Grounding backfeeds...

[rcdallas]

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[thrasher]

I am assuming that you are referring to transformer bank backfeed and not to a broken phase laying on a different phase wire. For transformer backfeed there are so many variables it's not funny. The operating voltage, the style bank, the kva size of the bank, is it a single bank source or an industrial park with bank after bank each adding a little, is the bank loaded or unloaded on the secondary side. Bottom line it could be from a spit to 4th of July. One of your problems is not "teasing" the connection when you ground a downed phase. Once watched a man try to slap a ground on a downed conductor and it was like trying to catch a mad snake with a hook by a drunk. Better off to trace back to somewhere you can solidly ground to a non-moving conductor. Bottom line if you can kill the other phases while you make repairs, do it that way. If you can't kill it I would treat the conductor as energized even after grounding it. Some people teach that current follows the path of least resistance, that's a lie, current follows EVERY path of resistance. Just the majority follows the least path. So even if you have grounded a conductor, but it has a solid source, if you grab it barehanded you will get part of the current.

[Trbl639]

I am assuming that you are referring to transformer bank backfeed and not to a broken phase laying on a different phase wire. For transformer backfeed there are so many variables it's not funny. The operating voltage, the style bank, the kva size of the bank, is it a single bank source or an industrial park with bank after bank each adding a little, is the bank loaded or unloaded on the secondary side. Bottom line it could be from a spit to 4th of July. One of your problems is not "teasing" the connection when you ground a downed phase. Once watched a man try to slap a ground on a downed conductor and it was like trying to catch a mad snake with a hook by a drunk. Better off to trace back to somewhere you can solidly ground to a non-moving conductor. Bottom line if you can kill the other phases while you make repairs, do it that way. If you can't kill it I would treat the conductor as energized even after grounding it. Some people teach that current follows the path of least resistance, that's a lie, current follows EVERY path of resistance. Just the majority follows the least path. So even if you have grounded a conductor, but it has a solid source, if you grab it barehanded you will get part of the current.

Gonna agree with Thrasher...........where I was brought up.......we always killed the line out if one phase of the line was down..........never attempted tp ick one up with the other one or 2 hot.......

[topgroove]

Gonna agree with Thrasher...........where I was brought up.......we always killed the line out if one phase of the line was down..........never attempted tp ick one up with the other one or 2 hot.......

gotta agree. throwing a ground on a live down hot phase is never a good work practice. Always de-energize all three phases, isolate your down wire , restore your customers up to the isolation points tying feeders or whatever you have to do to bring as many customers back as quickly as possible and than repair the down conductor. theirs been plenty of times where i've managed to isolate and restore and have every customer back on before the crew arrived. simply throwing a ground on an energized conductor offers little protection and actually can make the situation much worse.

[lewy]

First thing open up the bank you are single phasing the bank. Isolate all three if you can then test & ground.

[topgroove]

who knows how many three phase customers are on that portion of feeder? always kill it at a switch with a load-buster, and than open loops if you can to limit the outage picking up customers to your open loops.

[Line_Man.]

Couldnt imagine trying to throw a ground on a downed backfed conductor. I would have to agree in the statement of kill it :)

[topgroove]

the whole purpose of grounds is to try and protect us from accidental energization. you want the fault to clear as quickly as possible and put yourself in a equapotential zone. grounding a live conductor will only put people in more danger.

[Line_Man.]

the whole purpose of grounds is to try and protect us from accidental energization. you want the fault to clear as quickly as possible and put yourself in a equapotential zone. grounding a live conductor will only put people in more danger.

Agreed 10000000000% Don't think I could try it, know plenty that would though dang fearless people

[Trbl639]

the whole purpose of grounds is to try and protect us from accidental energization. you want the fault to clear as quickly as possible and put yourself in a equapotential zone. grounding a live conductor will only put people in more danger.

Times 3 !!!!
De-energize..isolate..check for voltage and ground!

Like top said earlier...isolate and get as many customers as possible back on.................

[bobelectric]

I've never heard of intentionly grounding an energized conductor. Who taught you this method?

[mscheuerer]

In total agreement with the boy's.

Has NEVER EVER been a practicing work method in all the years of line work.

De-Energize, Isolate, Check Potentials, Apply Grounds, Re-Check Potentials, Fix Repair, Done. Go Home Safe & Alive.

PSE&G
L#94

[climbsomemore]

I know .... there are a FEW electric companies that don't have very clear operational policies. Some linemen who work at these places have been know to kill the downed phase and leave other hot phases energized on a section while repairs are made.

Good idea? Probably not.

Almost every year guys who work at those outfits get a "suprise" when that downed stub of wire ends up being "hot".... back fed from a delta secondary bank on the lead.... or they find a some wires all tangled up together away from the work area.



Everplace worth working for I've been to expected a crew to "test, tag and ground" the circuit if they wanted to do any thing less than full scale rubber glove "hot work".... and if your system is over 5000 volts only the most foolish companies would expect a person to handle downed, ungrounded conductors from the surface of the earth.

Slapping a ground on an "untested" wire may not be the end of the world... but it sure is not the most prudent move and could cause a lot of injury and damage.

[jerry]

I read on this site about the number of Linemen being killed and I wonder about the level of training that is being done in our trade today. Then I read about placing a ground on a Hot Phase(even from back feed) and I see why People are being killed. I am retired now and never in 40 years put a ground on a hot phase,although as humans we do make mistakes. I sure have had my share of close calls,any linemen that says otherwise is either a liar or has not done much Line work. Be Smart,Work SAFE! Old IBEW LINEMAN.

[rcdallas]

Identify, Isolate, Test, and Ground.

I'm not arguing that one bit. Let's say your a serviceman, got an open wye line, fuses might take you 20 minutes to drive to, your backup is still at home sleeping.

You get a call that you have a down conductor, you show up and it's backfeeding all over the ground. The next bank downstream is still going to take you another 10 minutes to get there, and on top of that there is another bank.

Do you leave the scene to get to the fuses and open? Do you call your backup that might take an hour to get there and watch it spit all over the place? Do you call the dispatch and have them drop the whole feeder? Do you go up a span over and put a ground on the phase then call your backup and in the meantime you go and open fuses, meet up and sleeve it together?

This is the type of situation I'm trying to elaborate on.

I guess really it might not be much different if your on a delta system and you put a ground on a hot phase for cutover purposes or whatever.

What I'm failing to understand is out here we have high resistance soil, the grounding just flat out sucks, unless it's wet. I hear the backfeed is not a real load, I'm wondering if in different areas where you have good soil conditions if this would play a factor in it. Kinda see where I'm going with this?

Our safety rules DO say BOTH sides SHALL be grounded prior to picking up wire, and we do practice that.

[rcdallas]

Or is this just this old school shit where you can lay a phase on a dry arm if you wanted. Or working secondary with a good pair of leather gloves, or piss on covering up, I'll just take one line hose with me, or maybe I'll just go back to the recloser and open the handle and we'll call it good, etc, etc, etc...

?

[Line_Man.]

Sounds like you hit the nail on the head with the old school shit dallas :D

[Trbl639]

Identify, Isolate, Test, and Ground.

I'm not arguing that one bit. Let's say your a serviceman, got an open wye line, fuses might take you 20 minutes to drive to, your backup is still at home sleeping.

You get a call that you have a down conductor, you show up and it's backfeeding all over the ground. The next bank downstream is still going to take you another 10 minutes to get there, and on top of that there is another bank.

Do you leave the scene to get to the fuses and open? Do you call your backup that might take an hour to get there and watch it spit all over the place? Do you call the dispatch and have them drop the whole feeder? Do you go up a span over and put a ground on the phase then call your backup and in the meantime you go and open fuses, meet up and sleeve it together?

This is the type of situation I'm trying to elaborate on.

I guess really it might not be much different if your on a delta system and you put a ground on a hot phase for cutover purposes or whatever.

What I'm failing to understand is out here we have high resistance soil, the grounding just flat out sucks, unless it's wet. I hear the backfeed is not a real load, I'm wondering if in different areas where you have good soil conditions if this would play a factor in it. Kinda see where I'm going with this?

Our safety rules DO say BOTH sides SHALL be grounded prior to picking up wire, and we do practice that.

I agree, but it all depends on the situation...
in town during daylight hours, possibly with the public around,
with 1 phase of 2 or 3 laying on the ground........Call for back-up....unless it is a feeder, then have the dispatcher dump it, until you can open up and isolate it...........

Middle of the night...same scenario as above, no public around....not a feeder...call for back-up, and then go somewhere to open it up and isolate it........if it's a feeder, and you can open it up/isolate somewhere fairly close, have the dispatcher dump it....

Our Switching rules had an option for Contingency Switching..talk to the dispatcher and then write the Switching Order later, and depending on where it was, determined if it was Dispatcher control or Local control (meaning you)...........

We did have a Safety Rule that governed how we handled a 'downed conductor'.......called the 2 span rule......no one (employee) was allowed to be within 2 spans of a downed conductor, unless.......IT WAS DEAD AND GROUNDED !! You could drive by it or close to it inside the truck, but you were not allowed to be within 2 spans on foot, outside the vehicle............

Now your gonna say that was BS as far as when walking a line out.....and I agree.especially if the ROW was grown up, but we were also required to wear PVD's.......Personal Voltage Detectors...picked up on the magnetic field of a hot conductor and man are they loud...so you know if you are walking up on a downed phase that was still hot.............rarely seen them work on backfeed situations, but they will........work real good for finding burnt off jumpers on single or 3 phase!:D

[rcdallas]

Alright. I've finally just came to the conclusion it's just something I don't want to do. It never jived right with me...that-a-y I asked.

I'll have to dig a little into the personal voltage detectors and see about getting them to get us some. Especially on storms I can see that being nice to have.

You remember what kind you had trouble?

[Trbl639]

Alright. I've finally just came to the conclusion it's just something I don't want to do. It never jived right with me...that-a-y I asked.

I'll have to dig a little into the personal voltage detectors and see about getting them to get us some. Especially on storms I can see that being nice to have.

You remember what kind you had trouble?

Check out HD Electric...the 'V' Watch is what we had, Model #VW-30......

We got them sometime in the mid 90's I think, after one of our guys from Mississippi walked into a downed line...two way feed...while working a hurricane on the east coast, I think in Maryland...way I remember it, the line was grown up and covered with debris, their 'birddog' took em to an open switch while a crew was grounding, they started walking it out, and it was a 2way feed and he got tangled in some debris and the hot phase was in the debris..................

Our 2 Span rule came from this accident..........then we were only required to wear them on service restoration, but if I was in my 'Home' territory, it wasn't required, only if I worked in a different control was I supposed to...then it became mandatory anytime on Storm restoration..........

It's a good tool, that could save your butt, so it's no big deal wearing it!! Some of the newer ones have a feature to turn off the squeal/beep.......the VW-30 doesn't............once turned on, the only way to turn them off is to take the battery out or to put them back in their case...some kind of shielded lining turns them off...........

DO NOT..REPEAT, DO NOT forget and wear the sucker up in the bucket with ya, and there is Hot Primary around............It'll drive ya crazy!!!:D

[Trbl639]

Dallas.......

The PVD I was talking about can be used to troubleshoot a line to......like coming into a line from the middle and no houses/meters around...walk under the line and it'll tell ya if it is hot............can also be held out the window, in the dark, if you are looking for a jumper burnt off.......if ya get them, play with it and you'll see what i am talking about!

Don't take it off, say when ya leave a trouble call in the middle of the night, and don't turn it off, say ya put it on the dash, then drive under a 3 phase or a highline.it'll go off and make ya jump, and bump your head on the roof of the truck!!:D

[topgroove]

hey trbl... how much range does it have? could I use it while driving , stick it out the window to see if the primary is hot?

[Trbl639]

hey trbl... how much range does it have? could I use it while driving , stick it out the window to see if the primary is hot?

Not real sure Top..........I think it might work better if there is a big load on a line.......greater magnetic field...........

It will tell you if you drive under a Transmission line, and some 3 phase...like I said, I've used it to find burnt jumpers, but it varies with distance, but have also used it driving down the road, if the line is real close to the road.........

[Line_Man.]

Foreman actually got one of these from a utility on storm trouble they are real nice. We are still borrowing it :D

[Trbl639]

Does it have an alarm to let you know when company spy's get close to your afternoon nap hide-away???:eek:

It's not that smart Stevie!! :D I think we all had our hiding places where if we wanted to be found, we could be, but if not, no way they could find me.......of course that was before GPS....and I understand it was turned on the week after I retired!!:D

My supv was 35 miles away, and if he wanted to find me in my AO, he had to call me, cause he sure couldn't find me without directions!:D

[Pootnaigle]

Fore I retired the first time they gave me one of them thangs( PVD) and ya wuz sposta wear it round yer neck when you wuz gonna walk out a line. It wuz inna fancy lil leather sack with a drawstring onnit. I never used the PVD but I wore the sack out holdin all the different dies for my robotool.

[Trbl639]

Fore I retired the first time they gave me one of them thangs( PVD) and ya wuz sposta wear it round yer neck when you wuz gonna walk out a line. It wuz inna fancy lil leather sack with a drawstring onnit. I never used the PVD but I wore the sack out holdin all the different dies for my robotool.

I hear ya! I cut a hole in the front of that dang lime green, glow-in-the -dark vest and hung it in there.......wasn't about the wear it around my neck!!!

[Line_Man.]

Around your neck? haha! Can you imagine a customer meeting you with that thing beeping and you are telling them you are a power line professional? HAHA I Imagine that would scare some people away