Got to stay away from power lines

[SeanKroll]

An aquainteance has a silver maple under primaries, and is a risk- lover.
He encourages the kids to play in the trees despite being inches from the positive, having been line-cleared for years.

His kid got mad at me yesterday, saying it's safe and she trust her dad, when i said it wasn't safe.

Thoughts and educational links about power lines?

 

[cory]

Darwin

 

[treesmith]

I’d never let my kids (or grandkids, now that the kids are grown), play in a tree with foliage touching power lines.

In 1989, we were sent on “storm damage” in Pearl, MS after an ice storm. All the crews had been dispatched to work on clearing downed lines, and we were sent to do some routine trimming. The line we were on ran down a fence row where the trees had been topped/retopped over and over. Our lines here are like 7.2KV...theirs were in the 2KV range. I lost count of how many times I got buzzed in those trees when the wind would blow a limb into the line. I felt it through my hooks and hands.

Trimming a whippy yard pine not far from here that same year, I’d climbed and cut all I could, then had a pruner sent up to clip the rest. I clipped a particularly contrary “limb” that chose to torpedo down my shirt collar, then brush the primary as it fell. I figure Michael Jackson would have been proud of me for about two seconds...

 

[treesmith]

 

[ruel]

That's a tough one. If the electric company's messaging hasn't got through to someone, I'm not sure how much you can do to reach them.

 

[Tree09]

Show them the same stuff that they show in the osha 30 class: the slow painful progression of how it takes to die from an electrical injury. At first a small entrance and exit point. After a few days, entire limbs cut open to debride the necrotic tissue, which is a pointless exercise for most because they die anyways. Explain how back in the day 1 in 3 linemen would die on the job. Failing that call child protective services.

 

[CurSedVoyce]

I wish I got a picture of that PG&E bill board with pictures of little fruit trees in an orchard under high tension distribution lines.
Caption was like, "please social distance the trees from the lines" or something like that.

 

[TINYHULK]

Sorry for bumping an old thread but I gotta ask, Kyle what osha classes are you referring to that teach about power lines and clearance? I didn’t know there was such a thing and I would love to find out where I can gain such knowledge @Tree09

 

[Mellow]

This is the one I did:

Electrical Hazard Training Certification - Training and Workshops for Arborists | ACRT Arborist Training

 

[TINYHULK]

Those would be fantastic but things like that are never in my area. I’m in south east Virginia

 

[Tree09]

Both the osha 10 and 30 cover electrical hazards in depth. But neither will train to work safely with it. By clearance you mean approach distance? It covers that, not tree work, which is covered in the one Mellow posted. You may have to travel to do one. The osha classes are required on most big construction jobs anymore, so i did mine thru my union hall forever ago. Went back years later to do the osha 30, which was starting to be required at the time. They were making the 1st year pups do the 30, which i was against since after they go thru that it's like pulling teeth to get them to do anything other than hide in the break trailer since they think death is imminent

 

[treebilly]

@TINYHULK give me a day or two and I’ll do some digging around. I think I have 3 or 4 copies of the TCIA EHAP book. If I find them I’ll send you one. Reminds me that I’m due for a refresh course. I’ll also ask at the office where you check for the classes. I know every year they put a few free ones on for the EHAP. To complete it you have to have CPR/First aid and Aerial Rescue to get your certificate of completion.

 

[TINYHULK]

Thanks! That would be amazing. Aerial rescue is another class I need to find. I would like to get another “climber to be” in the company so I can take them with me

 

[treebilly]

I’ll look tomorrow morning. I might have a spare aerial rescue book as well

 

[Altissimus]

@TINYHULK give me a day or two and I’ll do some digging around. I think I have 3 or 4 copies of the TCIA EHAP book. If I find them I’ll send you one. Reminds me that I’m due for a refresh course. I’ll also ask at the office where you check for the classes. I know every year they put a few free ones on for the EHAP. To complete it you have to have CPR/First aid and Aerial Rescue to get your certificate of completion.

Treehouse Rocks

 

[Altissimus]

I’ll look tomorrow morning. I might have a spare aerial rescue book as well

Treehouse Rocks

 

[TINYHULK]

Thanks so much! I’m at the point in my career where I can start gaining these credentials and that would help out a lot!

 

[Brock Mayo]

Hey Sean, my thought is it’s time to call the power company and have the trees trimmed. Safely climbing on a bunch of topping cuts will be a different lesson for the kids 😀. Around here the local power companies are pretty quick to fix a situation like that around primaries…

 

[theTreeSpyder]

I have seen sparks as very green tips of juiciest leaves spark on wires as wind blows , and even can keep a nice straight line across trees as it does. 1x I was subbing a job in a yard with tree row under wires. Home owner tried to talk a worker into cutting simple sapling down. I said NO and so homeowner upset. Yelled down back and forth, pointed out sparking, revised would be cutting into watery layer with metal saw. Also they were my saws and I would choose not to be on site. Advised them free service tho, just need to call electric. Called boss later, he wanted to know why I was talking to his customer....
.
A couple of weeks later he calls back customer was upset, nobody called and the row of trees burnt down. Seems him and them wanted to know what I did to cause this, then what I didn't do to include not calling electric company myself. There would be no need to tell anyone else, besides electric to come out and work on his customer's trees. Did not have much to talk to him about after that He even said gave my number to electric, but they never called as I waited to see what was next...
.
In some training there was story of guy wires fell on. Taking legs I think, but lived. Another thing tho boiled out his sweat glands. Decade or so back when storms fed into massive summer blackouts, he overheated/bod could not cool self and died the rest of the way then.

 

[Eric H-L]

I am going for an intentional derail. Long time electrician. I have been having some trouble with only one local power utility constantly changing the rules.
“No, we can’t connect power on that job until you do this or that.” Lots of localities have a written rule book or an engineer to look at it and tell you the requirements. This one just keeps coming with new reasons to delay. After each refusal we correct the issue, Then they find another one. Lots of utilities don’t want you on their poles when converting from underground to a pole. You might need to bring underground from the structure to base of pole and end with a galvanized, large radius sweep. This particular municipality wants the electrical contractor to continue ten feet up the pole. So we did that. Yesterday the line crew showed up for like the third time and asked me to run conduit and wires further up the pole. I said “I thought that was your job. “ Fortunately a supervisor showed up and decided they would do it. This seems crazy asking unqualified people, not employed by them, to be working on a pole near the primaries. End of rant!

 

[Cobleskill]

A friend of mine has a tree I thought was hers that is slowly tipping towards the primaries. I told her to call the power company before it takes their power out. I was back there after a month and it is much closer to touching. I asked if the power company didn't care. I never called them she told me. OK, call when your power is out I guess. Dohhh.