Being a Lineman - Episode 14
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- Опубликовано: 14 янв 2021
- Hey Everyone!
While many of my videos demonstrate work methods and procedures, this particular episode demonstrates a lot of the thoughts that playout through my mind as I prepare to troubleshoot. The holidays were extremely busy and I had very little sleep as you'll soon see... The calls actually started rolling in on Christmas eve, and began with 2 severe car accidents resulting in injuries and broken poles. There's no footage in this video of the accidents, as circumstances at the time were not appropriate for filming
Cheers everyone! Have a great week!🍻👊
Keep in mind my videos are to be used as guidelines only!
There are many different ways to preform the tasks shown in this videos.
Always adhere to your own company's policies and procedures.
This work should only be preformed only by those whom are both trained and authorized to do so!
Huge thanks to my Patreons! 👊👊
➡ / bobsdecline
Work safe guys!
Cheers!
audio courtesy of:
Corncob Country by Kevin Macleod
RUclips audio
#bobsdecline #beingalineman #lineman
Hey Everyone!
While many of my videos demonstrate work methods and procedures, this particular episode demonstrates a lot of the thoughts that playout through my mind as I prepare to troubleshoot. The holidays were extremely busy and I had very little sleep as you'll soon see... The calls actually started rolling in on Christmas eve, and began with 2 severe car accidents resulting in injuries and broken poles. There's no footage in this video of the accidents, as circumstances at the time were not appropriate for filming
Cheers everyone! Have a great week!🍻👊
Happy new year Anthony! Hope all is well 👊
It’s gents like you that make the holidays possible! Christmas wouldn’t be the same without the power on!
In this episode I learned about abbreviating. Tree branches = tranches.
I worked storm through Christmas. Took home 6700$ that week. Merry Christmas to me hahahahaha
lol
You have eyes! I'm so used to the Dale Gribble sunglasses . 😁
That’s the life of an on call faulty. Blessings and seasons greetings from New Zealand🇳🇿👍👊👊
Cheers Steeve! 👊👊🇨🇦🇳🇿
Well....we’re back... lol..I don’t miss emergency call outs. I feel for you. Happy 2021! Be safe and keep up the good work.
Hey T! Great to see ya👊👊
Hah yea I'm stuck somewhere in between I love my job and I need some sleep! Hahah
Hope all is well! Cheers 🥂
@@Bobsdecline It'll all be better when you get the check. :-) I disliked working 12+ hour days (DOT) until I got the paycheck -- over 40 is 1.5x, over 60 is 3x. Luckily, this was summer work, so daylight and warm. (being in the south, "d*** hot" actually)
Awesome to see things done from the fields perspective
The unofficial United States Postal Service motto: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." Seems to me, similar is applicable to linemen (and linewomen). "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these linemen/women from the swift completion of their appointed tasks!" Hats off from northern Alabama USA.
The downfalls of that line " no pun intended " of work. On the bright side that double time you earned maybe softened the blow from Christmas. But of course family on Christmas is far more rewarding than double time. It's always finding the best balance of money and family. I can speak from experience on both ends of the spectrum. And throughout all the 60 hr weeks I always remind myself of the days when money was much tighter. In my opinion i would rather have disposable income to spend with family on the time I do have as opposed to having more time and no disposable money to enjoy. Kids get older , priorities may change and tweak a little bit and throughout all that we find or strive for the balance to be the fathers or mothers we desire to be. Thanks for the content ! Really enjoy the channel. It has helped me keep my passion and motivation to keep getting in that service van day in and day out and actually enjoying the work I do. Well ......most of the time. Ha.
IG: 60 ... 60 amps ground current? Is that usual?
I would suspect that is neutral current, otherwise known as the grounded conductor. I don't know how you'd measure actual earth ground current since things are grounded all over the place for lightning safety.
On a 3 phase primary yes it's normal because all of the unbalanced load between the 3 phases will return on the neutral (grounded conductor).
You can gather a lot of information by just looking at the recloser readout!!looks like a form 6 recloser controller.
I really miss this stuff! I miss it so much that when the power goes I ride the line and find before the guys get out here.
19:23 Great to see someone else who tries to think of all the possibilities, like doing a flowchart in your head 😁
I'm surprised your dispatch software doesn't use 24hr time. The am/pm thing must cause confusion at times.
I agree 💯 I always use 24hr on my reports
Really enjoy your videos. Thanks!
Heck yeah. Love the vids, man
Thanks Beepis!
Nice Job! Thanks for all you do! This blog (vlog?) is one of my favorites. Have a safe year!
I’m an RW! But, man I look up to Lineman! Best there is! 💪
Hello from Southeastern Colorado USA. Super interesting Channel. I always love watching trades people do their work, and yours is no exception. Cheers
Great diagnostic skill that can only be had if you know how the system works! Recalling back to the days when our local guys (southern ct) used a paper map book and realizing how much room a few of those would take up in the truck compared to computer storage. I never worked for the power company but over the years I did get familiar with many of the local circuits and where the cut outs are. I also learned enough to "talk the language" when I need to report a problem on the road. (pole#, cross streets, obvious equipment damage, blown fuse, etc)
Good to see you again.
Cheers Brian! 🍻
Being a Christmas angel.
Love your videos my instructor at NLC showed us a few of your videos and I’ve been watching since I graduated in October🤙🏼
I work in the towing recovery field I feel you on those on call nights it can be rough your videos give me something to pass the time and they're very interesting even though I'm not in the same field I like to learn things as well keep it up it's definitely much appreciated be safe out there
Very nice video!!
Awesome Video Aaron! Loved this one probably in my opinion one of your best i like the trouble calls. Keep up the good work man and don’t stop posting!👊🤘🏼
Thanks Curtis!👊👊 Appreciate the feedback 🍻
@@Bobsdecline No Problem man! Cheers 🍻
I got accepted into my states lineworker program these videos are so helpful for me getting into it.
Thanks keep up the good work and stay safe.
Those cooper form 6 reclosures are the best! We are currently installing g&w vipers and are nice to install but they keep blowing up in our system due to manufacturing issues apparently. Christmas was busy for us too here lol but we cleaned everything up and got home at 330. Great vid and stay safe!!
Thats crazy you guys had rain for Christmas and in western NY, about 15 minutes from Canada, we had 2 and a half feet of snow from Christmas eve to the day after. Hope the family is understanding of your work and that you gotta do it and it's a big part of having the life they can have. I know it can be tough on family being gone for work alot and during holidays. Stay safe, warm and dry man.
@7:00 I was waiting for that "procedure". In these parts, it seems like that's step one of any fault... jack the cutout a few times to see if it burns off whatever is tripping it. I f'ing HATE that; the surges that throws on the line is insane.
It is interesting to hear you say 10-4 on the radio, the power companies around my area use K-4 when I listen to them on the radio. I enjoyed the video, especially seeing the amp readings when you closed in the OCR.
Great videos bro, I’m a lineman out on the west coast BCH and now in trouble dept
Thanks Tim! How ya liking the new dept? I much prefer trouble work and being able to help people out!
@@Bobsdecline yes ,liking trouble dept , lineman of the county lol, lots of freedom, more pay, miss being on the crews on a regular basis but still love being a lineman, but I haven’t seen all your videos yet, but we’ll done brother
woot early for another Bobsdecline vidya'
When the power company has severe power outages caused by trees they get real aggressive in cutting and pruning work. Used to work with AEP and after a del Jericho storm they got crazy aggressive with pruning and removal. People were without power for 2 weeks. Trees did not matter then.
We've had that problem we used to trim trees when we weren't doing anything else but now they don't trim anything in this town
I feel the pain of just about getting to sleep when a call comes through.
I used to work in wireless telecoms and would get all sorts of alarms especially during summer when we had some particularly troublesome links that would suffer from inversion layers.
Not much you could do but wait for the morning, but they would not let you sleep!
It was great fun though, and I'd do it again for sure.
#132 thumbs uP Great one!
I envy you and job. Not in anyway saying it is easy. I like it for the rush of needing to do something right away. Mine(engineering) is more like: We're experiencing this and that on a whatever. My response(professionally) is typically. "OK, I'll check into it Monday morning." Getting woken up is not necessarily a bad thing. Sorta stimulating to me.
Great Video , CAn You Explain Some of how the MGN or bonding with telecom or cable company's in your area could come into play here? Have you had any experiences with them As a Telco Guy I've had case's were the Power CO Neutral went open and we became the path to ground in multiple areas. One specifically that Made a Older 6m strand Down Guy anchor glow bright orange as it was closest to the fault. As a fireman we actually seemed to think it was a cable company RG 11 cable till we put a thermal camera on it and saw that it was 900 plus F. It just didn't look right. Tried to keep this story short as there is more to it . Mostly vegetation being the root fault. But MGNs come into play
👊 Baytown TX
👍
funny you got the call for flickering lights, I had flickering/dimming lights a day or two before christmas, HIGHLY doubt it could have been from your call, since im in Tennessee, just kinda cool tho
in AU and NZ, most distribution substation switchgear is housed indoors, and there is no HV neutral wire.
if your looking for some really nice hand saws, sliky saws from Japan makes the best ive ever used, they are expensive, but VERY well worth it, just be carefull, they are deceptively sharp, I have the gunfighter and the bigboy with the large teeth, the bigboy would be best for you imo,
im mentioning this because, I see you use handsaws enough that great ones are a good idea
You mentioned sparks in direction that were seen. One time we were meteor watching, nearby transformer has a spark/flash, house goes dark, we continue meteor watching. Later on the trouble crew goes by and they went to that pole. Probably a safe bet to look wherever the sparks were seen.
Hmmmm.... December 26th.. Canada T-shirt. That's about 40-50 degrees then? Lol
It doesn't get that hot! Oh wait...
Someone must be playing prank the lineman after midnight and make his butt crawl outta bed after midnight on Christmas. Sometimes I feel like a detective hahahaha
You're probably not wrong 🤣🤨
Hi Aaron,
Another great video during the holidays. 👊👊👊You probably worked as many holidays as me as a troubleshooter. Unbelievable? A short sleeve shirt & rain in Canada?
Just a suggestion, I couldn’t help but hear your wipers working overtime to clear your windshield? Your rear window view through the rain drops was hard with the distortion of the rain on it. I have used Rain-X on my windows, mirrors & windshield of my work trucks & personal vehicles for over thirty years. It would have to be a monsoon out for my wipers to be working as hard as yours do in light rain. I find the windows & windshield have a zero distortion as water beads up & runs straight off. If I’m moving at 50 mph? I usually don’t run my wipers at all, the wind keeps the windshield clear. Plus my wipers last a long time.
Question? We’re you able to find that message I sent you on the cutout ground point? In that message I had an antique line tool? Any guesses as to what it might be? Just curious?
Blinking lights? That's an extra charge(X-Mas fee) and I'm here to collect should be customer response. It was Santa on the roof and he needs to be paid.
The load on that circuit after you closed it back in is roughly the same as what the entire hospital I am employed at draws in winter.... Start turning on the chillers it's just over 200A
200A at 7kv or at 240v?
@@patdbean 200A @ 13.8 kV Line to Line
@@REWYRED 2.76MW if I have my maths right. wow.
@@patdbean I am gonna have to check Monday and see what the meter shows now without the chillers running, it's up there I wanna say it's more than 2.76 MW but I do not recall, but will check the real, apparent and reactive power about mid day. I know our power factor is not too bad, riding around .97 lagging and that's with a small cap bank out of service. I have seen it at .99!
@@patdbean Just checked, average current at 13:18 is 142A.. average buss voltage 14.2kV ...
Total is 3.35 MW... KVA reactive .62 MVAR and a grand total of about 3.5 MVA demand at the moment.
Do you still do full walk around and quick inspection during an outage at the substation?
Great video. We just had a big windstorm hit Western WA this past week. At the peak 500,000 people were without power. Working for the County, I have been busy clearing roads and picking up the debris. I did have a couple questions for you though. When you do storm repairs how long can you work without a break? I would assume that in a major storm like this, at some point they would have to rotate crews out. We've been finding a lot of stuff left behind by the crews (wires, pole hardware, insulators, etc). Kind of cool to actually get my hands on this stuff and see up close what you talk about. I'm sure once we can slow down with the clean up work we will be making a trip to them to see if they want their stuff back.
If it's just pole hardware I wouldn't worry about it too much ... Any tools,grounds or equipment I'd certainly put it in a safe place for them 😎 .
Our regular target number is 14 hours. It's changed a few times over the years. During big storms with lots of physical work in extreme temperatures they really like to try and keep us at 14hr days. If a big storm blows through and we figure we can get the entire community up and running quickly we'll push to 16 hrs. Also when working in other jurisdictions we'll try and follow their work plan.
Thanks for the comments/questions Mike! Great hearing from you again👊
@@Bobsdecline Love your videos. We work closely with the PUD guys at times but never really get to know what they are doing. Watching your videos has been eye opening for me. Maybe I'll start posting videos of what we do to keep the roads maintained and the work involved in that. Hope you got to at least enjoy some of Christmas with your family. I'm also an EMT, I spent lots of Christmases away from the family.
Mike L ... in my area (southern Ct) a big storm will bring out extra people who will do "forward scout" and make a material list of obvious needs, then deliver them to the various locations around town. This cuts down on restocking the trucks in the course of a day. When each job is finished it gets onto a list for a crew to swing by a few days later to do "clean up" work and sort used from new parts back at the shop. Big parts that might get delivered by this crew would be poles, cross arms, transformers, and anything else that has little "street value" like wire, which there seems to be a black market for in scrap value. (even in rural areas)
@@mikel9567 Western Wa here too. Just finished up with this storm. We appreciate you guys!
Our storm shifts here are 40 hours for the first one followed by an 8 hour rest. After that we go to 18 on and 6 off for the remainder of the storm.
I wish we could have more cross training. On this storm, the county cleared a tree and wires out of the road. One of the wires that they moved was laying in the ground energized at 7200 volts. It was 'tree wire'. Tree wire is a conductor with XLP coating to prevent nuisance outages. It looks just like a comminations wire. They got extremely lucky that they did not contact a part of the conductor that had been stripped back.
Good job. Do you connect the lines to ground before work .
Had a question, we use Tripsavers, in addition to a lighting arrester
We’ve been arguing at work at the benefits of this as we recently just started combining the two
Just wanted your option or anyone else’s
We’ve had the fault current and lighting strike talk but I was just curious for another opinion
Arrestor is a MOV 19.9. Thank you for your shooter tips!
I wonder if 'time domain reflectometry' would be a good means detecting the distance down a particular transmission line a fault exists?
Wikipedia it. You'd probably have to design a custom piece of equipment but would it be nice to look down a few miles of line and see exactly how far to look for the fault?
Thanks for keeping the lights on. Are all of your crews one man? Where im from we never see one man crews unless they are the only person in a small village.
People who aren't on call won't understand😂
I hope you see this comment on an older video. With seeing how many amps were on the phases at fault how did that help you determine at what distance the fault was. Any knowledge would be amazing. I love your videos by the way.
I've always wanted to be a lineman, but I can't be a few feet from a Tesla coil without the arc trying to always find it's way to be .. So playing with a lot of power, I would be dead fast 🤣
What is the computer system that you use we have the G ones in our truck and they are garbage
Damn, that's enough to power to run more than 400 5kW welders at once..
Hi there! @bobsdecline
Greets from Argentina.
Quick questions, I know we use different standards (voltages, freq and connections) but I always struggle to understand why you have neutral on medium voltage transmission lines.
Also why I'm this video there is so much ground current. How that happens. Aren't those lines connected in delta with no common point?
Cheers and great videos!!
Some people use Y some people use Delta
A long time ago we had an old transformer on the end of town. It only had one primary wire going to it but it still worked. It just use the ground as a neutral, electrician was working a few blocks away and he was complaining of that neutral to ground there was about 50 or 60 volt s . We had to end up running a hard neutral LOL things to do some stupid things in our city
@@ronalddaub7965 Thanks man ! geez 60v N-G thats huge ahha
what would happen if 2 phase be capacitive but one be resistive kuz i saw ice on 2 primary but 1, up till the caps bank then ice on all 3 phases then notice open line...would say it cause a inbalace on the grid.? is it smt linemen do kep voltage stable or should one should know about?
What kind of flashlight are you using during searching for the fault!?
I'm this video I was just using my flashlight, as my search light stopped working a couple days before. I normally Have a wireless remote search light I use that's mounted on the hood. I believe it's called a Night Ray. It's all fixed up now! The flash light isn't quite as user friendly 😅
I had to search RUclips to find out how to operate a recloser. Now I know....
I would love to be your apprentice
4:34 Arent those locked by default and you have to insert e key and turn it to unlock it? (by locked i mean they will show you everything but you cant change anything)
What value shows on the IG indicator?
👊👊 “We’re baaack...”
👊✌️
what are the fatigue time rules within your company.. Union or non union surely there are safety measures in place.. I mean there must be some it would be dangerous having a troubleman out and about overnight then coming back in if you had worked all nite granted we all do it but surely there is protection rules in place to make sure you are rested for your shift...
The short answer is 14 Hrs with a mandatory 8 hour rest. There is a ton of rules around this tho. For example; I've I get called in at midnight and work until 5 am; even tho I didn't come anywhere near 14 hours, it reasonable to assume I didn't get much sleep. In that scenario I would likely be permitted an 8 hour rest
I was a lineman , in our city after I retired I told the new mayor that he needed to trim some limbs that hung over some primary
It was a single phase of primary but primary none the less, I took a picture and took it to the mayor's office and he says that's not primary,, I immediately knew I was being gaslighted i said what is it then? he was told by somebody that it has to be three phases before its primary I said we're not talking about a feeders we're talkin about primary voltage.. he didn't want to admit I was correct. I said before leaving the office I said will it sure isnt secondary because there's a transformer underneath it I guess I made him mad
Do the new smart meters alert the power company when there’s an outage?
He won't answer this one... haha
If it doesn't have power, how is it going to report the power being out? (they can tell the meter isn't reachable.)
@SK¥_𝕯𝖎𝖆𝖒𝖔𝖓𝖉𝖘 There are many reasons a meter my be unreachable. No power is but one of them.
Definitely, here in Quebec they can know to the minute itself if there’s a outage. I guess they don’t declare an outage for the loss of only one though, but if there’s like 10 or more, it’s probably an outage.
@@cedricpomerleau5586 There are monitors throughout the grid.
goo.gl/maps/iYVSkgqvHJRQDDzAA
goo.gl/maps/ctyEoBGvyyzvhzWx7
Why are the trees allowed to grow so close to the lines such that a small branch can knock out power to close to 1000 customers?
There's about 20-30 feet between that line and the tree line... It's constant battle between the tree huggers and the tree haters 😔
@@Bobsdecline I love trees and electric service! ❤️ Do you think 20-30 feet is enough? With so many beautiful tall slender trees in Canada (hi from Indiana USA), seems like it should be 40 feet in rural areas?
Most times it's enough... to be 100% safe we'd need at least 60 feet, but that usually just not possible with property lines and roadways in an already tight spot. Even our rural lines have 100's of home that were build in the early 1900's on one side and a river on the other. Most times we just don't have much of a choice. We also get a ton of rain here and trees grow like weeds lol. We do have a lot stricter regulation around our transmission lines tho, and rarely of tree contact on those lines
@@Bobsdecline I see. Thanks for the explanation! I want you to know your channel is just great! I love learning about electric service and the super professional folks that keep it humming!
@@Bobsdecline ... after 20 years in emergency services, night calls for a heating company, and 20 + years for a generator company, I got used to being out in all kinds of weather at all hours of the night and my observation is trees die from the top down and the small branches generally break first with little damage to other things because they fall straight down. The exceptions are with wind, where larger branches break. In the case of "wind shear" (whipping wind) the tree may break in the middle say 25 feet up. In the case of heavy rain with wind the ground gets soft and the whole tree comes down. Clearing 40 feet wide on a right of way may help but if the tree is 100 ft tall it's a whole 'nuther game on a stormy night.
Are you on call ever night?
I'm a Security Architect. Please, please!!! NEVER show a key profile on camera. The worst is "we bought a new house, here's a picture of our key!" Just... no! I can very easily replicate that. Kansas City, MO.
A guy sent me a PM about this when I originally posted... Very interesting, I had no idea! Thanks for the reminder 😳
hows it goin Aaron
man this is long
She's a long one! I had to cut a ton of stuff out too lol .
@@Bobsdecline oh wow
i got some footage of some storm work that ill be uploading with the permission of the lineman and some new equipment as well
about an hour's worth of footage
Oh nice! I'll be sure to check it out
How did a seasoned guy like yourself end up on-call on Christmas? Volunteer, luck of the draw, your turn, or something else?
Holiday pay? Who wouldnt want to work holiday?
Ryan ... many years ago I worked a rotating night call and they'd ask guys without young kids to volunteer coverage on certain family holidays. The obvious payback if you got off the hook was you should cover 4th of July or other summer holidays. You could also swap someone else's call when they were on vacation.
mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Are you a trouble man?
Bob's decline your are 1 awesome lineman