A Day With A Lineman #12 ~ Vines... Really?!

Welcome back ladies and gents to another edition of A Day With A Lineman. Where I give all you Hivers a little sneak peak into the job of a High Voltage Lineman and what kind of crazy, odd and destructive things happen when the lights go out. Plus a little understanding of what it actually takes to get those hairdryers, bitcoin miners, WiFi routers, and record players going again.

I swear, it had been raining for 24 hours straight!! Okay, Okay I may be exaggerating a bit due to living in the desert part of the state but it had been raining for a very long time. So when a call came in for a single house out of power at the time the rain began to slow to a drizzle, it had me puzzled. Though I was happy the call didn’t come in while the rain was really coming down, because that is normally when it happens. Just after everything gets good and soaked. At the rate the rain was coming down, it would have been the first few hours. I kept wondering when or if a call was going to come in and there it was.

A house fed from a pad mounted transformer, that was fed from a section of underground cable tapped off the main line was out. Let’s just hope we don’t have any bad cable because that would end up being a muddy mess. Also without anyway to back feed the transformer, the customer would be out of power for a few hours at very least. For some reason I always think of the worst but hope for the best. At least we know where the problem is due to the blown fuse.

After disconnecting it completely from the main line, we test and ground it. That way when I get to the location of the transformer there isn’t anything to worry about. There isn’t another house or service within a mile or two from here, so it’s pretty obvious that the underground cable carrying 14,400 volts goes to this transformer.

Disconnecting and grounding it allows us to take a closer look at the termination on the pole, along with the lightning arrestor. Without proper insulating cover or swing dead and ground we have to maintain a Minimum Approach Distance per OSHA standards. The higher the voltage the further away you must be. It’s different for trained individuals and the public.

Over time the porcelain can crack, add a little moisture and that gives electricity a good path to ground. Which typically causes nice explosions and makes finding the cause of the outage really easy.

Well with everything up at the pole looking good, no arc marks, or dead birdies laying on the ground it’s time to head up to the house and check out the transformer.

Well?...

I am going to go ahead and go out on a limb here and say that this is the problem...

Just to make sure I am gonna dig in this rats nest of vines and see if I can see any signs of these vines causing the fault that blew the fuse. I have seen transformers like this filled 1/2 way up with dirt from gophers but never overcome with vines. I did manage to untangle them a bit and I did find definite signs of burning.

I believe it was getting into the secondary side of the transformer (the right side - 120/240 volts). It snuck up under the covers and the moisture in them allowed the electricity to track down and hit the neutral bar (uncovered)

Now this customer must have had a level of appreciation for this transformer that I have never seen before. Typically customers try and cover them up with bushes but this guy.... Dang that looks nice It had a nice metal arbor in front of it complete with a double gate. How fancy is that??

So I was trying to figure out where these vines were coming from. They hadn’t grown in from the outside, sneaking between the transformer and the pedestal it sits on. We actually call it a basement because there is a big void under the transformer where the conduits and wire comes in and out. Around the outside of the basement I didn’t see any vines coming in.

As I began cutting the vines out of the way, I almost cut the ground wire on accident a few times. It kind of blends in to be honest. It does tend to be a little tougher to cut than the vines...

Diving in head first to rip all the vines out from under the transformer I found the source... the root. Now who planted that there?? Maybe it was the critter that dug this tunnel into the basement of the transformer.

Hmmm maybe I should have tried to take a look in there before I just go shoving my arm and half my body in there. That hole is about 6 inches in diameter and.... where did all the dirt go? What kind of critter did that? Probably a Badger or something.... I could be missing an arm right now!!! :wink:wink

With the vines cleared out, the home owner and I were really confused at what kind of critter dug that hole. It ain’t no gopher I can tell you that!! He actually seemed somewhat concerned. So we dug down next to the fiberglass transformer basement to expose the critter’s hole. The homeowner plans on filling it with gravel. I offered to get into my private stash of TNT to give him a hand... he just laughed... little does he know I am serious... :wink:wink My guess is the critter would hang out under there during the winter, the transformers generate a little heat and maybe it was a bit warmer under there... IDK

I told him I would swing back by in a couple weeks and take a little peek inside and see what’s happening with the vines and the... whatever was digging that hole. I yelled at the other Lineman,

”Heat it up pal!! We are all in the clear!”

He closed in the fuse with a Hotstick and energized the cable to the transformer... then the nice sweet hum of the transformer and lights on in the house. I stood by for a few moments trying to convince him to let me bring some TNT over... but I guess he had it handled.

Welp... Off to the next one

That’s it for this episode of A Day With A Lineman if you enjoyed it, stick around... there will be more to come. I am only 15 years into the trade and look forward to many more.

Until Next Time...

Hive On
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