I was telling some of the guys about this today, thought I'd share it with the forum...

Way back, (Ten Years) I used to work for this very soft spoken Irishman named Joe. (Uncle Joe, as he was better known, allthough he nowones Uncle...) So we arrive at the job and I'm unloading pipe and the rest of the mat's. Joe starts giving me crap about the last time I drove a rod for him it was too far away from the wall, subject to physical damage and this and that... And he starts up the hammer drill where he wants me to drive it in the garage slab.

I come back with my next load of material, and Joe says, in his Dublin drawl, "I think you're in luck, the drill went in really easy, and now you drive the rod right here!" He picks up the rod like he's going to plant it on the moon, line it up on the hole and lets go. And it's gone!

We're both staring at the hole where the rod disappeared. And, I say, "Well, I guess we're done with that..."

Joe's all taken back and tells me to go get a flash light, that maybe we dropped itno a crawl or something. (Although not very many buildings in that area have one, esspecially under a garage.)

I come back, and Joe's on all fours with the light and his eye at the hole, and says, "There's a Bar down there!"

We look for stairs, but can't find them for a while until we see some painted shut hinges in a panel wall.

We found a "Speak-easy"!

Owner had lived there for around ten years, had no idea it was there. It had a dirt floor, a old cabinet for a Bar, some tables and chairs, dart board, empty bottles, and a ground rod!

Thats a pretty cool find! I've never put a ground rod in a garage though... Some pretty strong concrete to hold up a car parked above with the void down there... How big was the room? was there power down there?
I did find a secret passage in an old early 1900's house once... I was trying to cut in an old work box for a new outlet.. I punched the cut out through & there was light! (I thought I'd cut into another room somehow!, but peeking inside, there were no finished walls) After some close searching we (the H.O. & I) found a strange spot in the wall where the edges of the door had been plastered so the seam of the door wasn't visible.... He shoved it hard enough & it opened into a tiny unfinished hall. (There was a keyless fixture on, with the lamp still working!).. followed the hall about 20' & it led to a wooden ladder which lead down to another sealed up door in the garage! (I wish I could plaster as good as the person that hid these doors!) Nothing interesting in there, but the H.O. hadn't a clue about it existing.. Kinda came in handy since I didn't have to run my NM in the attic anymore He'd lived there since the early 80's...

-Randy

PS I think Ryan's speechless about you finding his secret brewing spot

It was about 12x20, and from all appearances had not had a sole in it since prohabition ended! A thich 1/2" layer of dust on everything. It wasn't original to the house, as you could tell where they dug under the foundation to extend it down. It had a really beefy set of post and beams to hold up the garage, with 2x4 (real ones) on end as a sub-floor for the slab. The place was built pre-1906, this came later...

Yes, there was power on down there, for porcilins with white and green enamal china hats, the lights were left on, and bulbs blew long ago. Exposed K&T. No recepticals that I remember...

Just a few empty bottels, tables and chairs. Nothing fancy... It was pretty bare. I have seen a hand full of these in SF, this is the only one no one knew about. And the most primative. It's on a pretty busy street in the Fillmore, which at that time was the place to be for nightlife, I guess.

We drove the rod in the corner of it! We normally drive rods in the garage, as SF has zero clearance on Property Line on most buildings. (lucky to have a yard) For that matter most garages are add-ons in the late 40's, or old carridge stalls.

I was real fun to see it! Wish they left more in it....

I think Electricmanscott might have a funny ground rod story to tell.

e57 wrote:

Is your inspector going to want a permit pulled for the room addition?

-Randy

Here's potential for an interesting ground rod story!

-Randy

PS From http://safetycenter.navy.mil

...Now when I nod my head, you hit it...

Mike (mamills)

Wow! That's some find. The best we can do to emulate that over here are in really ancient buildings where "priest holes" were built to hide catholic priests away from the King's soldiers back in the 16th century when to be catholic here was considered treason.

Like maybe 70-year-old Scotch?

What did the owner do? Turn it into a prohibition museum? No admission fee, just knock three times and say Joe sent you...

That guy holding the rod sure is a brave soul.

We do a lot of ground rod driving around here with air compressors, that does lead to some major mess ups.

A friend of mine was driving the 10' rod, it was going in pretty tough, just as he got to where he could stand on the ground, he thought he felt something..... he did, the rod made a u turn underground and came right up his pants leg.

It's a fairly common thing for them to turn around and come back out..... ya only need one rod, tell the inspector ya drove 2.

On the original story, the lady freaked, and seemed afraid of the idea that her car was parked above us. The Inspector said nothing other than "Wow, nice find... Where's the rod?" Over here next to the liquor cabinet...

Lostazhell, in that pic' how come they didn't just bury them?

Next rod story... After beating a rod for nearly 6 hours with a slide hammer, sledge hammer, and roto-hammer! I took a break from the heat, and noticed a 150lbs demo/jack hammer laying there on the site under a tarp. I decided to carry it up the ladder, and give it a shot on the rod. Put it on the rod, pulled the trigger, and it shot down so fast, I nearly fell off the ladder with it. I assume I had just another 1/4" of rock to hammer through..... But, if I ever get in that situation again, will waste not time in going down to rent one right away.

(While in the Marines, we used to have sectional threaded rod that we would have to PULL back UP! Yep, your tax dollars at work! For inspections we would have to pull them up, and do 500 pushups for not having all three sections in, then put it back down! We push'ed for 91 degree bends too. Try that with your Employees....)

Funny ground rod story. Hmmm. Take one peice of a ground rod, a small sledge hammer, a crawl space, and some brick firestopping in the wall. Add one dishwasher, an eager helper and a journeyman and what do you get? I don't know what you guys would get but the homeowner ended up getting a new dishwasher!

now that u have laid out the pieces of the puzzle and shown us the picture , please put it all together for us

Sparky what happened was we were running some wiring in the house. We drilled up the wall and hit brick firestop in the base of the wall cavity. We used a peice of ground rod and small sledge to pound a hole through. Journeyman told me to keep pounding. So pound I did! We wrapped up the job and all was well untill that night when the homeowner ran the dishwasher and water was all over the floor. Turns out the rod punctured the dishwasher. How the journeyman couldn't tell that was happening while I was on the other end pounding away I'll never know. I would think it would have to have been really loud and maybe even rattling the dishwasher pretty badly.

EC&M might print the story this thread started with..... In the "Short Circuits" funny stories section.

We'll see....

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 08-18-2004).]

Ever drive a ground rod and find the underground water service? (The time I did the water service was mismarked by 8 feet.)
Gee Home owner you have a new fountian

Was re-doing an illegal "gypsy" service change. The inspector saw the 6" of ground rod sticking up, and asked if I could drive it a little deeper.
As I stooped to disconnect the GEC, I thought it looked a little funny. I also thought the rod seemed awfully loose. I could move it with my hand....
A good tug, and a line appeared on the ground. The installer had bent the rod with a rebar bender, and had run it horizontally, under only a few inches of dirt.

ya having to drive it by hand i find that funny! it stinks!

A few years back I was working in the service department for a large contractor. On a large project at a wastewater plant they had a leak indicator that reguired a ground rod. The job was already complete the concrete walk and paving done. I looked on the as-built drawings to see where the conduits left the building, measured another 6' and began to slot the paving. I installed the rod and buried the wire in the slot, a little self leveling patch man I was proud. Called the tech in to calibrate his equipment and he lost the signal to the sensor. After checking everything out we determined the cable was bad. Tried to pull old cable out and new one in, would not go. Wound up digging down where pipe was supposed to be found nothing but dirt. You guessed it I put the ground rod right through the conduit, dead center.

My former co-worker when I was with a local EC discovered what happens when:

You call "Dig Alert" and they mark where the utilities are, but miss one key item;

You're working on a light industrial center expansion, and running behind;

You have to drive a 10' rod in a hurry, so out comes the Hammer-drill;

Carefully noting D-A's markings, you find your spot;

Hammering away, the first 5-6 feet or so go in like butter;

Said rod suddenly emits blue flames and begins to glow;

POCO's expulsion fuses on a pole too close by let go with a "oops in the shorts" bang;

Because you've just spiked a 12kV class 3-phase feeder which:

Was the key item Dig Alert missed!

Oh, we're having fun now!!

This was related to me by him, I missed this one in person.

Thankfully, since the marks were missed, it was the POCO and D-A who ate the costs on this one.

mxslick, Thats not funny, someone could have gotten real dead! I guess its funny in retrospect, and a few years to cool off...

BTW, EC&M printed the story from the lead of this post in an edited version, a few monthes later.

mxslick, something like that happened at Newark Airport about ten years ago. They were installing metal pilings for a monorail system, and found the main power feed for the entire airport except for the tower. 3 phase at something around 25KV. Mismarked lines it seems. Also it seems the guy running the pile driver was okay as he was sitting in a cab in the machine and thus saw no voltage across himself. Most of the short went right into the ground around the metal piling being driven.

I stood with an inspector at an apartment building in Foster City CA and watched while a journeyman from a competing shop cut 4 bundles of ground rods in half with a porta band. The inspector didn't go on the job until he was sure they had driven every one of them. Can you say RED TAG?

wa2ise...you forgot to mention the next time down at ol' EWR (Newark Airport for the aerodynamically challanged)....not only did the main feeder get "spiked", but also the back up. This was in about 2000 - 2001 when the expansion at Terminal "C" was underway.

e57:

Indeed, it is only because enough time has passed, no one was hurt and the guy involved now thinks it's funny that I decided to share that story.

My coworker thinks it was the wet ground, his (dry) gloves and just plain good luck that he didn't feel a thing.

On a related note: (sorry for the OT)

Thanks to a friend at a POCO, I was able to don the appropriate PPE and get to touch a live 12kv lug in a padmount switch. Even with the proper gear in good condition there is enough potential to feel a very slight tickle through the gloves...or maybe it was just me freaking out by realizing what I was doing!! I have a LOT of respect for linemen, I've heard and seen enough horror stories about when things go wrong.

But when you consider the very fact of the increased voltage/current levels they face, it seems statistically that being a lineman is (maybe?) safer than being an EC? (Or cinema tech for that matter.) I had considered line work for a long time (actually took a course while in the Air Force, passed the test 82%) but I can't stand heights!

wa2ise, celtic:

I think our linemen here would agree that the best thing to do if in any vehicle in contact with high voltage is to STAY PUT! Unless the vehicle is seriously on fire it's the best place to be until the power can be cut off.

Some years ago a local news reporter was seriously injured when she tried to exit the newsvan, the antenna mast of which had been raised into a 34.5kv line. One of the video accounts clearly shows that the antenna was in hard contact for several seconds with nothing happening UNTIL she opened the door and touched the sidewalk. Huge flashover, several secondary explosions heard as the lines bounced around, the phase in question broke just outside the substation (Less than 1/2 mile from incident) turning the asphalt at the contact point into glass. The lineman I spoke with reported that over 90 "targets" were recorded from the surge!

Hit the main and the backup? Murphy was hard at work that day it seems...


[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 07-11-2005).]

Don't suppose it occured to them to lower the mast?

Did some research on accidents in the media due to a low flying news helicopter that coninually buzzed my neiborhood @ 100', and by accident, came accross a whole website devoted to dumb things done with a news truck. Power lines, driving on the freeway with the mast up, covering a hurricane and putting the mast up only to fall over... Whole laundry list.

Oh wait, here it is, I think. (Note many of these are fatalities, and not funny, but some definate canidates for the darwin awards.) http://www.engsafety.com/safetypg2/Papers/Past-incidents/list.html

[This message has been edited by e57 (edited 07-11-2005).]

(With apologies to the moderators for the threadjack):

edit: e57 and I were posting at the same time

My understanding is that the mast controls are on the outside of the van,(on a pendant cable as well as directly on the van chassis), with the idea being so the engineer can see where the mast is going. No controls in the van. (Maybe an "Emergency Lower" button would be a good idea?)

After looking in my archive on this incident, I found out that even though the engineer had stopped raising the mast when she (not a misprint) realized it was about to contact the line, she let go of the control. But the mast being pneumatic(hydraulic?) continued up for a few feet, enough to hit the line.

There was a lot of irony in this incident namely:

They had moved the van onto the sidewalk from the road, as they thought the mast would hit the lines, not realizing that the slope of the sidewalk tilted the van toward the road;

Even if the van had been level, the mast would've still been too close (well within flashover distance according to the POCO lineman I spoke with);

They were directly across from a famous cemetary, covering a story on child safety;

A few weeks prior, another crew in a different state was killed raising their mast into 110kV transmission lines in a rural area.

Maybe a new topic is in order here?



[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 07-11-2005).]

It was 1981 in Mississippi at the mouth of the Pearl River where they were building a chemical plant. I was a 2nd year helper…no apprentice program. The journeyman I was assigned to was working with an old German engineer named Otto. We needed to drive a separate ground rod for the TDC 2000 so I pounded in the rod I was given. The next thing I know Otto wants to check the resistance between that and building steel; He brings out this ground resistance meter and measures 190 Ohms. “Add another rod” he said with his thick accent. (most of those good ole southern boys down there couldn’t understand a thing Otto was saying most of the time.
The rod I drove was not threaded so I had to start over with a rod that was, again Otto tested and again the resistance was over 150 Ohms. “Add another rod”, another test and “add another rod.” This may have been old Mississippi mud but now it was time to get the air hammer. After six sticks and tests, the resistance was still over 90 Ohms and half the day had passed. Otto was getting tired of having his regular work interrupted to come and test every time but he wouldn’t let anyone else test either.
At noon time the temperature was into the high 80’s and it was sticky out so driving rod with a slide hammer was beginning to take its toll. Just before lunch my journeyman and I took the reading and found that it was the same as it was for the last test 10 feet earlier. At lunch I went out to the scrap yard where some old ground rod that had been dug up was laying. I dragged a piece in to the work area and cut the top off and drove the cut end into the ground just out of sight behind Otto’s pickup truck. When we came back from lunch and Otto came out to measure again, no change, 90 Ohms again. I looked at Otto and said “this doesn’t make any sense it should be getting lower.” Otto replied “I know vat are you guys doing out here anyway” Then I walked over by his truck and said “Hey Otto I think I know what’s wrong” Otto came over and saw the end of the old bent rod I had driven backwards into the ground. He immediately attached the end of the meter to the end of the rod and began to take a reading. “I get no’ting” he said and began checking the meter to see if it was correct. “No, I get no’ting, there’s some’ting wrong here” I walked back over to the end of the rod and yelled over to Otto to look, and said “could this be the problem” as I pulled the cut end out of the ground. “YOU SON OF A GUN” was all he said for the rest of the day. Three sticks later, at 110 feet we reached less than 5 Ohms.

Mark,
Here's one for ya, mate!.
{Probably wouldn't be as funny if you were on the recieving end of it though}
Myself and an apprentice were fitting off the Air Con unit in a new house way out in the country one day.
The Electrician that was there wasn't the nicest sort of a fella as far as manners went.
We were both told to keep a distance of 5m (15ft) from his truck at all times.
He told us to the effect of he didn't want any "low-lifes" hanging around it.
Anyway that was OK, we carried on with our work.
About an hour later, it was announced to me that the guy was leaving and seems as the Inspector had not arrived, I was told to hand the Electricians Certificate of Compliance to the Inspector when he turned up and on no account was I to let my apprentice anywhere near any of the work that he had done or the COC.
Backing out of the rather bumpy "driveway" he struck the side of my van, so I took his number plate number, as he refused to stop.
We stopped for lunch and after I'd eaten, I went for a walk around the house to see where the Outdoor Unit was going to sit.
I got half way around there and tripped up and grazed the h*ll out of my leg on a piece of metal in the long grass.
I looked at the bar and it looked familiar, it was the other half of the Ground Rod (that should have been in the ground)
The soil at this place was quite rocky and you'd have a hard job to drive a stake into it, although you could if you tried hard enough.
While I sat there and swore and rubbed my leg, I had an idea.
Simple, just lean it up against the wall next to the part of the stake in the ground, the other bit still had hacksaw marks on it, although the part in the ground had been "mushroomed" to look like it had been driven properly.
I never saw the Inspector, he hadn't turned up by the time we left.
But the first part of his Inspection would have been checking the Earth Rod.
Oh well.




[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 07-21-2005).]