineperson typically operates the cutout using “hotstick” while they are positioned in the pole or the bucket of a line truck. This puts the lineperson in close proximity to the cutout. Should the cutout break while being operated the lineperson may be placed in a dangerous and unsafe situation.

CEA Study
The Canadian Electricity Association (CEA) commissioned a research study of the porcelain cutout breakage issue in 2002. This study was initiated because there was enough concern by many Canadian utilities to warrant further investigation into the problem. The objective of this research was to determine whether a method is available or could be developed to effectively evaluate the “in situ” condition of a cutout prior to operation. The research concluded that there was no reliable existing instrument or method that could reasonably detect incipient failure of a porcelain cutout. The report has been completed by Powertech Labs and is scheduled for release in August, 2003.

Alternatives to Porcelain Cutouts
During the past 20 years there have been advances in the development of non-ceramic or synthetic material for use as insulators in the electrical industry. This material is most often polymer based. At the distribution level, the main focus of manufacturers has been directed to the replacement of porcelain with polymer material in insulators and lightning arresters. The industry has been quite successful in this regard with most suspension insulators and lightning arresters manufactured today being of a polymer design. As far as cutouts were concerned, until very recently there was no real alternative to the porcelain cutout. However, in 2000 an American company, PLH Manufacturing Co., developed the first polymer insulated cutout. Since then two other manufacturers have developed or are developing polymer type cutouts in response to the growing demand by utilities throughout North America. One of the advantages of polymer material is that it is not brittle like porcelain and therefore it will not develop cracks and shatter in the way porcelain does. This reduces the risk to linepersons.

Safety and Reliability
The two principal drivers for change to the polymer insulated cutout standard are safety and reliability. Polymer cutouts can effectively eliminate the hazard to linepersons that now exists when porcelain cutouts fail. However, there may still be a risk to linepersons operating the many thousands of existing porcelain cutouts in service. Utilities can mitigate risk as much as possible by ensuring an increased risk assessment and awareness among linepersons and a review of work methods. As with safety, the increased use of polymer cutouts will have a positive effect on customer reliability, as each broken cutout, in most instances, represents as outage in excess of two hours.

The following action is recommended with respect to porcelain cutouts.
1. Adopt polymer insulated cutouts as the new cutout standard.
2. Discontinue the use of porcelain cutouts.
3. As part of the annual distribution line inspection program identify defective cutouts i.e. ones that have visible evidence of cracks.
4. In the year following the annual inspection remove the defective cutout from service.
5. Monitor future porcelain cutout failures to determine whether additional measures such as an accelerated replacement program is necessary.

[t-shooter]

Check out this site for the dramatic pictures of the fire caused by Chance
cutout failure in Farmington Ct.


http://www.farmingtonfire.com/photo_stories/dunkin_donuts_fire_2005/index.htm

[daowens]

Folks:
I'm the reporter whose story was posted earlier in this thread and I remain interested in tracking down information about Chance cutouts, both good and bad. I wrote a story last week about a lineman who was badly injured in Massachusetts allegedly as a result of a failing chance cutout.

As for the CL&P employee being inside the Dunkin' Donuts in Farmington and that being the real story, I can only report what I was told my numerous officials. I was told by CL&P one of their people was in the area when the fire occurred and called in the problem to CL&P. CL&P did not say the employee was in the DD.

If he was in the DD and helped save the people in there too, good for him. He deserves credit because he helped prevent a real tragedy.

All the best,

Dave Owens
The Hartford Courant
dowens@courant.com

[loodvig]

Dave
Could you post your story from last week here?

[t-shooter]

Dave,


That is the real story behind the people escaping without injury from the Dunkin Donuts. ie. a CL&P lneman in the store at the time.

[daowens]

Hello all:
Per Loodvig's request, here's the story I wrote last week. It's not news to you folks, but was hopefully news to people in Connecticut.
--Dave

Utility Pole Device Criticized

Massachusetts Lineman Loses Arm; Union Seeks New Procedures

By DAVID OWENS
Courant Staff Writer

April 15 2006

A trouble-prone pole-top device suspected of causing a fire in Farmington last May that destroyed four cars and a Dunkin' Donuts is now suspected of causing an accident that maimed a utility lineman in Massachusetts last month.

The accident March 14 in Andover, Mass., injured a lineman working for National Grid, the local utility company. An official with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers said an A.B. Chance porcelain cutout failed while the lineman worked on the pole, causing a 7,620-volt wire to drop onto the lineman's arm.

The lineman lost his right arm above the elbow and the thumb on his left hand, according to a document filed with the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control, which conducted an investigation into A.B. Chance cutouts on the Connecticut Light & Power Co. system.

During the course of the DPUC investigation, which was prompted by a Courant investigation into A.B. Chance cutouts, CL&P announced it would spend $4.5 million a year to remove Chance porcelain cutouts from its system. The program, which is expected to take three years, represents a nine-fold increase in removal efforts. CL&P must report to DPUC once a year on the status of its A.B. Chance porcelain cutout removal efforts.

IBEW officials who represent some CL&P workers say A.B. Chance cutouts are a threat to the public, linemen and others who work on utility poles, such as cable television and telephone workers.

The accident in Andover occurred when the lineman began using an impact wrench on the pole about 6 feet below the high voltage primary wires, said James G. "Red" Simpson, business manager for IBEW Local 326 in Lawrence, Mass.

"He was tightening up the transformer mount bolts," Simpson said during an interview this week. "The vibration from the [wrench] caused the cutout to come apart."

The porcelain on the cutout, Simpson said, "was broken right off clean. It was obvious it was cracked."

The accident is under investigation by National Grid and the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

Simpson said that based on the reports of eyewitnesses and the failure history of A.B. Chance cutouts, he is confident a faulty cutout is the cause.

"It's my opinion the failed cutout was the root cause of the accident," Simpson said. "It is probably, in my opinion, one of the most straightforward pure accidents that you'd ever see. The guy went up on the pole to do a job. An unrelated piece of equipment ... failed and caused him to come in contact with the [wire]."

Concern about vibration causing faulty A.B. Chance cutouts to come apart is not new.

Dan Weston, engineering and operations director for the Washington Electric Co-operative in Vermont, told The Courant last year that he issued his linemen binoculars so that they can carefully inspect A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts before they begin climbing a pole. "By jiggling the pole, this thing can physically break in half," Weston said last year. "Linemen start to climb a pole and this thing will fall apart and you can have a ball of fire up there."

Officials with two IBEW locals that represent some CL&P lineman brought the Massachusetts accident to the attention of DPUC, which has adopted a draft decision regarding CL&P and its A.B. Chance cutouts. The union contends the only safe way to replace A.B. Chance cutouts on the CL&P system is to de-energize the lines before any work begins. That could mean lots of power outages as crews remove the cutouts.

CL&P insists the A.B. Chance cutouts cannot be conclusively linked to the Farmington incident - in which customers in the Dunkin' Donuts were hurried out the back door to safety - but in the draft decision a DPUC hearing officer found that nothing else could have started the fire.

Hearing officer Donald W. Downes found that "failure of a cutout manufactured by A.B. Chance Co. is the most probable cause."

"Regardless of the cause of that fire," Downes continued, "Chance cutouts are known to be failing at an escalating rate, presenting safety issues to the public and to utility employees. The department believes that it is important to remove the devices from the electric system in a deliberate manner, and therefore it will monitor their removal."

In response to the union filing about the Massachusetts accident, which came after DPUC closed its hearing on the matter, a lawyer for CL&P urged the council to ignore the union's new information and to adopt the draft decision. Cutouts can be safely removed when lines are energized, but lines can be de-energized if there are specific safety concerns, the power company lawyer wrote in response to the union filing.

In the draft decision, Downes finds that CL&P's removal plan "strikes an appropriate balance between safety, financial considerations and scheduling concerns."
Copyright 2006, Hartford Courant

[Trampbag]

This thread about A B Chance cutouts is starting sound a lot like the problem Ohio Brass faced in the late ‘60’s to the early ‘90’s with their pin type 69kv shirted clamp top type insulators. For years those insulators were a serious problem, breaking off just under the clamp, often while the lineman was climbing the pole. There were warnings in every publication of the IBEW for years before anyone took serious interest in what was really going on.

Almost all utilities had changed out the offending insulators by the mid ‘80’s and the lawsuits, I know of none that were for personal injury to linemen, by the utilities against Ohio Brass eventually broke them and OB disappeared from sight for some time.

Ohio Brass appeared again some time in the 90’s under the Hubbell Power Systems banner, a subsidiary company along with subsidiaries Fargo and (guess who) AB Chance.

http://www.hubbellpowersystems.com/default.htm

The above hyperlink will take you to the Hubbell site, see PRODUCTS.

Some utilities have been on aggressive change out programs for faulty apparatus, like the various makes of porcelain cutout, not because they are afraid of lawsuits for personal injury to the public or their workers but because identified problem apparatus causes outage frequency spikes undesirable to the various watchdogs, such as the various PUCs, of the industry.

Be careful out there. Many Workers’ Compensation Boards in the USA and Canada exist only to protect the companies, not the workers. There are limitations, often a little over $150,000 maximum, paid out to the survivor’s family upon a workers death and prohibit the company from being sued even if grossly negligent. Check out the WCB or equivalent in your jurisdiction.

Why would any company fear a worker injury lawsuit considering this? Companies do, however, fear company to company suits such as the ones that broke Ohio Brass in their first life.

[daowens]

Here is my story from September, the first I wrote about the issue.
--Dave

Published: Tuesday, September 13, 2005
Edition: 5 NORTHWEST CONNECTICUT/SPORTS FINAL
Page: A1
Section: MAIN
Source: DAVID OWENS; Courant Staff Writer
Column: Series:




Headline:
A `TIME BOMB' SITS ATOP 30,000 UTILITY POLES IN STATE
CL&P REMOVING PORCELAIN INSULATORS PRONE TO CRACKING

Text:
The fire that incinerated four cars and a Dunkin' Donuts restaurant May 7 began with a tiny crack in a porcelain insulator high atop a utility pole along Route 4 in Farmington.

Through that crack flowed 23,000 volts of electricity that burned through a wooden cross arm. The wire carrying those 23,000 volts then fell to the ground, touching off the fire.

A cool-headed Dunkin' Donuts manager locked the restaurant's front door and herded customers and employees out the back. Police and firefighters say it was a miracle no one was killed or injured.

At the time, it appeared to be one of those freak accidents that just occurs from time to time.

It wasn't.

The insulator that failed was attached to a protective device called a ``cutout'' made by A.B. Chance, a division of Hubbell Inc., in Orange, Conn.

There are tens of thousands of cutouts on utility systems. Cutouts halt the flow of electricity if there is a surge, protecting transformers and other electric equipment the same way circuit breakers protect a home.

The Farmington fire was an extreme example of what can happen when a cutout fails. But older cutouts -- especially those made by Chance -- fail more frequently than other types, according to a utility company study, persuading utility companies around the Northeast, including CL&P, to replace them. Unions representing lineman whose safety depends upon reliable equipment say replacements are not going fast enough. They fear that the older porcelain-insulated cutouts jeopardize public safety.

``They're basically a time bomb that should be aggressively pursued,'' said John Unikas of Local 420 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents many CL&P line workers.

Unikas said the union complained to CL&P about A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts. The union also complained to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration about an April 20, 2004, incident in Goshen, where a Chance ceramic cutout failed. In that incident, like in Farmington, a cross arm burned, causing a high voltage wire to drop, in this case, onto the wire carrying electricity to a house. It damaged the home's electrical system and some appliances.

Reports of problems with A.B. Chance cutouts seem to be confined to northern climates, and utility officials suspect the freeze-thaw cycle is to blame.

A spokesman for Hubbell Inc. said Monday he was not aware of the Farmington fire, but said the company would investigate.

The spokesman did say trouble with porcelain insulators is an industry problem and not confined to A.B. Chance products. Porcelain insulators are susceptible to cracking because of fluctuations in temperature in cold northern states, Thomas R. Conlin, the company's vice president for public affairs, said.

Utilities in the South do not report such problems, he said.

Porcelain is a very durable material, but the smallest crack can create a problem, Conlin said. ``It freezes and then you know what happens,'' he said.

Utilities in the North are switching to a new kind of cutout that uses a polymer material as the insulator, Conlin and utility company officials said.

Conlin attributed the singling out of A.B. Chance cutouts by some utilities and others to the company's market share. ``The odds are when one fails, since A.B. Chance sells a larger number of these than anyone else, it's likely it will be an A.B. Chance cutout,'' Conlin said.

CL&P says the remaining 30,000-plus A.B. Chance ceramic cutouts on its system are safe. Still, the company is removing them at a pace of about 4,000 a year. An extra $500,000 was allocated to that effort in 2005 as part of a settlement of a federal OSHA complaint brought by the union. The removal program is expected to take years, added CL&P spokeswoman Mary Ingarra. ``They're not living up to their [life] expectancy'' of about 40 years, she said.

NU is not alone in reporting trouble with Chance cutouts.

The Washington Electric Co-operative in Vermont has termed A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts ``lemons'' in newsletters sent to its members. And co-op officials in recent years reported failures of A.B. Chance ceramic cutouts as the second leading cause of power outages on its system. Severe weather was No. 1.

Pennsylvania Power & Light, which serves central and northeastern Pennsylvania, is removing A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts from its distribution system.

Dan Weston, engineering and operations director for the Vermont co-op, said he issued his linemen binoculars so that they can carefully inspect A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts before they begin climbing a pole. ``By jiggling the pole, this thing can physically break in half,'' Weston said. ``Linemen start to climb a pole and this thing will fall apart and you can have a ball of fire up there.''

Not all cutout failures spark fires. Most often, the result is a localized power outage or downed wires. But reliability problems with the A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts have cost utilities money as they buy new cutouts to replace the failed devices and pay line crews to do the work. Weston estimates replacing a faulty A.B. Chance porcelain cutout costs his company $300.

Northeast Utilities -- which includes CL&P, Western Massachusetts Electric and Public Service of New Hampshire -- determined in May 2001 that the typical failure rate of porcelain cutouts from 1988 to 2001 was 0.12 percent, according to a letter to the Hartford OSHA office from two CL&P managers.

The company study attributed the failure of the porcelain cutouts to cracks in cemented connections to metal hardware as well as cracks in the glazing on the porcelain. The cracks allow moisture to get into the porcelain or the cemented connections. During the freeze-thaw cycle, the cracks widen. The company estimated it would have 500 porcelain cutout failures a year.

``The A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts have experienced a slightly higher failure rate than other brands,'' the CL&P letter reads. ``Northeast Utilities stopped purchasing A.B. Chance cutouts in February of 2001. Approximately 50,000 A.B. Chance devices were in service in 2003. Action has been taken to ensure ... the replacement of existing A.B. Chance porcelain cutouts.''

NU replaced the Chance cutouts with porcelain cutouts manufactured by S&C Electric Co., and reliability of those devices has ``been consistently high,'' the letter reads. NU is now installing cutouts with polymer insulators.

The Farmington fire has left Farmington Town Council Chairman Bruce Chudwick wanting to know more about the incident. However, the state agency charged with regulating utilities has opted not to take a closer look at what happened in Farmington on May 7.

``We don't know what caused this, whether there was a storm the day before that could have cracked something,'' said Beryl Lyons, a state Department of Public Utility Control spokeswoman. ``Because there were no fatalities or injuries, we are not obligated to do an investigation.''

Chudwick said he was surprised by that response. ``We have to wait for someone to get killed or injured before they look at this?'' Chudwick said. ``This seems like a serious enough incident that it should warrant investigation by DPUC.''

[loodvig]

It has been raining here for over 24 hours now. In my last 12 hour shift I counted 5 calls related to Chance cutouts! Two poles burnt off with one flipping over causing the feeder to lock out. On the other call the crew had to kill the area to clear the problem. No wonder our 'goals' program has gone down the toilet!

[walrus]

We are starting a major replacement of Chance CO's in our company as over the last couple years we have had several poles burnt off because of the CO failure. They tell us that the one's to watch out for are the ones that have stainless steel tops.

[loodvig]

The ones with the stainless tops do seem to be the worst. Also the stainless ones will have a date stamped on the top. eg. 6 83

[t-shooter]

The stainless steel tops have the greatest failure rate but also watch out for the galvanized top ones. Rule of thumb....Watch out for all cutouts marked Chance!

[VoltsandAmps]

I am very interested in learning more about these AB Chance cutout failures. From all of your experiences,

1.) Where do they usually break at?
2.) Where are they cracked at? Are the cracks visible from the ground with using binoculars, or do I need to get up close?
3.) What date range has everyone seen problems with? Just the old ones, like 1992? Or has anyone seen any problems with the newer models?

Thanks, I look forward to sharing my opinon and experiences will all of you in the near future. Chris

[CPOPE]

Story Updated: Jun 2, 2009 at 9:09 PM MDT
By Anthony Congi Video IDAHO FALLS - Close to two-thirds of Idaho Falls was without power Tuesday from a power pole that caught fire.

Eyewitness News was the first on scene to bring you dramatic video you'll see only on 3
http://www.kidk.com/news/local/46762522.html
"My two grandkids came in and said, 'Grandpa, the telephone pole's on fire'," says Michael Miller, who lives right next to the power pole.

Fire crews and Idaho Falls Power began a frantic race to get the fire out.

"All our circuits were still hot and energized. And the pole started to tip over at that point. And with all the circuits hot up there, if it had tipped over, it'd have been a huge ball of fire," says Idaho Falls Power Supervisor, Dee Wilson.

You can see the fire eating away at the pole, becoming more dangerous every second. More power trucks arrive to figure out the next move.

As you can see, this power line could come down basically at any second. There's easily 15 to 20 people here from the Idaho Falls Power company trying to make sure that that doesn't happen.

The power company cut electricity and the fire department tried putting the flames out.

"We didn't want to hit it with a big stream of water because it would have taken the power pole and broke it off and dropped it," explains Captain Brad Pettingill of the Idaho Falls Fire Department.

Smoke and flames once again appeared.

"The longer it burns the longer it burns into the grain of the wood. It's really difficult to put the fire out and it was really a long shot that we could put it out," says Pettingill.

Crews used a truck to secure and stabilize the pole. People watched carefully knowing any slip could take down the entire section.

Workers removed power lines and kept trying to extinguish the fire over, and over and over again.

Once it was finally out, you could see the damage. Then, they knew the cause.

"It looks like one of our cut outs, as part of a switch was broken and leaking voltage to the pole going to the ground. That caused heat, the caused the fire and burned the pole off and what's caused it to tip," explains Wilson.

Finally after careful and diligent work, Idaho Falls Power was able to remove the section, take down parts of the pole, and start work to get the replacement up and running.

Several people could still be without power; possibly throughout the night.

The power company will keep working until the problem is fixed.

[topgroove]

welcome to my world. on average I use my fire extinguisher about once every three months on pole fires caused by cutout failures. just a tip for the younger lineman, when you direct your extinguisher stay up wind and try not to get any powder on the insulators. if you do get some on them plan on replacing the insulators. the purple K will cause tracking issues. don't get any powder on the transformer bushings or you'll end up making more work for yourself. i'm a troubleman so I arive on the sceene fairly quickly and can usually save the pole by isolating the fault getting the fire out and restoring that portion of feeder as quick as possible.

[freshjive]

i worked in an area where a seasoned linemen lost both arms due to a bad potted porcelain AB chance cutout...They then decided, after years of lineworkers saying someone is gonna get hurt or killed to change them out. Now every pole that we roll up to to do work on, if there is a potted porcelain cutout on it, it must be changed out before we can start our work on that pole...I don't beleive we are required to change out the banded ones (they are held together by a metal band around the porcelain.) Seems a little reactive to wait for accidents to happen before they get changed out, but i'm sure its like that in a lot of places..Sad thing to happen due to faulty equipment.

[BigClive]

So what happened to the lineman who lost both his arms? Did he get any form of compensation? (Although NOTHING could compensate for losing both your arms.)

[urbanxer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhKbdVe2vJo

[Gridhotstick]

The incident in mass. was on National Grid property. The lineman went up to tighten a bolt on a guy plate and as he was doing so, the cutout broke in half and swung down and came in contact with his arms. Instead of blame being put on the cutout for failure, the company of course blamed the incident on the lineman not wearing rubber gloves at the time. Agreed he should have been, but its usually a number of factors that result in an accident, and the cutout WAS a huge factor here. I work for Grid in NY, and I know there are 1000's of porcelain cutouts still in the air in our territory, along with aluminum I'7 dead-end insulators. Company's are more apt to wait till they fail to replace, rather then have a campaign to remove them from the system. When it comes to safety of a lineman, their willing to roll the dice these days instead of doing the right thing, and paying for having them taken out. All it would take is having a few management persons open a cutout with a load buster, that looked good on inspection, and have it fail while opening. The ball of fire they'd get would be a good argument to have them all removed from the system.

[CPOPE]

The incident in mass. was on National Grid property. The lineman went up to tighten a bolt on a guy plate and as he was doing so, the cutout broke in half and swung down and came in contact with his arms. Instead of blame being put on the cutout for failure, the company of course blamed the incident on the lineman not wearing rubber gloves at the time. Agreed he should have been, but its usually a number of factors that result in an accident, and the cutout WAS a huge factor here. I work for Grid in NY, and I know there are 1000's of porcelain cutouts still in the air in our territory, along with aluminum I'7 dead-end insulators. Company's are more apt to wait till they fail to replace, rather then have a campaign to remove them from the system. When it comes to safety of a lineman, their willing to roll the dice these days instead of doing the right thing, and paying for having them taken out. All it would take is having a few management persons open a cutout with a load buster, that looked good on inspection, and have it fail while opening. The ball of fire they'd get would be a good argument to have them all removed from the system.

Grid has changed out a Boatload of cutouts to polymer nothing is going to say that the polymer stuff you are replacing them is going to last longer than the 15Years you get out of an ABC.

The problem is the failure mode breaking glass and a swinging tap creating a pole fire and hazzard for the person working or dunkin donughts below.

Be advised the problem is not just with ABC but also manufactures of the same potted porcelin design all have the same failure mode,

Follow this link on more with respect to Pat Cataldo's mishap.
http://www.powerlineman.com/lforum/showthread.php?t=1475&highlight=patrick

[Gridhotstick]

"Dude" feel free to come to upstate NY and look around. Grid here has not changed out many of the porcelain cutouts. They change only what's broken. No campaign yet to get out of the air the ones that have been an issue for years. And not sure how long you've been around, but there are many of the banded porcelain cutouts put up many years before the chance ones dated in the early 90's, they continue to function fine. Even the very old box type cutouts continue to function with no mishaps as we have with the chance ones from the early 90's. And its true the polymer ones we're putting up may not by better in time then others. But I'll put my faith in them at this point. The extreme number of failures of the ab chance cutouts of the early 90's far surpasses anything that's been put in the air in the past. How many flashes and accidents need to happen because of defected hardware need to happen before the company's do something? And "dude" your talking just as the management would hope a lineman would. Blame it on the weather, instead of the manufacturing

[lineman1010]

i have worked all over grids system in ma in upstate ny for storms and down in rhode island. i have changed out hundreds of the porcieln cut outs. alot of them were all cracked and had to hold the high sides with a shot gun.

was out on storm in upstate ny, had a pole that needed to be climbed told the ap to test the pole before he climbed when he hit the pole with the hammer the cut out crumbled and fell to the ground. the line was already dead. the porclien landed on the ap and gave him a pretty nasty cut on the back of his neck.