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flashman
04-15-2011, 01:00 PM
I like to post a general question to all the trouble lineman out there. Does your company require you to do streetlight mantainence? I mean really, don't they realize that your responsibilities to maintain and restore power at all hours of the day and under adverse conditions is enough? Too bad some pencil pusher came up with this years ago and now it seems that they even put it in the job specs for people wanting to apply for the job. I would think that they would rather have you look for potiential problems in their system that could cause outages but that would require them to go back to a proven way of thinking.

Boomer gone soft
04-15-2011, 01:14 PM
How much work do you think we should give away because it is beneath us?

We do streetlight maintenance because it is linework. It may not be exciting or particularly demanding.....BUT IT'S OUR WORK!:)

barehander
04-15-2011, 01:33 PM
Was just part of the job when work was slow........

flashman
04-15-2011, 01:45 PM
I don't believe in giving anything away and yes I do them in low call times. I was asking because I noticed it was a job spec on some of the trouble job posting here on this site. Just asking to see how prevelant it is at other places.

loodvig
04-15-2011, 02:27 PM
On a slow shift it helped fill the time sheet!

Pootnaigle
04-15-2011, 02:28 PM
There is 2 schools of thought bout a troubleman. First one says if he aint busy everything is functioning perfectly and we are making money. Second one says we are paying this guy for doing nothing, Lets look around and see what he could do to make us some money. Fraid the latter one is now the norm.Problem is they dont know where to draw the line and troublemen often find themselves trying to hang a 1000 watt Floodlight in an alley with no help.They usta tell us no prollem just call another guy and have him help you........ Cept we could hear that other guy gettin hammered all day long on the radio.. I am afraid good sense no longer plays a part in managements role, and its to be expected as most outfits promote people who have never been linemen into supervisory positions , routinley making decisions that have serious adverse effects on the crews.

electric squirrel
04-15-2011, 04:57 PM
Out here in Cali,,doin street lites pay $50 an hour.

wtdoor67
04-15-2011, 07:41 PM
It is a contractual thing in some instances. A lot of st. lite systems are in an agreement with a town or city. The town or city pays a nominal fee for the lights and that usually includes the maintenance. Although it is a low priority for the most part it must be done. Here in Oklahoma they thought nothing of complaining to the Corporation Commission if a light is left not working. When management gets a complaint from the Corporation Commission it usually gets their attention. You'd be surprised how some little old lady complains to her city councilman and he in turn talks to the Mayor etc. When the mayor calls and complains someone usually acts on it.

Like someone said it ain't bad hourly pay for a lineman.

However I did appreciate that in Wy. they did quit selling those damn area lites, bright lites or whatever they want to call them. You know, make a contract with an individual to set a pole or install on an existing pole, and then you're stuck with maintaining the damn things lights on them. Pain in the butt.

Highplains Drifter
04-16-2011, 03:35 AM
I feel some times we forget we get paid by the hour.

loodvig
04-16-2011, 09:08 AM
I never minded doing st. lights while others did. We would have a monthly T-man meetings for safety, etc. There was 18 of us. It always ended up a bitching session over st. lights. Some would work harder trying to avoid them than actually doing them!
Just before I retired they changed our job description and title. We became 'trouble-shooters'. And they really pilled on the work. We got laptops in the trucks like the P.D. have! We didn't have time for st. lights anymore!
BUT I'm getting off subject, sorry.

Lineman8641
04-16-2011, 09:18 AM
I do street lights when things are slow. It's not really defined in the Troubleman job specs like I have seen on some Troubleman jobs posted here. But it's implied that we can do them. We're also required to read meters. I'm ok doing the street lights. It's called "busy" work just to make the timesheet look better at the end of the day. All of the work comes to the truck via the computer. I'd much rather be doing the Trouble work, but then again the day goes by much faster when I'm doing something. On the night and weekend shifts, there fewer Troublemen on shift, so the street light work takes a back seat. Plus it's nice OT job when the light orders get backed up.

Pootnaigle
04-16-2011, 10:59 AM
Personally I have always wondered how the utilities are making anything at all off of em. The initial fixture and, Cost of installation starts one off losing money from the word go. Add to that the cost of replacement bulbs, eyes, and the number of lights that seem to be repeatedly shot out,The cost of labor and transportation to repair them.There is a lot of overtime involved working st lights. I have a security lite ( 100 watt HPS) and It costs me about 12 bux a month.If they hafta send a man out more than once a year they are losing money on the damn thing.Couple that with the fact that they are sending guys nowadays that only know how to change out bulbs and photo cells and if that dont fix it replace the fixture and it all mounts up. Any way it seemed like a losing proposition to me.

Lineman8641
04-16-2011, 12:48 PM
I think in my area they make money on them because the local governments pay for them. The city pays for them out of their budget. The county has the street lights included in a special tax rate for the developments that have them, so the customer pays for them. My area is more urban/suburban than rural. The maintenance only occurs when someone reports a light not working. But I totally agree that it is costly to respond to repair one. Some guys have a policy that if the light doesn't work with a new bulb or photo eye, they replace the entire fixture, when it could have been a bad starter that caused the problem. And in the URD areas if it's a cable fault that cost skyrockets. We have had a ton of faulted street light cables when the directional boring went crazy for the Fiber-optic companies. That cost a lot of jack,,,most not cost recoverable.

Trojan
04-16-2011, 04:39 PM
A lot of municipalities make utilities pay for street lights. It is part of the municipal permission for the utility to do business in the town.
I can't see the bill covering it even if you figure in how cheap the late night power is. So I guess the utility figures it in the bill for customers.7

Lineman8641
04-16-2011, 05:50 PM
A lot of municipalities make utilities pay for street lights. It is part of the municipal permission for the utility to do business in the town.
I can't see the bill covering it even if you figure in how cheap the late night power is. So I guess the utility figures it in the bill for customers.7

Wow I did not know that!!! That sounds like it's the way to go if you're a municipality though.

Boomer gone soft
04-17-2011, 10:48 PM
Personally I have always wondered how the utilities are making anything at all off of em. The initial fixture and, Cost of installation starts one off losing money from the word go. Add to that the cost of replacement bulbs, eyes, and the number of lights that seem to be repeatedly shot out,The cost of labor and transportation to repair them.There is a lot of overtime involved working st lights. I have a security lite ( 100 watt HPS) and It costs me about 12 bux a month.If they hafta send a man out more than once a year they are losing money on the damn thing.Couple that with the fact that they are sending guys nowadays that only know how to change out bulbs and photo cells and if that dont fix it replace the fixture and it all mounts up. Any way it seemed like a losing proposition to me.

It ain't about "knowing" how to fix them. They won't even let us replace bulbs.....we change the fixture regardless. $50 fixtures are cheap compared to coming back out in a few months after changing a bulb for the photocell, starter, or ballast......besides that, replacing the fixture is "capital" money and that just makes good accounting sense.:cool:

Boomer gone soft
04-17-2011, 10:51 PM
A lot of municipalities make utilities pay for street lights. It is part of the municipal permission for the utility to do business in the town.
I can't see the bill covering it even if you figure in how cheap the late night power is. So I guess the utility figures it in the bill for customers.7

Our franchise agreements with the towns I am responsible for require us to install and maintain streetlights. On city-owned "decorative" lights, we maintain bulbs and photocells, anything more than that is city contractor work.

Divemaster
04-17-2011, 11:54 PM
At our utility, all city street lighting is maintained by us and we eat the cost. That all stems from why and when we were initially started. Our original powerhouse just fed the electric street lights in our original downtown. The state is billed for the kwh usage of the highway lights that go through our town but they pay the usage and supply the fixtures for the highway bypass around our town. Any wiring and such, they must hire contractors. Any area lighting ordered by customers, they pay a monthly charge (appx. $8/month) for the light plus the kwh usage for the light. Repairing street lights are usually our Friday afternoon finish out the week jobs.

jozmo
04-20-2011, 01:24 AM
Personally I have always wondered how the utilities are making anything at all off of em. The initial fixture and, Cost of installation starts one off losing money from the word go. Add to that the cost of replacement bulbs, eyes, and the number of lights that seem to be repeatedly shot out,The cost of labor and transportation to repair them.There is a lot of overtime involved working st lights. I have a security lite ( 100 watt HPS) and It costs me about 12 bux a month.If they hafta send a man out more than once a year they are losing money on the damn thing.Couple that with the fact that they are sending guys nowadays that only know how to change out bulbs and photo cells and if that dont fix it replace the fixture and it all mounts up. Any way it seemed like a losing proposition to me.Over here we put a lot 400w & 250w floods , plus normal cobra st. lights . Usually don't to go back for 6 of more years .Company makes big money .

climbsomemore
04-24-2011, 01:02 AM
In some states cost of lighting may be offset in the tarrif and rates set by the States utility commision

Some states lease the lighting system to cities etc... they may break even... or not. But it works for taxes... thats how they "save" money.

I asked my boss at FPL th same question your asking.
He told me that the company figured the total state wide streetlight load was enough to keep a few power house boilers hot and making KW over-night. He added the company had a plan to round robin those boilers around the power plants FPL owned... plus some of the KW came from some other low costs sources.

Seems that cooling a boiler down cracks the tubes... keeping a number of boilers hot over night saved enough in repairs and fuel costs to sell lighting as a "cost leader". In addition to the cracks... there is a big cost of fuel to heat boiler up to meet morning demand... so keeping some plants on at night saved way more than it costs to keep lighting on.

rob8210
04-24-2011, 07:05 AM
Here in Ontario the town owns and pays for the streetlighting. Before The year 2000 , when we went through some changes in the industry, public utilities maintained streetlights for the towns. The town paid the bill. It was a great money maker for the PUC, with the added benefit of capacitive load to bring up the power factor. After 2000 the regulators said all streetlighting had to be put out to contract. In most cases the PUC's lost out and contractors began doing the work.

creecher874
06-14-2011, 11:14 AM
We do them here in NJ when things are slow. With FE not filling the trouble shifts in the adjacent districts, it's not unusual to go a week or so without the time to do any.

reppy007
12-07-2011, 03:29 PM
You can bet the utilities make big money on street lights,here a utility has a the blessings of what they used to call the puc,or public utility commision,which is now called ercot,or electric relibility council of texas.Making things confusing is the best way to keep questions to a minimim.Here the local utility was pretty much hated,not because of the worked preformed,or the quality of work,but because they would ask and get rate increases about twice a year.People got fed up,and a new law was born,deregulate,which they did,so now customers can choose their suppliers,instead of having the same old monopoly.What the companies did was split up and change names,"lets"REALLY just get to the point.They changed things to make it look like something new when actually they remained a monopoly.Funny thing is that it worked.Most people didnt ,and still dont know what they did.The companies have lawyers,lobbists and who knows who else to explore all the loop-holes available to them.Its the same thing with most wars,except with the wars you might see bombs going off,a few fighter jets ,a few coffins coming back on tv.But what you dont see is the people making millions off all this non-sense,but i assure you that companies are making millions,i could name them,but i wont. Like the vietnam war,i never heard a good reason to as why that occured,tens of thousands died,it couldnt have been because they were communist,we had cuba next door,so it points to big companies,i could tell you that story,but i wont.It doesnt matter if a guy is on double time,it doesnt matter if you cant see how the company is making money,but they are.That can be confusing,but thats the way its susposed to be.

rcdallas
12-07-2011, 05:34 PM
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reppy007
12-07-2011, 07:29 PM
It's a pain the rear at times when having to talk to a customer; I use reliant get off my property. I think, have you ever seen a reliant truck, EVER? Then all the other crap that servicemen deal with when it comes to explaining where we stop and the customers side begins. In my mind I don't consider customers, customers. People like Reliant, Ambit, TXU, etc...they are the customer.

We just a pipeline...life is so much easier at a cooperative.

Hl&p,was the hated company,they changed their name to Reliant,when de-regulation kicked in,the company,split into two parts.Reliant,which customers can choose to buy from.And centerpoint energy which takes care of the lines.Reliant is the same as your Txu,while centerpoint energy is the same as your oncor.Each company had to lose 40,000 customers to begin this complicated adventure,remember that happening?Now reliant which was hl&p,before it was centerpoint,can go out of their old territory to dallas,and vice versa for txu.Now we can buy from Txu which we used to not be able to do.Now oncor gets paid from either reliant or txu,or the smaller guys to maintain these lines.In simple terms,from your point of view,TXU was the monoply,they just changed a name,or split up.TXU is no more a monoploy,but the new company,oncor,is still a monoply,TXU is now a wholeseller "people think" its fairly easy to understand,but it really confuses everyone i know.

rcdallas
12-07-2011, 09:19 PM
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reppy007
12-07-2011, 09:43 PM
Oh I get it but didn't know that Reliant was big Papa like TXU. I'm going to go hide in my hole.

Reliant and Txu are the big wholesellers,or the biggest names involved.With dozens of no-names in the stack of hey too.They are both the ones you send your electric bills to.But lets forget these two biggest sellers at this time,ok.What people are not seeing is oncor or centerpoint energy,your not paying your bills to them.So if people like me and you are not paying them,then who is,Reliant & Txu are paying them.And since Reliant and Txu dont generate electricity or own the powerlines,they must be paying oncor and centerpoint energy really well.It takes millions if not billions for a utility to operate.Its just a game,with reliant and txu being the paper tigers.They do make money,make no mistake about that.But the real so-called big papas remain the old monopoly guys,centerpoint energy and oncor.They just changed their names,kind of like what swamprat did.

reppy007
12-13-2011, 12:18 AM
Hl&p,was the hated company,they changed their name to Reliant,when de-regulation kicked in,the company,split into two parts.Reliant,which customers can choose to buy from.And centerpoint energy which takes care of the lines.Reliant is the same as your Txu,while centerpoint energy is the same as your oncor.Each company had to lose 40,000 customers to begin this complicated adventure,remember that happening?Now reliant which was hl&p,before it was centerpoint,can go out of their old territory to dallas,and vice versa for txu.Now we can buy from Txu which we used to not be able to do.Now oncor gets paid from either reliant or txu,or the smaller guys to maintain these lines.In simple terms,from your point of view,TXU was the monoply,they just changed a name,or split up.TXU is no more a monoploy,but the new company,oncor,is still a monoply,TXU is now a wholeseller "people think" its fairly easy to understand,but it really confuses everyone i know.

This might seem fimilar,a security company named blackwater gets kicked out of Iraq in 2007,they change their name to academi,they get the same contract that they had when they were blackwater.Now they are back in Iraq.

rcdallas
12-13-2011, 07:37 AM
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