no free climb?

[Phoenix-7]

Pain in the ass is correct. My company says I have to wear one, but yet when it comes to actual pole top rescue to freeclimb.

The big issue I have with it is they are easy to work on a new bare pole, but when you get an older pole that has a bunch of splinter sticking out and telephone drops running down the pole with staples that stick out... wanted to climb above a rack/platform the other day and it's just not worth the effort to go up there and give the guy working the bucket a hand.

Went up to help change out a transformer, I find the #6 ground gets nice and caught up between the fall restraint and the pole.

Still new to me, I think it just restricts more of what I used to be able to do off the pole.... I still try to climb every chance I can just to try to get used to it.

Look at it this way, use all your PPE, use it correctly.
If you not use your fall restraint when you are actually trying to save a fellow lineman, and you kick out, you could be in the same predicament as your partner. Work safely and stay alive.

[jmorehouse24]

Lets just say a utility in California. Thank you

Well, as far as SCE being grand fathered in, that is not true. About 6 months ago, they made it mandatory for EVERYONE to be 100% belted at all times. Of course, in an emergency it is acceptable to free climb. We had the option of the bucksqueeze or an additional safety strap. We chose the additional safety strap.

[Linemanblood]

We to use the Buck Squeeze ground to ground except for pole top rescue, telephone steps and if supervisor approves for any othe rcongeted pole situations

[dvrdwn]

our company now has a policy, ground to ground no exceptions. we used to have free climbing certification but as of this year we dont. from what we were told by the year 2010, at the kc rodeo last year, osha will mandate it. now we do have lineman that will do whatever is needed to get to the backlot pole with a bucket. but yes our company has gotten to the point of you will use the bucksqueeze no matter what the situation is, if you get caught not useing it you will be disiplined.

[MI-Lineman]

Our company has been issuing that damn thing to our apps. They started with the pole joker but to many apps were falling in it. Now they have the buck squeeze and two apps fell in that!

THERE'S NO REPLACEMENT FOR PROPER TRAINING!!! Watch how unsure most guys(or gals) are about their placement of their feet. Would you trust someone in that thing to just throe it down and rescue you? For years this company let people climb "how ever they feel comfortable" and now its bitting them in the ass! Because of improper training I'll probably have to use that damn thing.

If you use it to exact specs the manufacture says you have to keep it so tight the damn thing wont pass a knot in a cedar pole! Plus, our company will not allow you to use the yellow safety with out it unless you are 4' or below, above a "BOLTED OBJECT". That means you would have to remove those annoying telephone ball busters on your way up but.....when it comes down to time and money our app training committee lets them cheat!

Use it like it's intended so the company can see all the shoulder and elbow injuries it causes, the time it takes to use it, and how well it works when an S&C switch breaks above you and molting metal is dropping on you!

I took this job knowing there were risks! Don't ad more! Just TRAIN PEOPLE BETTER!!!!!!!!

If they take climbing out of the picture and start denergizing everything we touch how much an hour are we going to make in the near future

[Perk]

I'm an Apprentice, 6 mos. away from "top-out" and I've heard nothing about this, but from what I see discussed in here, I don't like it, but I'm sure I don't really understand. Here in TN we seem to be running behind, for example, in the past year our muni. just began providing climbing tools per new OSHA standards we had been hearing about for months being used by nearby utilities before we were ever officially informed of it.

How does this restraint work and how can it be more safe IF, I don't know that it does, you end up being more pre-occupied w/ positioning it than you would if free-climbing or hitch-hiking, either one. It just sounds like it would place more jeopardy on the lineman than the way it's been done for decades. How in the heck would you cross-over all the crap that typically shows up on an existing pole - fencing, basketball goals, bird houses, then actual utility/phone/CATV hardware.

My trianing is through TVPPA and we had to wear restraints in our Assessment Lab, which consisted of wearing our harness attached to a line secured to the pole top. It had a clip/block that had a ratcheting action as you climbed down but if you fell it was free-fall and would catch before you hit the ground w/ no elasticity, basically all it did was prevent you from hitting the ground. Anyway, I found it especially aggravating because you had to constantly reach behind and adjust the block on the way down because it would catch, in my opinion, increasing the possibility of cutting out.

[MI-Lineman]

Basically the belt comes off your D-ring with a snap and goes around the pole almost back to your other D-ring. But there is a nylon strap that comes off the opposite D-ring and goes to a slide adjuster on the end of the first piece that comes around the back of the pole. Then the nylon strap goes in front of the pole across to the other side of the first piece. So in other words the whole pole is wrapped in this contraption. You adjust the nylon strap to stay snug against the pole. There's some sort of adjuster on the opposite side of the nylon adjuster to keep your D-rings in the correct position. That has a handle on it and you're supposed to keep that and the other adjuster at 3 and 9 on the pole.

I hope your still with me, I know thats a lot of info but there's actually more. You can probably find a pic on line somewhere.

The bad about it is the nylon strap slips(we have tried 2 or 3 modified models before Buckingham showed our company how to repair them each time instead). Then after repeated use the nylon strap swells so it won't slide, even to adjust. Also you can't flip the strap like regular hitchhikers do, you have to pull out to the sides with your arms and then up the pole as far as it will let you(already seeing signs of shoulder and elbow problems). I don't hitchhike at all and I take long strides coming down which the belt won't let you do either. You have to drag the bucksqueeze with one hand to go around a pole(hope you don't have anything hot in your hands or your stuck?). There's a second nylon strap that you use as a double buck to get above objects.

I was told that Buckingham visited one of our app training jobs and watched their contraption in use. They told the company the belt was designed for "the journeyman who climbs once and a while not every day". All our managers know is that you won't fall and that's all they hear not that you can't do your job either!!!!!!!!

[rcdallas]

It works on a bare pole in a training yard, it don't work in the real world.