Turning Down Jobs

[tnttreeman]

In my career, I've only ever turned down two or three jobs. One of those came two days ago. It was electricity related, and I'm very respectful of what it can do. Here's the tree...(And yes, all three transmission lines touch the tree. Can't figure out why there isn't a short.)

 

[DDM]

Looks like a job for the Right of way crew.

 

[tnttreeman]

That's what I told the homeowner. He's a good repeat customer and I hated to turn down the work, particularly at this time of year, but I wasn't touching it.

 

[tnttreeman]

The power company is right on the ball around here about getting stuff like that taken care of. As for doing the rest of the removal, there isn't a lead on the tree outside of the 10' ROW they use here so the company will take down the whole tree. That just leaves the brush and I'd rather not just go out and chip. I will grind the stump, though, when or if he decides to do that.

 

[DDM]

I've turned down hundreds of jobs. Some like yours under power lines.

But most were from people who insisted on their trees being topped.

If I can't talk some sense into them on the phone reguarding not topping, I won't even go see them. Some people just don't believe that I won't top trees for money but I know I'm in good company here at AS.

Dan

Just this week I have gone out to estimate 3 Topping jobs and all 3 were converted into prunes.But i have learned that if i explain the results of topping in person i can convert them.Over the phone they cant seem to grasp the concept.Another thing Ive learned is that about 1/2 the people that call for a topping job actually wanted a prune but all they had ever heard it called was topping.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I've turned down hundreds of jobs.

..

 

[DDM]

Prunes are for constipation. Crown cleanings are for trees.

Dan 'Hayduke'

 

[Shaun Bowler]

I have worked on jobs like that and my policy has always been," bid high and hope you don't get it". When I did, I always wished whoever planted this tree here should be up there with me.

 

[gts]

TNT
Theres no short because those lines are coated and those three lines are known as a secondary rack.Low voltage high amperage.Take care.

 

[Mange]

I do not know about the rest of the world, but here it is called distribution lines, low volt and low amps.
Here however is rules to how close a tree can be. as the tree looks older than the poles/wires it would be felled when the line was drawn, if it was here. If it is younger, it would never come lose to the wires.

 

[Manco]

That looks like what we call an open-wire secondary. Usually feeds 1 house. If it feeds your clients house you could get the power co. to disconnect and you can take the tree down as long as you don't damage the wires. I have seen trees grow into these wires and when we cut the tree down had to leave a piece of wood hanging on it. Do not be fooled into thinking these wires don't have the power to kill you.
BTW, the primary wires at the top of the poles can kill by just letting a limb brush across them. Electricity is searching for a path to ground. You can't be in that path.
We use an insulated pole-saw to trim with out of a bucket-truck. Those secondary wires can be up against a tree and seemingly be dead. If they touch each other you will see fireworks.(Not the fun kind!)

 

[clearance]

Those do look like secondaries, but just because they go to a house, like Manco said, they can kill. They are probably carrying 240volts, but secondaries that go to commercial buildings can carry more, like 347v, 600v and so on. If you turn down a job because of an electrical hazard you have to notify the people who own the tree and the utility. Sometimes the utility is not responsible for treework on the secondaries that run onto private property. While secondaries are often coated, sometimes this coating gets rubbed off or falls off over time. Someone qualified should deal with it a.s.a.p.,and make it safe.

 

[tinman44]

well that there looks like distribution lines not transmission, there are laws that regulate transmission clearance, mostly because if one span of transmission goes down it can cause an outage like the north east outage last year. the short you refer to is known as ground fault, since electricity goes on the path of least resistance to ground to get back to the generation plant. also that job should be done by the utility but allot of times they wait for it to fall before they clear it up, large companies have trouble with spending money to fix something thats not causing a problem. those are probably secondary lines especially if those lower lines are bell or cable, and in that case they can create a open air clearance where you can drop the tree then they restore service, i dispatch several a day. with that said why does the customer want it down? he shouldn't worry about his power going out the utility is responsible for reliability in some form, hence they will get the power on quick when/if that tree falls. since i work for one of our nations largest power utilities i feel that my advice is fairly good advice in this matter and i would suggest that he calls his local office and talk with engineer about the tree. we currently have a two year backlog of tree work here at DELETED EXPLETIVE. so he could wait awhile, also theres that fact that the reliability engineer will look at it and say "ahh wont be a problem till it falls"

edit: most day to day outages here at my company are caused by tree workers and injuries happen often. please please please use caution around this stuff and dont let a ground person play with a crane over ga400 or you could end up like he did, probably have to remove his leg below the knee

 

[glens]

Around these parts the utility is responsible for everything up to and including the meter.

 

[tnttreeman]

TNT
Theres no short because those lines are coated and those three lines are known as a secondary rack.Low voltage high amperage.Take care.

Those lines are not coated. The pictures don't quite show it but they are bare metal. I can see the twists in the metal on the lines. The only coated lines on those poles is the cable and phone. If they had been coated I may have given thought to attempting the job, until I thought about the free job that the power company would do instead. They get paid to work around electricity and I would just as soon steer clear of it.

 

[tnttreeman]

That looks like what we call an open-wire secondary. Usually feeds 1 house. If it feeds your clients house you could get the power co. to disconnect and you can take the tree down as long as you don't damage the wires.

These lines run along the road and feed a couple houses at the end of the lane, I think about 3 or 4. I'm actually standing on the road taking the pictures.

 

[glens]

Okay, so the transformer is upstream or there are one or more downstream?

 

[tinman44]

These lines run along the road and feed a couple houses at the end of the lane, I think about 3 or 4. I'm actually standing on the road taking the pictures.

in that case its single phase primary with neutral and they usually have 5 to 10 foot clearance for the utility to clear up. in this case i would get the utility to do it, your customer will love you for saving them some cash and use you in the future.

 

[gts]

To all.
Great to here how things are done in other areas.Sounds like power suppliers around here are in the stone age.One they would'nt be to likely to come out and take down a service drop for that tree to be taken down,homeowners responsibility.Up until a few years ago in the middle to north half of this state there were hundreds if not thousands of miles of circuits that had not been trimmed in ten to fifteen years,electrical pruning was there moto.I wonder what changed.

 

[fpyontek]

Don't ever think that the coating on power lines is insulation, IT IS NOT INSULATION. The coating on power lines is weather proofing. Its there to protect wire from the elements, not intended to protect people from the wire.
There probably is some current leakage from the wires pictured, not enough to arc, but enough to shock or worse.
For nubies to tree work: never assume any wire is safe. A limb could be across a high voltage wire and touching, for example, a cable tv wire somewhere down the line. I know of at least on instance where a cable tv lineman was killed by just that scenario.

Fred