gunner - hot stick

"Bruce L. Bergman (munged human readable)" fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Bruce,

It's seldom that there's more than one home on a single pole transformer out in the boondocks, because there's a reasonable limit to how far you can transmit 220V without excessively large wiring. So, out here, EVERY house or barn has its own pole can, and every transformer has a cricket breaker on it. I know of only one pair of buildings within a mile of where I live that share a transformer, and they were built on opposite sides of a fenceline by the same guy; one for him and his wife, one for his mom-in-law.

Further, this is the lightning capitol of the world. (really) Virtually every Summer thunderstorm takes out power somewhere. I cannot remember the last time I saw an honest-for-goodness FUSE on a power pole. At least in this state, they are ALL Breakers... The linemen around here used to call them "crickets". They just swing down from one end when they blow. I think they got their nickname because of the look of the hinge and parts... kind of like a cricket's rear leg.

The lineman uses a hot stick to swing them back up into their contact.

LLoyd

Progress energy insists on inspecting the lines for damage before replacing a fuse. They drive the roads, looking for downed lines & limbs, even if they replaced the fuse a few days earlier. At one time, a fuse near here went out every Friday at about 4:30 all summer long. That happened every summer for over five years, but they refused to upgrade the old wiring which was installed, piecemeal starting in '64.

LLoyd lives about 30 miles from me, so I doubt there is a lot of difference in how they do maintenance. The problem stopped when several older homes were torn down, reducing the load.

I always did like bad movies. Maybe they could add 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' to the cheerleaders, and they could go on a rampage, clearing trees they don't like? ;-)

I recognize the name of a B movie actress: Mary Woronov

Everyone got home from work and turned on the AC?

Christopher A. Young Learn more about Jesus

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Progress energy insists on inspecting the lines for damage before replacing a fuse. They drive the roads, looking for downed lines & limbs, even if they replaced the fuse a few days earlier. At one time, a fuse near here went out every Friday at about 4:30 all summer long. That happened every summer for over five years, but they refused to upgrade the old wiring which was installed, piecemeal starting in '64.

& electric stoves, & TVs & computers &...

If it's that predictable an outage, the Power Utility has got to fix it. Removing a few houses isn't a fix, upgrading the feeder into the area is what they need to do.

The entire subdivision needs to be rebuilt. It is fed from a line that leads to a school that snaps about once a month. The refuse to replace the old wire, they just splice in pieces of wire to repair it. One break started a fire, when it hit an old creosote coated fence. I've had outages over 12 hours when that line broke, and couldn't leave the subdivision, because the main road was closed while they worked. they could build a new feed less than a half mile to tie us into new feed on 441 that rarely goes out.

They waited for the fire department to put out the fire, then patched it again. There is a single phase, 100A 7200 volt line into the subdivision. The hardware is so old that they couldn't find enough fuses a few years ago, after a hurricane. None of out of state trucks carried any that old, and they went through their stock before they got to me. It's a sick joke. They followed the top down method, and there were only 20 some houses on the last fuse in the subdivision. One reason the fuse doesn't blow as often is that most of the people can't afford the higher rates to run their AC. I haven't used the central air in over five years, and the window AC is running wide open to keep my bedroom at 89° F today

Some cracked power poles weren't replaced for over five years, and one rotten primary pole on Hwy. 441 (Belleview, Fl. 34420) was spliced with

2*4 & strand wrapped around for over a decade. Florida power was bad enough, but Progress is worse. Now, Duke is trying to buy Progress. :(

On 8/31/2012 5:00 PM, Michael A. Terrell wrote: ...

Hope that they do...Duke is class outfit.

Is that why they are giving the liberals so much cash?

Sure dont. I dont think Ive ever seen one of those for sale, ever.

Course Ive not looked for em.

6 hours to go

-- The essential differences between liberals and conservtives is that liberals could not exist without conservtives to defend their freedom and support them economicaly.

Conservatives on the other hand, can exist and live quite well without liberals."

-- The essential differences between liberals and conservtives is that liberals could not exist without conservtives to defend their freedom and support them economicaly.

Conservatives on the other hand, can exist and live quite well without liberals."

Gunner fired this volley in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Yup... I asked you before I looked.

That first one lacks the breaker finger, but the second is complete.

HOWever... I'm going to pursue a couple of the ideas offered here by members before I violate the power company tariffs and find myself in court.

LLoyd

Oh, absolutely - they find you messing with their wiring and fuses on their pole without their explicit written permission (which you are NOT going to get in writing...) and the Legal Dept. decides that they're going after you, you are in a heap of trouble.

If the power company won't repair the line so it holds for more than a week at a time, you need to go to the State PUC (or whoever regulates them and issues the franchise rights) and raise holy hell till they do. That is not a normal level of service.

In a properly run town, the power is out once or twice for short periods over the course of a year, excepting those tenth-of-a-second switching dropouts

And when it does go out, it's usually Car Hits Pole or other stuff out of their control. They patch around and get everyone they can back on within an hour.

-->--

Liability. How do you know this has been tested for insulation leakage at voltage? Back when I was in the power company biz, all equipment used for HV work had to be tested periodically.

And I'd never use one of these without a pair of (tested) HV gloves as well.

I picked one up at a garage sale once. Brought it to work and someone lifted it. I can't imagine that anyone would want to set a fuse and reenergize an HV line without working for a utility. I've done HV splices but the utility has always reneergized after getting OK from supervisors, etc..