ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area cable pull through a live xfrmr

I could be wrong but, I believe that this work could "legally" be performed but according to NFPA 70E all of the required personal protective equipment would have to be worn by anyone working within a certain distance of the live parts and it would be "Permit Required" work. Which means, the city would have to sign a form stating why the work would have to be preformed live and usually loss of proffits is not a consideration.

By the city signing this form, most, but not all, of the liability would be shifted to the city. Avoid doing the work live if at all possible. Do not under any circumstances do the work live if the city will not sign off on the permit. If the work is done live you will need an engineer to calculate the energy of the possible arc blast to choose the proper personal protective equipment.

Safety First. Remember, we all want to make money but if we can't go home to our families at night or if we are permanately injured no amount of money will matter.

Good luck.

bill,
I'm with master66 on this one.
Other side of the coin, having a "famous coffee-house" on the end of a HV transformer sounds like a pretty lame excuse for doing work live.
After all, can't it be done at night?.
There is no such thing as no time to "do it dead".
Regardless of the arc flash hazard caused by short-circuit, I'd be concerned with any flash-over distances that these voltages have.
I'd be asking the PoCo about this before the work takes place, after all it is their equipment.
A general "rule" over here in NZ is that all HV gear be de-energised and Earthed (Grounded) before staff are allowed access to the conductors.

NFPA 70E clearly states that you should not be doing this live. The only way it would be allowed is if shutting the power down would jeopordise life. Now I know a lot of people "think" they need coffee to survive, I don't think that that is what the NFPA is referring to. They are referring to life support in hospitals. And I'll tell you, there probably isn't a facilities manager in his right mind in a hospital, or any building for that matter, who wouldn't rather shut it down then suffer the consequense of a fault.
8,12,24 hours or so to pull the cable in and terminate is a small problem compared to the havic an outage would be.
15 years ago a world reknowned hospitalal in Boston suffered a fault. There primary feeders AND life safety feeders ran thru a common junction box in a STEAM room. Well the primary faulted and took the Life safety with it. 1/2 tha campus was in the dark.
I realise in todays codes this is not allowed and this situation is probably on the far end of the spectrum as to the consequences that would be endured if a coffee shop was closed for a couple days due to a failure. But the short of it is, as mentioned in many other posts, IT IS NOT WORTH THE RISK. If it can be shut down SHUT IT DOWN. then everyone can go home at the end of the day and see thier beautiful wives and children, which is why we work anyway, right. (Where would they be if we didn't come home from work because of something that could have been avoided)?
Remember, All accidents are avoidable. Prepare a proper Hazard Analysis before any task and you will decrease your injuries. Its proven.

Good Morning everyone!!!!!!! well I am just about to print off all the responses so far. Thanks to everyone!!! I now have some ammo to respond to the city's request to do this live.

This is easy. Get a temporary transformer to feed the building. No need to work the POCO transformer hot. The coffee shop will have to hire someone for temp portable power. Everyone will be happy. Coffee shop stays open,, men working near POCO trans is safe and job gets done.

Going by the posts of rck and harold.
And by my own experience, what's the point in working LIVE?.
bill woods, have you taken notice of what has been said about live work in the Occupational Safety Area?.
I work up to 66kV with Live Glove and Barrier work over here in New Zealand, underground and overhead.
If you can possibly avoid it, work dead, HV's have no friends and you only need make one mistake IMO.
Neoprene blankets or not, there is only so much that you can do.
Even if it is on the city's head, nothing can take away the pain and suffering of burns from a HV flashover.
Just remember that.

Ryan I am not as positive as you are on this.



I imagine you are referring to 1910.333(A)(1)?

One of the examples of an increased hazard allowing live work is simply removal of illumination for an area.


That said it's just a coffee shop, do it off hours, provide temp power or have a scheduled shutdown.

It always comes down to money, remember the people asking you to do this 'favor' are not taking the risk of a stay in the burn ward or worse.

The 'CITY' wants it done live - a COFFE SHOP...This sounds very political to me.

Most electricians are not properly trained to do this work. OSHA does say it can be live if removing power creates a hazard...Give me a break, I mean give those guys doing the work a break

I hope this contractor has a written procedure and documentation of the proper training or he may be in big do-do.

I agree with a generator temporarily feeding the coffee shop if they want to keep it open.

I SEE ABSOLUTELY NO GOOD REASON HERE TO KEEP THE POWER ON - SHOW ME ONE GOOD REASON!!!

Do it on an outage, maybe a monday night in the wee hours. Surely it can't take more than a few hours, and how many people want donuts and coffee at 1am monday morning?
I make a habit to not trust the government(city or otherwise) in any matters concerning my well being. They already take enough from us.
Don't give 'em your life.
Let us know how this turns out

I bet you will pi$$ off less people who can't buy coffee at 2 o'clock in the morning than the number of family members that will show up at the funeral.