Removing trees around power lines

[dukntz]

Aside from being a part-time arborist, I am a full-time troubleshooter for a large midwest electric utility. Our dept. gets all the service drop orders. Sometimes when I show up for an drop I see the guys dont have a bucket and if they are doing a removal and I can get my truck to it I will spend a half hour and top it for them rather than dropping the service and having to come back. It's a win-win. What pisses me off is when the contractor calls for one service drop and I show up and he wants 3 services down, and he never talked to the other homeowners. That's when I get nasty and tell him he needs to reschedule.
I get quite a few wire-down calls and when I find a HO who inadvertently caught his service, I wont charge him. It's the guy who was trying to take down a large dead elm, had his ladder set up in the bed of his pickup so it would reach, was using an electric saws-all, and a garden hose for a rope, that I file an accident report and he gets the bill! On top of that he was so drunk he could hardly stand! And he was going to go back up the ladder till I informed the HO he just caused almost $1000 damage to the 2 service pipes and meter sockets he destroyed. Wish I had my camera that day!

 

[Treecutr]

I don't think you can even see the lines here, but they run along the trunk against a couple tree, and betewwn the rest, maybe 15' up at most. All the stuff I am pretty sure I can do with them up is hanging out away from them. I am very confident that none of the limbs will hit them on the way down. My concern is the wires touching trees, and conducting electricity into the trees, and me getting nailed when I spike in or cut. I intend to get above the lines by using my climb line farther out on big limbs, get 10' or more above, then spike up rest of way. ( trees that aren't coming down I obviously won't spike ). The tree leaning/curving to the right is the one thats in contact the most. If you look, you can see wire. I have metered the homeowners panel in house, and all voltages are normal, so I would say wires are not shorting to trees. HO has no electrical issues, no flickering, etc... I removed 1/2 the tree in the foreground with the big Y crotch. Gonna work around what I know I can. I will post before/after pics as I go. Still don't know tree type yet. I stinks when split though, nast.

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[JeffL]

Which side of the trees does the wire run on in that pic? If they run on the left, on the backside, just toss a throwline over them and pull them back away from the tree and tie it off to something, problem solved!

 

[rob b]

service wire is nothing just dont touch it any primary 2' 4" is our spec as a line guy we dont really worry about service wires if its a three wire watch they dont slap together. if you dont feel comfortable get some one else to do it

 

[ddhlakebound]

let me tell you what happened to me I was in a large oak along with some power lines that were about 15 feet away plenty of distance to get the tree down safley. I thought. I was taking a large limb off over the house we had to hinge the limb around and down at the same time told the groundy the plan o about three times what the plan was thought he was on the same page that is why i told him three times just to make shure but he was older and knew more i guess. but anyways I cut the limb and he just let the limb hinge right around into the lines he didnt let it down at all. He got knocked on his ass. I seen what was coming and shot down on my rope as fast as I could without touching the tree. The worst part was the finger was pointed at me when osha came out told me that if I were to hit the lines again 10,000 dollar fine and the mall that lost power for an hour wasn't happy either. just make shure that you trust your groundy and knows what he is doing the best groundies are ones that know what your doing before you do it I had told my boss about 4 or 5 times I didnt want this guy roping for me he never listens and look what happen. It is a good thing no one was hurt really bad. I was all shucken up and boss still made me finish that day

always have a good roper when working around power lines

Too many men have died because they put themselves in the position that if the rope man does not execute properly the climbers life is in danger.

If you know you've got a questionable rope man below, and you go ahead with the cut, aren't you the guy osha should be coming to see (along w/ the owner)?

Seems it wouldn't have been too much trouble to take a smaller piece or tie on a tag line to control the swing from the ground (or even from the tree w/ a redirect)

Not trying to hack on you, and I'm glad nobody was seriously hurt, it's just that too many times we fly by the seat of our pants, and sometimes get bit. I've done it myself.

As climbers, putting our lives in the hands of our groundies at times, we live longest if we devise a plan that keeps us alive even if someone else screws up.

It's always good to have alot of foresight working around power lines.

 

[dukntz]

Not sure about other states or utilities, but we drop all secondary services for tree trimming, roofing, siding etc. free of charge, as well as trim trees away from primary voltages and secondary mains. More people are killed by 120 volts than all other voltages combined. Don't take the chance, call and get it dropped or request they trim it for you to safely remove the rest.

 

[Industry]

Are you Line Clearance Qualified? If not, Minimum Approach Distance is 10ft.

The Linemen here will do service drops for free. Better than re-connecting a downed line.

 

[Treecutr]

I did about a 3rd of the job today without the lines down, just stayed away from them. there really only 1 tree they are touching. I did discover today that both phases have not only the insulation rubbed off, but the wires themselves are rubbed thinner too. Told HO to call it in as emergency Monday to see if they would come out Tuesday. If so, I'll finish it while they have line down to replace them. I'm definetly colser than 10' when climbing up the trees not in contact, I just work past them on back side of tree to increase distance, get above them, then no issues. It was a very productive partial day of work on it. My chipper is down, so were are hauling brush to a big pile to my house ( only 2 house up ) will just spend a day chipping all I have there, and my ground guy wants ALL the chips, so win win I guess. Included pic of wire issues. You can only see 1 rubbed wire, the other is against the tree. also a before and after of start and end of day. If anyone gives a....

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[dukntz]

"I just work past them on back side of tree to increase distance, get above them, then no issues. "

No issues till you drop a branch on it and it pulls the house knob out and down comes the service pipe, arcing and burning, breaking the meter clips in the socket and burning open the neutral and possibly damaging half the homeowners electronic equipment from low or high voltage. $850 to $??? I suppose your insurance will cover it. ONCE. Then they raise your premium or drop you.
Or the service could fall down and energize a fence and kill some little kid 3 houses down playing in the back yard! I know these are all highly unlikely scenarios, but the what-if's are a big consideration when you cowboy around live electrics lines that the utility will take down for free. Is it really worth it?

not trying to bust your balls man, just giving you something to think about........

 

[outofmytree]

Which side of the trees does the wire run on in that pic? If they run on the left, on the backside, just toss a throwline over them and pull them back away from the tree and tie it off to something, problem solved!

Please tell me you aint serious. Surely you dont pull power lines by rope! :jawdrop:

 

[clearance]

Please tell me you aint serious. Surely you dont pull power lines by rope! :jawdrop:

He is talking about service wires. Not high voltage.Sevice drops are usauly two somewhat insulated 120 v wires wrapped around a bare neutral.

 

[JeffL]

No ones ever gotten a bad bounce with a throwball and ended up with their throwline draped over a 7k or 14k line? Puh-lease. What do you do? Just leave it there and call it a day?

A clean, dry throwline over a 120 service drop, no problem.

 

[lxt]

Please tell me you aint serious. Surely you dont pull power lines by rope! :jawdrop:

I have done ROW`s were the undergrowth (now trees) has grown through the phases 4kv (non maintained circuit) to the point were you would have to climb up between the phases & blow tops out over the primary/nuetral.

One thing we would do was throw a 3strand over nuetral or in some instances the primary to pull it away from the climber during climb, then pull that phase close to the base of the same tree so it was easier to jump the top!!! Power company might give you an outage once or twice...but there were times when we would run into this sorta thing several times a week!



LXT............ one should be Line Clearance certified before trimming round power!!

 

[Treecutr]

"I just work past them on back side of tree to increase distance, get above them, then no issues. "

No issues till you drop a branch on it and it pulls the house knob out and down comes the service pipe, arcing and burning, breaking the meter clips in the socket and burning open the neutral and possibly damaging half the homeowners electronic equipment from low or high voltage. $850 to $??? I suppose your insurance will cover it. ONCE. Then they raise your premium or drop you.
Or the service could fall down and energize a fence and kill some little kid 3 houses down playing in the back yard! I know these are all highly unlikely scenarios, but the what-if's are a big consideration when you cowboy around live electrics lines that the utility will take down for free. Is it really worth it?

not trying to bust your balls man, just giving you something to think about........

The wires are WELL out of the line of fire from what I'm dropping. I would have had to go out of my way to hit them. The trees go up and curve way over to one side or the other, so the limbs are a straight freefall to frozen front yard. Once I got to where lines are too close, I stopped, and moved to next one. Concetrating on getting all the work I know I can do with wires still up so when they are down, I'll be able to finish job. Chipping away it it here and there, after my day job.I am not playing around with it. Power company will be there 9am Thursday to take it down and repair it. Then they are going to work with me on thime I need it down for.

 

[outofmytree]

He is talking about service wires. Not high voltage.Sevice drops are usauly two somewhat insulated 120 v wires wrapped around a bare neutral.

My bad. That we do ourselves on occasion. I had an image of hv, rope and a humid day. You get the picture.

 

[outofmytree]

No ones ever gotten a bad bounce with a throwball and ended up with their throwline draped over a 7k or 14k line? Puh-lease. What do you do? Just leave it there and call it a day?

A clean, dry throwline over a 120 service drop, no problem.

Never done it. One of the first things I do is look for power line location and alter my throw accordingly. Or more often, break out the bigshot. A little forward planning + a little fear + a little luck = no lines over power lines to date. Touch wood.

 

[outofmytree]

I have done ROW`s were the undergrowth (now trees) has grown through the phases 4kv (non maintained circuit) to the point were you would have to climb up between the phases & blow tops out over the primary/nuetral.

One thing we would do was throw a 3strand over nuetral or in some instances the primary to pull it away from the climber during climb, then pull that phase close to the base of the same tree so it was easier to jump the top!!! Power company might give you an outage once or twice...but there were times when we would run into this sorta thing several times a week!



LXT............ one should be Line Clearance certified before trimming round power!!

When you do your Western Power line clearance ticket over here they have some ghastly videos of the effects of rope over power lines. Was enough to convince me to do it a better way.

 

[ddhlakebound]

No ones ever gotten a bad bounce with a throwball and ended up with their throwline draped over a 7k or 14k line? Puh-lease. What do you do? Just leave it there and call it a day?

A clean, dry throwline over a 120 service drop, no problem.

I've seen it once. I didn't throw it, and I didn't pull it off the 7.6kV. It was a clean dry throwline, and didn't cause a problem. But a bit of dirt or humidity could very easily have been a whole 'nutha story.