Welcome back to another edition of
A Day With A Lineman!
This is my attempt to bring a little light to what is Lineman encounter when building, repairing, and maintaining the electrical grid. Granted most of the time I only show the “cool stuff”. You know like when stuff gets blown up or destroyed. I find this the most entertaining and I imagine most of you do also. So here is another instance when something got destroyed…
Another power pole got hit by a farmer.
It may not look like it but this type of broken pole is a pretty routine job. Collectively we have done hundreds of these. Just a straight line pole with nothing else on it… except the wire is still energized. Well we have just the bucket truck attachment for that. Before we get to that we need to get this pole stood up straight and secured. Using the Line-Truck and its pole grabbers we grab the pole and slowly maneuver pole.
Once the pole is straight and in line with the adjacent poles we can position the Tree under the wire. The Tree is an insulated attachment that connects to the bucket truck. It has adjustable conductor holders and basically acts like a temporary pole. Here I explain better how the fiberglass tree works and how it is installed.
Now that the tree is in position and the conductors are secured, we can untie the conductors from the broken pole using hotsticks.
Once the conductor is free from the old pole, the bucket lifts the conductors up and out of the way. The old broke. Pole is laid on the ground and we pull the broken pole butt. By this time our apprentice has the new pole frames up and we have the old hole dug out to the proper depth.
The bucket truck equipped with the tree and lift the conductors high enough to be able to set the pole in the hole without contacting the energized lines.
With the pole in the hole and the dirt around it compacted in, all that is left is to tie the wire into the new pole.
Then we free up the conductors from the fiberglass tree and start cleaning up our mess and putting away all the tools. Let’s hope the farmer doesn’t tare down this new pole anytime soon.
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A day with a Lineman
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