ECN Forum Forums Photo Discussion Forums Photos for General Discussion Transformer Room

Hey Bill I sent some follow-up pics of this. Did you receive?

I have never seen such a shroud on an installation like this.

The generally policy is that only authorized, safety trained personal are allowed in the room.

Usually there is no need to go in the anyway as all that will be in there are the transformers and some lights.

I built one of these rooms as a subcontractor to the power company.

Once it was powered up it was off limits to me.

[This message has been edited by Webmaster (edited 03-29-2006).]

And the horror show continues... this thing gives me the creeps every time I see it..and now, it appears that the cutouts are right by the door!!

So changing a fuse or closing in or opening those cutouts effectively forces you to be isolated inside the room?? And the close spacing makes a phase-to-phase flashover a distinct possibility, especially since they're not outdoors in open air.

Speaking of which, is there any ventilation to the outside of the building? I don't see any vents of any kind (and if there were the room wouldn't have been in total darkness when you arrived.)

Rabbit, please tell me I'm wrong......this whole thing has some seriously unsafe design issues!!

edited to add:

I also wonder if the POCO is aware of this situation? And if they don't care, heads should roll!!!

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 03-29-2006).]

mxslick (or anyone else): You mentioned venting of this room,or the lack thereof. Do transformers such as these (especially if they are filled with PCB fluid) emit noxious fumes of some sort, and if so, does it increase as the load on the transformer increases?

Mike (mamills)

Mike:

No, they generally don't emit fumes. The ventilation requirements as called out in Art. 450 of the NEC deal primarily with heat dissipation from operation and ventilation of smoke and heat from a fire within the vault.

I do recall reading that all oil filled transformers, when there is internal arcing, will build up hydrogen and acetyline (sp?) gasses which could explode/ignite.

That same book also explained why oil/liquid filled transformers often fail after an extended outage. It seems that the heat and core/winding vibrations keep any contaminants (usually water and gasses) of the cooling/insulating fluid in suspension. After an extended cool-down, the contaminates and trapped gasses in the fluid form bubbles on the windings and internal conductors. This severely reduces the insulating values of the fluid, and when re-energized it results in arcing and failure. Many distribution and a few large substation transformers have failed, often violently, from this situation.

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 03-30-2006).]

Bob,
Our Poco area covers in relation to your area just a smidgen of jurisdiction.
The majority of it is underground reticulated and it would not be accessible to people that did not have the key to open up a transformer.
11 or 33kV topside, they are out in the open to ensure good ventilation.

Wow! One of my posts went flaming! A first for me. The drawings I received showed a new service riser to refeed the existing 1200.

Someone had already hung a CT cabinet and core drilled the exterior wall, presumably the owner of the green ladder.

The utility had set a new pole complete with 3 spanking new trannies. The other contractor was halted and this is now to be included in my cost. This design will still leave unfused conductors inside the building for about 25 feet. Low voltage at least.

So it is in the repair stage. I may or may not pursue this work. Those primaries evidently come down inside an interior wall as this is in the basement.

I've informed the GC to make SURE the service is killed from the pole before the demolition (sledge hammers and sawzalls) contractor begins.

[This message has been edited by Rabbit (edited 03-30-2006).]

[This message has been edited by Rabbit (edited 03-30-2006).]

mxslick: Thanks for the reply. I know that transformers (all transformers?) produce heat in some manner, which, I assume, increases proportionally with the load imposed on it. I guess I didn't realize that these big boys produced that much heat.

Mike (mamills)

Glad to hear that all this is being relocated to the OUTSIDE of the building! The picture reminds me of one posted some time ago where a single transformer was sitting on a wood pallet in the bottom of a concrete pit and covered with an old piece of plywood .

[This message has been edited by mamills (edited 03-30-2006).]

That just looks plain outright scary to me.. I would not wanna be anywhere near that room let alone inside of it, especially if something were about to fail... I understand that is a room the PoCo and ONLY the PoCo should have access to...
My old highschool had a room like that.. and we did have a failure overnight of one of the 6 cans in that room ( think there was 3 for the 600V supply and 3 for the 120 / 208V... Primary was all 13.8 K.V...

A.D