Power Co. tree trimming whoops

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  • #3
They do it when they are working on the high voltage lines. I watched them change the wires from an old pole to a new higher pole. They had the wires roped and undone from the old pole and were raising them to the new one when somehow the wire slipped and arced on the hydraulic rod of the bucket. One of the guys on the ground told the bucket operator that he wasn't going to give him mouth to mouth.

I didn't quite understand at the time why they would ground the truck.
 
I've never heard of that either .The upper boom is insulated any way or is supposed to be .

Inside the boom the leveling cable attach to fiberglass rods ,all the low pressure control hydraulic lines are a type of thermal plastic .The "dead man" switch is a plastic line .

What I don't know is if the bucket is equipted with an aux port to run hydraulic pruners ,pole saws ,crimping tools etc how that would be isolated from ground .Never the less there should be no conductive means for a fault current to contact the truck frame from contact of the upper boom with a hot wire .Now if they hit a hot wire with the lower boom the story changes .
 
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  • #5
It might very well have arced to the lower boom cylinder rod. Too many years ago. I know it scared me and the guy in the bucket hooted like he was having a good time.
 
Cobleskill said:
I know it scared me and the guy in the bucket hooted like he was having a good time.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but that made me laugh in a sick way... a visual of the bucket guy hooting & you not knowing for a sec if he was frying or just reacting.
 
they ground the lines at either end of the phase but generally the power to them has been cut
we did a emergency job on a mtn ranch once where pg and e met us, shut down that phase, grumbled that we wouldnt cut until grounded, the grounded it and we cut
the grounding rods take any minute trickle down electricity into the ground instead of leaking into the phase
 
thattreeguy said:
they ground the lines at either end of the phase but generally the power to them has been cut
we did a emergency job on a mtn ranch once where pg and e met us, shut down that phase, grumbled that we wouldnt cut until grounded, the grounded it and we cut
the grounding rods take any minute trickle down electricity into the ground instead of leaking into the phase
Click to expand...
... although they wont touch till it' grounded and safe
 
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