Being a Lineman - Episode 19

yes sir yeah i need a couple feet of wire [Music] what's up everybody you're watching bob's decline for those of you that are new to the channel my name is aaron i've been a lineman on the east coast of canada for 19-ish years now so what we're going to be doing today a few months ago we did an episode of being alignment where i did as little editing as possible as i responded to a call and the feedback for the episode was great a lot of guys really loved what i thought would maybe be a little bit boring let me just talk on the screen heads up there's going to be a lot of just me talking to the screen but what we're trying to capture here is the trouble shooting process right from the moment i get the call until the moment the powers are restored so i'm in my truck now i'm in town i'm not far from home base and the call like i said it's about an hour's drive the first thing i do i got the call look in the comments there was there's no comments at all sometimes someone will say they saw a tree come down or there was a vehicle accident or they saw a huge flash in the sky or whatever this one here simply says no power three customers and i know the area uh we're going to a lighthouse let's take a look at the map so this is the area for those of you that have been watching the channel you'll know that these blue lines up here are three phase and red is single phase you can see right here there's actually right there there's a black line there's no line in there so that uh the feed coming from the feed coming from off the left is different from the feed coming to the right i need a laser pointer here or something and uh this is who called it no power right there at the very end of the line i can't zoom in a whole lot more because it'll start showing customer information and stuff on the screen but that's the the first step i do i punch in the meter number and what i'll actually do i know my area pretty good so i'm not gonna get lost but i can make a marker actually it's gonna be right here so yeah first thing i check is on the map i make sure i'm familiar with what i'm getting into a lot of these calls it's just a small branch maybe a single phase line like that somebody can take care of with some hot sticks refuse and close that line back in that's probably what this is going to be there's good chance it's not going to be anything really exciting at all so i might not even end up posting this video but uh anyways we'll we'll keep the camera rolling so if it said lines down or if it said large tree or if it was something that i figured i'd need an extra hand i'd be calling another guy right now i'd start heading that way i know there'd be a truck right behind me but uh enough chat uh i got my coffee for the drive we're gonna shut off the camera for now put it on the podcast and uh as soon as i arrive on site i'll uh i'll let you guys know so we're here um as i said there's three customer outage let's take a look here so we can see there a number of customers affected but i got highlighted three i'm right beside the takeoff now this line right up here that's the main road and then this guy right here that's the switch switch number 801 so60 and this is the take off here uh 203 and the customers out l203 r66 so 66 pulls in now i was going to mention when i was leaving town that um even those three customers threw up those 66 poles i think there's like maybe three permanent residents maybe and maybe another half dozen cottages so there's pretty strong likelihood that that switch we're just looking at is open as well which we're here now and it is right over there but before even arriving here i was kind of assuming this whole line would be out 66 span of line going through the trees in a lot of spots a little bit of wind it's raining now foggy i know we just rebuilt i think there's a brand new transformer at the end feeding the lighthouse and that but there's no smart meters out here so there's no way for us to know if the power is out or not unless the customer calls so no other customers called throughout the line so what i'm gonna do a lot of times you'll take the door out tag the switch while you're in there but i'm not going to go on the lines with anything if i do it could be with it with a hot stick or something uh if i got to take a permit i'm gonna i'd have to come back take that door out and uh and put a tag on the line but if i gotta take a permit i'm gonna need another crew here anyways and they're at least an hour out so i'll have lots of time to do that i'm not gonna waste my time taking that door out just to go patrol and it could be something simple it could be just a matter of refusing closing um which another side of things i gotta take the door anyways but uh ah we'll get to that after i'm not gonna be touching nothing in there so what we're gonna look for like i said it's raining a little bit it's super foggy out here there was a little bit of wind we're gonna drive the entire line we're gonna be checking for uh blown insulator on switch uh see if there's any fuses open on any of the transformers i think there's a few other cutouts that split that line up in there uh trees trees down there's a few span that goes for the wood something might have to walk if we don't find nothing you guys guess is as good as mine i guess for now let's put the phone up on the mount and see if you guys want to join in on the patrol all right let's see we got cut out open there pretty sure [Music] that one's open for a season disconnect we don't find nothing to take a closer look at that but i'm pretty sure [Music] brand new transformer on that hole in there i've always just done that a couple weeks ago i think full blasted everything looks good there foggy up in the trees there so far so good the worst thing is i don't think we're gonna find anything that's never fun feel much better when you find a tree lane right on the primary or something the line stops here because it takes that shortcut right up through that trees up that hill this is a real nasty spot to be driving in the winter and i think the line pops out around this next turn yeah there it is there of course we can't see nothing looks good there [Music] you know what we need more of around here is trees this spot you guys see down in front here all that that green field believe it or not sometimes that completely fills up water it's pretty wild to see uh and this is the section that goes through the woods i can see most of it from the road here drive nice and slow i know you guys can't see through those trees at all what i'm just looking for right now is the sag of the wires as long as those two wires and telephone are parallel to each other and still spaced apart and i know there's not a tree on it that span if that was people's backyards or something like get out and actually walk it without question in case there was a phase down or something but uh for a rural area like this you can just kind of take a look okay looks good the neutral side is a little bit funny here but that's probably from a break long time ago oh that doesn't look good [Music] yeah that's not looking very promising at all so i don't know if you guys could hear me a minute ago but when i'm watching the lines through the trees i can see it every so many feet between the trees and i'm just watching for those primary neutral wires to be parallel and then if you see them get close like this chances are something's on it and let's see there's two wires right in the middle of the screen yeah they're not supposed to be that close together so let's take a walk in there see what we got and uh yeah you guys well you're gonna see what the problem is for the first time at the exact same time as i do and uh it's probably not going to be good that's yeah we can't reach nothing trucking there all right at least it's not nighttime yet still see what we're doing all right let's take a look [Music] so it's important to remember that even though that line is out it's uh it's a radial feed so it's not bag cut from another line there could be generators on it and it is still isolated it could still be holding a charge there's no ground on it yet so if we come across some wires down we can't go near any of it right now oh looks all clear that way what oh what's going on up here oh oh that's not good oh man you gotta be kidding me and pull top in flipped upside down uh phases down so we're not going to go any closer than that i have no idea where that neutral wire is what there's like water running through here that's nice oh okay i can't go that way because the primary down but oh oh yeah beautiful that's awesome so glad to see that that is completely rotted out [Music] so primary down neutral down great big old tree i have to make sure it didn't break something on the next span there's the rest the primary there it's just been crazy these last few weeks too the uh someone looks like someone walked through here but uh this morning there was another vehicle accident and uh the boys said the car ripped in two and figured oh yeah you see the roof peeled back or something but this car i could probably show you guys the picture it's all over the newspapers and stuff anyways but uh yeah the car ripped into right behind the driver's seat right into two pieces i wasn't involved in that one and all the other boys took care of it this is not going to be an easy primary to sag back up it's all tangled up in the trees there's water everywhere is here too all right i gotta get up to that next pole make sure the top's not broken off it okay no we're good okay all right now we know what we're up against yeah oh yeah mosquitoes are coming out too all right there's a line down in there well the hard part is our shifts now it's maximum 14 hours and i already got like 10 hours in today you get a ground on the lines now for sure there's wires down and uh where the primary is broken i'm gonna have to get a ground on either side of the work area it could be a difference in potentially ground the one side and then the other side down the ground if you hook onto that and touch the ground side when you're about to splice it and that other side that's isolated being back backfed or has a charge at all even from underground cables at the end a bit of capacitance in the cable put yourself between the two cables and uh there'd be a difference in potential there for sure so all right let's make some phone calls so first thing we need is our work location that pretty easy on the computer our 52 we're almost at the end of her so we're gonna go work location right at the entire poll number and the switch take off all right shut the camera off here for a minute i'm gonna get the guys to shoot that was all service all right let's go for a rip all right so no cell service right here we're gonna uh might as well drive the rest of the line i know their cell service at the end so [Music] all right well we're here let's get on the phone and see if we can get for help here and that is for uh broken pole and primary down at the edl one pole 16 73 l 203 r52 protection being from uh 81 s060 to the end of the line you agree with that there yeah 10 4 it's uh it's just the top that's broken i'm hoping we're going to be able to just cut a few inches off and and put a pin on and uh yeah so that work locations at 801 1673 l 203 r52 and i agree with protection points being 801 so 60 to the end of the line okay that's m4 there erin so when you're ready go ahead and uh check open uh 801 s060 dollar radio pro tag 115 117 you can go ahead and check for potential if none protects those necessary grounds and bonds at all times so you go to work stand for you so i can go ahead and check open 801 so60 install radio permit tag 115 117. we can go ahead and check for potential if not install nested on spawns go to work when all work is complete sounds good we'll have our clothes back in hopefully by nine or ten tonight okay sounds good perfect okay thank you all right thanks man all right so boys are on their way i'm gonna put my other work boots on pants are soaked already so that doesn't matter let's go get that door out and get some grounds on the line so we're filling out our tag now do not operate so this is going to be right on the switch pole and our guys are trained that switches do not get operated without talking to dispatch for one and then there's the tag on there that'll let anyone know coming through the area that there's a crew working there all right let's go get this cutout open i've been meaning to get this switch moved in a hole where i can reach my truck telly sticks no problem but this one here is a little bit a little bit high i think it uses every extension off the telly so anyways we'll get that rug up this is why i'm trying to get that switch moved to another pool not exactly a good spot for a fused switch gonna verify the switch number first 801 s 060. get our tag in there hmm so we got the tag on we got the cut out door out we're back to the work site there's not much point in filming me driving around again there now so like i said with the primary is broken we do have to ground on either side of the work site and there's not much sense climbing tree poles on either side of the worksite the ground our standards now these vary you know who you work for there's a lot of debate around grounding and bonding um here as long as we're within 150 meters from our grounds and we're going to stop the bond uh if i got to jump rope the neutral actually i don't think the neutral was broken there just the primary but anyway so we're going to bond we're going to ground the primary to the neutral on this pole go on the other side luckily there's a pole right beside the road just like this so i can use my truck so this construction here is an older standard it's only three feet between the primary neutral so we're going to check potential first [Music] on the 12 kv system volt space to ground all good brass to the sky so i'm isolated in the bucket right now we can put this neutral one on by hand no problem you don't want to over tighten these grounds you'll blow the back right off that nut you can use a screwdriver but you get a good good feel for for how tight that is if you ever want to check it use your stick and you'll see there you go you also want to make sure when you go to put this ground on that duckbill is going to open far enough so she's all tied in good you don't want to tease that line when you go on either draw an arc you want to get that on right first shot all right do a little bit of sightseeing quite the view yes sir pretty cool hard to believe that all fills up with water sometimes all right let's get to it [Music] hopefully by the time i get these grounds and everything all set to go the boys shouldn't be too much longer rolling in the same thing here and of course guys every pole you work on check your insulators check your ties make sure nothing's going to be falling apart on you up there [Music] gonna check potential again the primary is broken over there could be backfeed coming from the lighthouse could be a lightning strike out here which if there is ever lightning stand down video covering that as well so april 2023 it's another item that's inspected our sticks and our gloves regardless of the expiration date if you see that it's not in good condition you still have to retire that particular piece of equipment all right so both sides of line are grounded work permits in effect boys are on their way can't do a whole lot else uh that primary it's broken it's flung away from the tree so i can't use a chainsaw i'm by myself here but i can use a sawzall tree's a little bit too big for sawzall but uh not gonna stand here and stare at the trees pick away at it and see if we can do i got to get one of those new blades i got one of the old that blade i was using like six months ago but anyways we'll try it out we'll hack away at that while waiting for the boys so one other thing i should mention here guys uh even though that primary is grounded i still can't touch it because the boys aren't here but uh where the tree is the primary broke clear and it's plenty distance away from from where i'm going to be working all right please oh man she's a big one really wish i had my new blade on me all right don't walk under the broken tree primary down over there hey yeah this isn't gonna do much clear ourselves a bit of a work area there [Applause] beauty [Applause] all right it's not for that nonsense once the boys show up there with the pole saw we'll take care of that there's no time at all now boys are just rolling it right on time so one last thing we got to do here before we get going is i'm going to do up where did my pen go there was this one tail board so basically um every company does this now i think a lot of the guys call them tailgates because you sit on a tailgate and discuss the job before you start same idea we call the tail board here for whatever reason um i don't want to show you the sheet cause there's lots of copyright and stuff and logos on it basically uh it says who's in charge of the job what's work location emergency escape plan like here for example i'll note that there's poor cell coverage if you go around the corner and up the hill there's excellent cell coverage so that's something that we'll discuss in the tailboard i'll mention the guys if there's an accident that happens um saw coverage up the road we can even send a truck out to the main road to meet the ambulance we're not allowed to transport an individual that's injured unless there's someone to tend to them so i can't have someone injured in the passenger seat ripping down to the hospital because i'm gonna be distracted driving obviously uh if we have a crew cab here there's a guy with them in the back you know just not a real serious injury sometimes it's appropriate but uh not gonna go a whole lot deeper into this but tailboard ground location two grounds installed mentioned that work permit number our plan of attack rescue plan address go over that boys give them sign it and we're good to go [Music] so once the boys showed up everything was ready to go line was all grounded permit was an effect they'll board all that stuff so we brought all the material down uh tree came off pretty easy we boyce brought the pole saw mine was uh one was at the house there and uh boys had one on board bought the pole saw and from there the tree was super easy to tackle and even as far as doing the cutting with the milwaukee hacksaw it's more or less just kind of messing around trying to get ahead of the game a bit but it's an awful lot of energy to waste when you know the guys are coming with a chainsaw and it's not something i would normally do this circumstance here we ran out of daylight fast so in fact as we were wrapping up the job the sun was going down we closed the switch it was pitch black so things lined up just just perfect [Music] [Music] uh the neutral was damaged so we had to sleep the neutral we managed to the spans were long enough we were able to pull it down close to the ground pop a sleeve and it went right back up pretty well to sag usually you know you'll cut the wire you'll sleeve it mid span the guy in the pole sag it right up in the pole either one end than the other or bring both ends up the same set of come alongs and put the sleeve at least a couple inches away from the insulator you don't want to tie that sleeve onto the insulator that's a really bad practice so things went well one of our guys did all the work on the pole and uh once once that was up in the air it didn't it really didn't take long at all the travel time was was the worst thing for this job all right so we are wrapping her up now i just got the one ground off i'm gonna go take the other ground off and refuse and close this line in and we're gonna head home oh you lucked out there [Music] you skilled out there all skill don't let it fall out oh i like it nice nice so we got the grounds off line's closed in and that's it a couple of locals locals there's there's not many people that live on that stretch a couple taurus and one of the locals that rents out some cottages uh just give us their thanks and uh a couple of tourists stopped by and seen us working away in the woods there and thank us for the work which is which is always nice to get a morale boost from them [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Bobsdecline - Lineman blogger

Views: 17,041

Rating: 4.9884281 out of 5

Keywords: milwaukee tools, milwaukee, being a lineman, lineman universe, east coast lineman, hackzall, milwaukee sawzall, becoming a lineman, power lineman, lineman life, linejunk, lin e worker, line worker, Hurricane Ida, hurricane, hurricane louisiana, lineman tips, bob lineman lineman show, lineman reality show, powerlines, power lines, how to be a lineman, milwaukee lineman tools, bobsdecline lineman, lineman in louisiana, lineman jobs, apprentice lineman, journeyman lineman

Id: CVs5z5rT2U4

Length: 36min 35sec (2195 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 29 2021