Never late, Im sure most understand that time is limited and editing footage like this takes some time. Happy New Year and thank you for the informative content.
Ah think I deleted my own comment this was really one of your better videos very educational thank too all u lineworkers out there God bless all of u men and women please keep your videos coming u did a great job with this one Mike from iron river m.i.
In my area my power company has been rebuilding the distribution system so the voltage can be upgraded from 4160 volts to 13.8kV. It is interesting to see how they proceed, from simply changing out insulators on poles that are still usable all the way to complete pole replacements. As in the video, when the circuits were ready for cutover, they took an outage and sent out an army of linemen to change the transformers or the tap switch on the primary side (the company has begun using cans that can be set for 2400, 7200, or 7970 volt primary). The pace of conversions have slowed down since a goof in a neighboring town where they forgot to reset the transformers on one branch line before switching over to the higher voltage.
3rd! When I was a kid, I always asked for insulators when I saw a rebuild. Interesting to see how companies do the same tasks differently. Thanks for showing man! 🤙
I love that understanding of relatively simple physics keeps everyone safe while working live. One of the first things I do when I have an apprentice with me (residential/commercial electrician) is teach them the basics of protecting yourself and working safe, how to check for 120/240V etc.
@@alecthenice8115 Lol. I teach them to not path it thru any part of their body. Any path means you failed to follow instructions. When you work live you need 100% focus so you can be perfect at your work.
Hi! I’m an electrical contractor from Green Bay, WI. I play with the small voltages! I enjoy watching your videos to give me a better understanding as to where and how the electricity is delivered to homes and businesses.
I was on a reconductor crew for several years. We used those small ropes on a trailer, called a spider rig. On the day of the conductor pull we used the small ropes to pull a larger rope in called a bull rope. Then the bull rope was attached to the new conductor. Then we pulled the conductor in under tension as you said. If we hung the small ropes it was usually only done to prevent someone from cutting the rope at night and stealing it. We had this happen on one job. Theives stole so much of the spider rope we had to get new reels and restring them. I enjoyed reconductor work. It really makes you think every step.
That rope system is called a spider reel, made by Sherman Reilly. Used them for the first time last Thursday to pull in two new spans of our systems sub transmission line of 34.5kv. Love this channel!
An amazing amount of pre-planning and preparation to make the changeover happen safely and smoothly. Thanks for going over this, we have a couple mile stretch being prepared for a changeover, now I have to go look closer at what they are doing.
I'm not an electrician, but I have watched all your videos. I got more anxious thinking about having to move all those wires, pull all the ground bonding and double check everything than anything else I've seen. Those guys rock! Well, you rock too, but you know what I mean.
Just found your channel and this is pretty cool. I work as a design engineer in FL and we are doing a job of hardening all distribution poles that are Florida Power and Light owned. A lot of work is done with miles of pole replacement and reconductoring either 13KV or 23KV lines. Pretty interesting stuff. I'm also interested in trying to become a line man myself and your channel has been super cool to find.
Good video! As a fellow JL I can appreciate how yall do things differently around the world. Never seen the reels of wire on the pole like that. Usually we just spread and set and run the new upgraded wire in between on the same arms. More than 1 way to skin a cat and appreciate new ways of doing things. Stay safe and see you on the ROW.
I've been watching this happen IRL. PGE, our local power company is a couple of years into a massive system upgrade. Substations are being expanded and new ones built, new transmission lines are being run, existing lines are being upgraded. Over the summer they replaced 3 miles of transmission line in one big pull. It was amazing to see. Then, almost right outside my window, they are relocating a mile of line to make way for a road widening project. They are pretty much done. Right now they are tearing down the last of the old line. Then they need to get to work on the new transmission they are building a mile away.
@@ArtStoneUS That may very well be. But, in this case it's all the data centers that are being built in the area. The power needed to charge 100 electric cars pales in comparison to the power needed by one massive server farm.
@@gordonreeder3451 According to energy.gov, data centers consume about 2% of total electricity in the United States. I'll let you do the math of what 10 million electric vehicles will need.
It is crazy to see how other utilities go about there business I’m a east coast lineman working for a utility in alberta. Crazy how many ways there is to skin a cat
I remember once when I was very young a new high voltage line was being built across our property (a farm). One day they were stringing up the conductors which started very low down to the ground. So I grabbed on to one or two and got hauled up into the air at a rate of knots. As a kid it was pretty fun. 😁
they spent last summer replacing poles on a semi major street in my neighborhood. did it a couple at a time right next to the old pole . new pole is taller. then they cut the old pole lower which has cable and phone lines on it. so now they are doing the next parrallel road.
They put several wind turbines up my road years ago. We use to just have 2 wires on each pole, they put a T on the top of each pole and put 4 lines. Bigger cable too.. I remember them first running those different colered ropes. It was a big project
Hey, I have a question. There's been widespread intermittent flickering on my side of the city for the past few days. Like 1 second outages, a couple times a day. Manitoba Hydro found the cause, but I'm curious if you could explain 1) what is actually happening (recloser?) And 2) Why does it take days sometimes to find? Thanks!
It is the recloser that causes these “one second outages.” Sometimes the faults can be really hard to find such as a branch sitting on the arm. We have even seen trees in swampy areas blowing way over during wind gusts, laying on the line for a second, and then standing back upright. Extremely hard to find especially if it’s on a line that travels a long ways.
@@joshbrown1806 They posted this after "update: crews figured out what’s causing the flickering (equipment issues) and we’re working to fix it. Thanks again for your patience." 🤔
We had a similar issue for a couple weeks. I didn't hear what the resolution was, but the crew said it can be lines slapping together, tree branches, squirrels (seems like that one would only happen once for any given squirrel), failing switch gear, transformers (affected a couple streets, so it wasn't that), etc.
@@joshbrown1806 True, now that I think about it. I've always seen the bodies of the squirrels that have been blown clear. Hadn't really considered they may stay up there, arcing away. Damn tree rats.
I’m a lineman for the telephone company. Been placing poles for years and still have no idea how to “properly” place pole guards on the poles without just taping them on. Lol.. we started using black duct tape over thin electrical tape since we wait years for the power co to move their stuff onto the new poles.
Long time watcher here, we had a car run up a guy wire on the pole behind our house. Driver is okay, but it snapped the pole just above the top guy. What's replacement look like when it's the end pole on a span?
Great video Aaron. Are all of your oil reclosers operated by a stick on the yellow ring/handle? In the states, we have control cabinets that can be operated at ground level, and disable reclosing.
Probably depends on the equipment. I know with my company we have a mix of Hydraulic Reclosers that we manually block with the Handle on the device but we also have several SCADA controlled devices that we can block remotely or from the control box at the pole..
When my town replaces an entire row of poles like what is shown in this video, before installing the old pole they usually chop off part of the cross arm and remove 1 insulator so that one wire is not too close to the new pole. Has the company you work for ever tried this?
Wow looks quite involved compared to if you could do it dead. I don't mind an outage myself but guess lot of people really can't go long without power.
You say y’all schedule an interruption of service does include contacting the customers to let them know when they do it where Iam ONCOR utilities generally text or call us
Just subscribed to your channel, you have tons of great content! In the video you mentioned reclosing is disabled for any fault interrupting devices upstream of the planned energized work. In your experience, is Hot Line Tag (HLT) used as well if reclosers are equipped with it? Thank you for your time sir!
Hey thanks Charlie! Yes most of our equipment have a light or flag that automatically pop up now. We also manually install a tag on the pole or switch gear at all times when reclosing is removed
I would say no, there should be no sparks or arcs. You can call your utility company with the pole number and let the experts make the judgement on what to do about it.
If telephone and /or cable are attached to the pole. The utility company will cut approximately 5'-10' off the top and "abandon" the pole for the telecommunications company to come at a later date and remove completely out the ground, PTD (pull, transport, dispose).
@@lalarobert a constant battle for us...especially as the old pole starts to lean more and more and people keep calling it in to us thinking its going to fall over
I have seen several houses that are just covered in Christmas lights. Do the power companies get involved or is the power already provided meet the needs of the house?
Funny enough we do have some concrete poles in my area, typically they are only lamp posts though but I've seen the odd hydro ones too. I've also seem them where the rebar is all rusty and they are chipping apart... so guess they don't last forever either.
why not use underground cables instead. no ice, or trees can short the lines, if ug is used. i live in denmark, and we only have 380 and 150 kv overhead lines and som small parts of the 60 kv grid in the air. 12 kv and 72 kv xlpe cables is more cheap and durable, than overhead lines. and no climbing in poles, the transformers also are in a small building on the earth surface.
Merry er... ahh.... guess I was a bit late with the editing on this one!🎄🤔😂
Just ignore that part! 😇. Things have been hectic, what else is new!?
Never late,
Im sure most understand that time is limited and editing footage like this takes some time.
Happy New Year and thank you for the informative content.
Yeah but you definitely gotta tell us what you did the night of the blizzard after you ended the live chat. The suspense....lol
Happy Easter! Oh wait to soon?!
A few years ago I watched a crew replace several towers on a 115 kv line. NO OUTAGES!!!!! Those guys were at the top of their game!!!!!
love the bit at the end. "just be happy guys" 😊
🥂😃
Thanks for the tour Aaron,
sounds like half million dollar upgrade. thanks for the video.
RN from Texas. Enjoy your channel man! Be safe!
Great video Aaron.
I love outtage work with a ton of crews
Your Chanel is always informative & educational in the aspect your telling us how things are done with what you CAN tell.
Ah think I deleted my own comment this was really one of your better videos very educational thank too all u lineworkers out there God bless all of u men and women please keep your videos coming u did a great job with this one Mike from iron river m.i.
In my area my power company has been rebuilding the distribution system so the voltage can be upgraded from 4160 volts to 13.8kV. It is interesting to see how they proceed, from simply changing out insulators on poles that are still usable all the way to complete pole replacements. As in the video, when the circuits were ready for cutover, they took an outage and sent out an army of linemen to change the transformers or the tap switch on the primary side (the company has begun using cans that can be set for 2400, 7200, or 7970 volt primary). The pace of conversions have slowed down since a goof in a neighboring town where they forgot to reset the transformers on one branch line before switching over to the higher voltage.
3rd! When I was a kid, I always asked for insulators when I saw a rebuild. Interesting to see how companies do the same tasks differently. Thanks for showing man! 🤙
I love that understanding of relatively simple physics keeps everyone safe while working live. One of the first things I do when I have an apprentice with me (residential/commercial electrician) is teach them the basics of protecting yourself and working safe, how to check for 120/240V etc.
Ohm's Law! Physics is your friend.
You teach them to path it through their fingers right??
@@alecthenice8115 Lol. I teach them to not path it thru any part of their body. Any path means you failed to follow instructions. When you work live you need 100% focus so you can be perfect at your work.
Hi! I’m an electrical contractor from Green Bay, WI. I play with the small voltages! I enjoy watching your videos to give me a better understanding as to where and how the electricity is delivered to homes and businesses.
I was on a reconductor crew for several years. We used those small ropes on a trailer, called a spider rig. On the day of the conductor pull we used the small ropes to pull a larger rope in called a bull rope. Then the bull rope was attached to the new conductor. Then we pulled the conductor in under tension as you said. If we hung the small ropes it was usually only done to prevent someone from cutting the rope at night and stealing it. We had this happen on one job. Theives stole so much of the spider rope we had to get new reels and restring them. I enjoyed reconductor work. It really makes you think every step.
Thanks for letting us look over your shoulder! Be safe Brother...NJ
Some BobsDecline with my lunch. Awesome 👏
That rope system is called a spider reel, made by Sherman Reilly. Used them for the first time last Thursday to pull in two new spans of our systems sub transmission line of 34.5kv. Love this channel!
Very cool.
An amazing amount of pre-planning and preparation to make the changeover happen safely and smoothly. Thanks for going over this, we have a couple mile stretch being prepared for a changeover, now I have to go look closer at what they are doing.
Wow NB Power has a Chevy Volt. Cool
Excellent video
Fist bump from Dallas. I love your videos. They’re fascinating as hell and I love learning about your trade. Hope you had a great holiday as well!
The size of yalls trucks blow my mind. Love your content
I'm not an electrician, but I have watched all your videos. I got more anxious thinking about having to move all those wires, pull all the ground bonding and double check everything than anything else I've seen. Those guys rock! Well, you rock too, but you know what I mean.
Errr ahhh Merry Christmas Aaron and family lol. Happiest new year too! Awesome video. Thanks for sharing with us!
They just did a big job like exactly this up the highway from where I live, great to have it explained in such great detail.
So much planning and work. You guys do an amazing job.
Great explanation and video Aaron!!!
Hope you got some time off!
Great job replacing conductor..stay safe always sir!! Wathching from Philippines!😊
Good job Aaron.
Always worth waiting for! Thanks Aaron and stay safe! 👊👊
Epic, stay safe out there
Hi Aaron, Another excellent video as always! Never too late for Merry Christmas wishes!
Very good. As an electrician I find this interesting to see done and explained by someone who knows what their talking about.
That was quite interesting. Big project. Thanks for sharing.
Just found your channel and this is pretty cool. I work as a design engineer in FL and we are doing a job of hardening all distribution poles that are Florida Power and Light owned. A lot of work is done with miles of pole replacement and reconductoring either 13KV or 23KV lines. Pretty interesting stuff. I'm also interested in trying to become a line man myself and your channel has been super cool to find.
IBEW labor is the way to go
I directed traffic for a couple crews doing this and it's pretty cool to watch
Awesome job, hope all you guys stay safe out there!
Fascinating video. Thanks for making it. The info about using rope as a pull cord for the lines really surprised me.
great explaining and another great video!
Good video! As a fellow JL I can appreciate how yall do things differently around the world. Never seen the reels of wire on the pole like that. Usually we just spread and set and run the new upgraded wire in between on the same arms. More than 1 way to skin a cat and appreciate new ways of doing things. Stay safe and see you on the ROW.
Happy Wednesday the 12th my friend.
Cool video, you’re obviously a professional.
Happy New Year to you Aaron and your Family
I've been watching this happen IRL. PGE, our local power company is a couple of years into a massive system upgrade. Substations are being expanded and new ones built, new transmission lines are being run, existing lines are being upgraded. Over the summer they replaced 3 miles of transmission line in one big pull. It was amazing to see. Then, almost right outside my window, they are relocating a mile of line to make way for a road widening project. They are pretty much done. Right now they are tearing down the last of the old line. Then they need to get to work on the new transmission they are building a mile away.
All those millions of electric vehicles are going to need substantial infrastructure upgrades!
@@ArtStoneUS That may very well be. But, in this case it's all the data centers that are being built in the area. The power needed to charge 100 electric cars pales in comparison to the power needed by one massive server farm.
@@gordonreeder3451 According to energy.gov, data centers consume about 2% of total electricity in the United States. I'll let you do the math of what 10 million electric vehicles will need.
great video thanks for sharing how its done
It is crazy to see how other utilities go about there business I’m a east coast lineman working for a utility in alberta. Crazy how many ways there is to skin a cat
Merry Christmas to you as well
So cool!
Very interesting
Cool video
great work !!...thank you for doing it !!...my limit is 480.
I remember once when I was very young a new high voltage line was being built across our property (a farm). One day they were stringing up the conductors which started very low down to the ground. So I grabbed on to one or two and got hauled up into the air at a rate of knots.
As a kid it was pretty fun. 😁
I listen to my local power company on the scanner. One of the most frequent things I hear are techs calling dispatch asking for reclose control.
Where is this filmed? The locations are absolutely beautiful
they spent last summer replacing poles on a semi major street in my neighborhood. did it a couple at a time right next to the old pole . new pole is taller. then they cut the old pole lower which has cable and phone lines on it. so now they are doing the next parrallel road.
Thanks for the vid. You always keep it interesting
Do a video on a transformer banks, let’s get complicated!!! Go all out with it, rotation and all!
Single circuit….accessible … clean poles…. I love a gravy job
They put several wind turbines up my road years ago. We use to just have 2 wires on each pole, they put a T on the top of each pole and put 4 lines. Bigger cable too..
I remember them first running those different colered ropes.
It was a big project
I was hoping you'd demonstrate the tracking ground connections that sit on the new conductors as they're pulled to keep them grounded.
Mental what yous do live. We have teams who at most move live HV on an inter pole and the other stuff of putting switches up etc😅😅
Hey, I have a question. There's been widespread intermittent flickering on my side of the city for the past few days. Like 1 second outages, a couple times a day. Manitoba Hydro found the cause, but I'm curious if you could explain 1) what is actually happening (recloser?) And 2) Why does it take days sometimes to find? Thanks!
It is the recloser that causes these “one second outages.” Sometimes the faults can be really hard to find such as a branch sitting on the arm. We have even seen trees in swampy areas blowing way over during wind gusts, laying on the line for a second, and then standing back upright. Extremely hard to find especially if it’s on a line that travels a long ways.
@@joshbrown1806 They posted this after "update: crews figured out what’s causing the flickering (equipment issues) and we’re working to fix it. Thanks again for your patience." 🤔
We had a similar issue for a couple weeks. I didn't hear what the resolution was, but the crew said it can be lines slapping together, tree branches, squirrels (seems like that one would only happen once for any given squirrel), failing switch gear, transformers (affected a couple streets, so it wasn't that), etc.
@@JCWren squirrels can stay on the line after they die and just keep tripping the line or causing recloser action.
@@joshbrown1806 True, now that I think about it. I've always seen the bodies of the squirrels that have been blown clear. Hadn't really considered they may stay up there, arcing away. Damn tree rats.
You do a spectacular job of hiding any smidgen of NB Power markings! Was only finally able to confirm by locations. 😀
I’m a lineman for the telephone company. Been placing poles for years and still have no idea how to “properly” place pole guards on the poles without just taping them on. Lol.. we started using black duct tape over thin electrical tape since we wait years for the power co to move their stuff onto the new poles.
Long time watcher here, we had a car run up a guy wire on the pole behind our house. Driver is okay, but it snapped the pole just above the top guy.
What's replacement look like when it's the end pole on a span?
ARCdoes all that in my state Been at it for years changing poles an new lines.
Do you use concrete forms for the poles to sit in or just sand?
Not typically unless it's extremely soft ground or in water.
We usually backfill with compacted soil or tailings.
Don't Worry Be Happy - Bobby McFerrin
Great video Aaron. Are all of your oil reclosers operated by a stick on the yellow ring/handle? In the states, we have control cabinets that can be operated at ground level, and disable reclosing.
Probably depends on the equipment. I know with my company we have a mix of Hydraulic Reclosers that we manually block with the Handle on the device but we also have several SCADA controlled devices that we can block remotely or from the control box at the pole..
Yes exactly, most of our have the control box. We've also moved to intellirupters, vacuum reclosers, EOR's etc..
When my town replaces an entire row of poles like what is shown in this video, before installing the old pole they usually chop off part of the cross arm and remove 1 insulator so that one wire is not too close to the new pole. Has the company you work for ever tried this?
Why are you guy’s rehab with wooden cross arms instead of steel arms?
We've actually just switched over to fiberglass, using up what's left of our stock now
Wow looks quite involved compared to if you could do it dead. I don't mind an outage myself but guess lot of people really can't go long without power.
You say y’all schedule an interruption of service does include contacting the customers to let them know when they do it where Iam ONCOR utilities generally text or call us
Appreate the detailed explanation !👍🏼😀
Just subscribed to your channel, you have tons of great content! In the video you mentioned reclosing is disabled for any fault interrupting devices upstream of the planned energized work. In your experience, is Hot Line Tag (HLT) used as well if reclosers are equipped with it? Thank you for your time sir!
Hey thanks Charlie!
Yes most of our equipment have a light or flag that automatically pop up now. We also manually install a tag on the pole or switch gear at all times when reclosing is removed
What is the monthly wage for this job
I was wondering is it normal for a breaker and a Transformer to spark a bit wild raining
I would say no, there should be no sparks or arcs. You can call your utility company with the pole number and let the experts make the judgement on what to do about it.
@@rupe53 thank you very much
💯
You guys make this a little more difficult than need be
Can you show us construction notes
Do they cut the old poles at ground level, or actually pull them out completely?
If telephone and /or cable are attached to the pole. The utility company will cut approximately 5'-10' off the top and "abandon" the pole for the telecommunications company to come at a later date and remove completely out the ground, PTD (pull, transport, dispose).
@@tsheejkoo yeah when phone/cable maybe get around to transferring their stuff in the next 4 or 5 years :D. haha
@@blakeslack Truth.
@@lalarobert a constant battle for us...especially as the old pole starts to lean more and more and people keep calling it in to us thinking its going to fall over
I FOUND TRIPLEX AT MY COUSIN TRAILER JUST ROLLED UP SITTING AGAINST THE TRAILER THERE HASN'T BEEN ANY POWER WORK SINCE IT WAS PUT IN ABOUT 5 YEARS AGO
Where you sped up the footage it looks like you are speeding thru a workzone
Survive till next Christmas...
I have seen several houses that are just covered in Christmas lights. Do the power companies get involved or is the power already provided meet the needs of the house?
Why would it be any concern of the power provider? What side of the demarcation are the lights?
Every single pole should have been changed to at least a 45 foot class 2. With that Guage wire, using an old pole is asking for trouble.
Dude, you said 'out' and not 'ooooooot???'
If you guys in North America start using concrete poles you wouldnt need to change them :)
Right...
They’re changing concrete to steel in my area. Must be the new thing.
A lot of states are putting power lines underground nowadays.
Funny enough we do have some concrete poles in my area, typically they are only lamp posts though but I've seen the odd hydro ones too. I've also seem them where the rebar is all rusty and they are chipping apart... so guess they don't last forever either.
@@redsquirrelftw Exactly.
why not use underground cables instead. no ice, or trees can short the lines, if ug is used.
i live in denmark, and we only have 380 and 150 kv overhead lines and som small parts of the 60 kv grid in the air. 12 kv and 72 kv xlpe cables is more cheap and durable, than overhead lines. and no climbing in poles, the transformers also are in a small building on the earth surface.
Armando.nieblapasswordpasswordpasswordpasswordpassword Po assword
Why are you guy’s rehab with wooden cross arms instead of steel arms?