Rat Limits vs Union Limits.

[dbrown20]

This first sentence or 2 does not address the title of this thread, but is just an observation. The definition I always heard was a Rat was simply a non-union contractor and of course by association the hands working there also. A scab is a union person who crosses a picket line. This kinda agrees with some of you other guys.

Anyway to the subject of the title. I have never seen non-union (rat) contractors (which I have worked for), ever do any transmission hotstick work. Now I don't know why, because I believe some of them have hands capable of doing this type of work. I have known of plenty of union contractors doing hot work on higher voltages. I expect my limited observations on this subject are just that, limited. How about it LINETRASH? Did you ever do any hot sticking while you were working for a rat? The only thing I have know of rats doing is hot work that can be rubber gloved or maybe even stick work to 34.5 maybe. The only thing I could think of was they probably didn't want to invest in a hot stick trailer and the assorted sticks used on hi-lines. Also keeping a crew together that was experienced would probably be a problem.

Did you work for Chapman, Linetrash? You mentioned sliding them hand lines, and that made me think of them.

CLIVE, what was the name of your favorite Ewe? dbrown20

[tramp67]

Actually mr. brown, Transmission, hot stick work....is usually a "special" thing. A "Dire need" type thing. AND, if you ain't doin it "in house", then, you're company is gonna pay out the ass for it.

There are both Union and Non Union contractors who can do it, and do it comprehensively. A VERY specialized field now days.

More times than not, there's ways to "Switch" and isolate, so contractors can come in and "shit and get",...so to speak.

Honestly? I think a Hot Stick Transmission Crew has to be about "Top of the food chain" for the Line field.
I been in the business 37 years, and they still "Wow" me.

Hotsticking and barehand liveline work are becoming very common, at least in the Midwest. Par is pretty heavy in this work, from what I've seen, they do the majority of it in Wisconsin, Iowa, etc. I've done a little transmission hotsticking, and hope to try the barehand stuff one of these days. From what I've been told, the little bit of extra pay for the barehand doesn't make up for the limited amount of hours you get because of the weather constraints.
A lot of the transmission lines are so overloaded that it's hard to get outages on them anymore, at least in the Midwest. Kinda rules out the "shit and get" philosophy, and the utilities have cut back so much that they don't have the manpower to do the work in-house anymore. I've never seen any rat contractors working transmission hot either, Dbrown20.

[dbrown20]

Nah. Not what I was exposed to. Change a set of bells on a tangent structure. Simple. Change a pole on a tangent structure. Simple. Change an arm on a tangent structure. Simple. Change DE bells. Simple. All on 230 Kv and below, wood H fixtures. Pretty simple. Any kind of post type insulators etc. on single pole stuff of 69 KV and below, pretty simple.

I've changed tangent insulators and DE insulators on towers of 345 and below. A little more rigging, especially on the dead ends, but still basically simple.

Really if you have the proper sticks etc. for most stuff it would be just as simple to do it hot by the time you get through with clearances and proper grounding procedures according to the latest safety practices.

On doing most of the preceding work mentioned hot I firmly believe if you have one person on a crew who has done it then he can guide the rest. It's really the sort of stuff that can be observed or even by looking in the Chance and Hastings catalogs that most hands can understand it easily.

The barehanding I was exposed to was 230 KV, 115 KV, 69 KV and 34.5 KV. I expect the methods may have become more stringent but it is really quite simple. In transmission voltages the spacing is so great that you would have to be a complete klutz to screw up. I always maintained that rubber gloving distribution voltages was much more dangerous. We did some barehanding of 34.5 KV, and I considered that a lot more dangerous than the other simply because the spacing was very close.

Now many people I have talked to who belonged to a "bare hand" crew wanted to act as if it were something exclusive, but they're just blowing smoke. dbrown20