YIKES!

I'd assume just dumb luck :P

It also appears as if the tree limbs are surrounding the transformer..

I love the view, I'll take it!

Who in their right mind would construct a house that close to an HV line and transformer?.
I'm guessing that the lines were there before the house was and any architect with any brains and a measuring tape, would have known that his design would have taken that side of his "creation" well within the safe distance from this equipment, even before the slab was poured.
One other thing that springs to mind is, how is a line crew supposed to get a bucket between the house and the transformer safely, to do any work on it?.
IMO, that tree needs a haircut for a start.

Where the H is the inspector? Surely he/she should have red tagged this.

[This message has been edited by Gus99 (edited 12-18-2006).]

This looks like the exact same setup as one a town over from me. Spring of 2006 poor siding worker got his AL ladder a little too close. The neighbor across the street said she saw a blue flash the size of a volkswagon and the guy at the ladder dropped to the ground. He died. I have been wanting to get pictures. They spliced the lines back together so even now with the butt-spice you can piece together what happened.

Yes, that tree needs trimming! As I said, I have no idea how the carpenters did this side of the house. There is a driveway on the other side of the wires, so the POCO can get equipment to it.

My guess would be that the walls were framed with sheathing intact on the floor and lifted into place from the INSIDE. Maybe the windows were placed that way as well.

Gotta love old BG&E. Their union contract doesn't cover tree trimming ("Hey, that's the tree trimmer's job"). Any tree trimmer that touched that would be a fool. Maybe that's why it's the way it is; nobody wants to be responsible for it.

Jps1006:
Something like that happened some years ago not far from here I was told (Stratford Ont) where some siding guys pushed a scafhold into a 27.6 Kv line. Was told the fault current through the 2 workers was around the 90,000A mark, and was also told that an automatic circuit breaker / automatic re-closer DID trip but tried to reset a couple of times as its designed to do and kept belting the 2 workers that were still in contact with the scaffhold and ground.
It was the same deal with the building being built too close to an existing O/H line.

A.D

In picture two: There are the two dead-end bells and then there's a jumper to... something... before it goes to the transformer. What is that? It looks like a lightning arrestor, but I don't see any ground wire.

-John

Do you mean the thing on the left side of the pole above the xfrmr? I can't remember the technical name but that is the disconect. You can't see it from this angle, but there is a place to hook on a hotstick to open it.

It's a fused cutout, usually shortened to cutout, and sometimes has been given different names like switch, but it's more than a switch. There is a lightning arrester there somewhere.

Ichabod

That's definitely too close for my liking.


A similar thing happened in the village where I was living in the early/mid 1980s. Two idiots tried to balance on the top of a ladder in a tree and lift about 20 ft. of steel mast with 18 ft. of vertical antenna down in one piece, working above their heads. The whole lot went crashing down onto 11kV lines in the adjacent field. Apparently a breaker did trip, but then went through its automatic reclose routine two or three times before locking out.

Aha, thanks for the answers. I was wondering how it could be a cut-out without a place to attach a hot-stick.

If that's an expulsion-type fuse, anyone standing at that window would get one heck of a show during an overload.

-John

Actually, there is a good possibility they'd get more than that. Expulsion cutouts open with a violent bang that could shatter that window!!

Thankfully the OP mentions that the whole set-up is being relocated.

Here at my own palatial dump, I have a 15 or 25 kva CSP pot mounted about 15 feet horizontally from my bedroom window. I guess I should be thankful that its primary is "only" 4kv.

Oh, for those who don't know, CSP means "Completely Self-Protected", in other words the fuse cutout, lightning arrestor and a secondary breaker are all internally mounted in the pot.

mxslick: I believe I have seen one of those CSP transformers around here, but they are getting rare. The one I saw had an external arrester but no cutout, although there was some form of switch handle on the side of the transformer itself, and as bizarre as it sounds, there was a red indicator light that was on all the time as well. Not sure if it had a secondary breaker either I only saw one switch handle mounted on the trans.

A.D

If someone made me guess, I'd say that would be to indicate whether the cutout had opened, otherwise there wouldn't be any visual indication.

-John

Rewired:

Oops, I did goof in my first post, for the record, any lightning arrestor will be external, not internal.


The red light is supposed to be a warning indicator, that the trans is operating on overload and the internal secondary breaker will trip at any time.

The external handle serves two purposes: It allows linemen to reset the internal breaker, and it can also be used to "temporarily" set the trip point some 150% higher. Guess how long "temporary" is and what happens next?

Big John:

Nope, the light doesn't indicate the status of the cutout, which is on the primary side. One of the reasons the linemen I have talked to hate the CSP's is because when that primary cutout opens, first there is no positive indication (other than an overall low voltage issue on the secondary lateral) and it can only be replaced in a transformer shop. So down goes the pot, and a new one goes up in its place. (Almost always a conventional style like in the pics above, with a new external cutout installed.)

Another reason the guys hate CSP's is because there have been failures that for some reason trip the secondary breaker, then when they try to reset it the pot explodes!!

Makes the job more interesting, eh? {sarcasm}

[This message has been edited by mxslick (edited 12-24-2006).]

Probably cause someone used common neutrals in the neighborhood.

ROFL!!!

A house in the neighborhood I lived in several years ago had a second story addition built and a stucco chimney extended up above the roof line, about 30 feet. The sideyards were 5 feet wide each and had an overhead power easement down the center.

I don't know why no one caught this, but the stucco crew erected their scaffold and started rolling out mesh-3 feet from the primary line. I don't think these guys comprehended the danger they were in, and they lucked out that the cutout opened after a metal corner bead fell across the line adn grounded out to the scaffold. The guys were all standing on the wood planks, fortunately. PG&E wasn't happy. Ended up costing the HO 20k to raise the poles.

Now, what's up with those porch columns?

"Now, whats up with those porch columns?"
What exactly are you asking?

Seems they should line up vertically. It also appears they are just supporting the balconys as temp posts and not secured. It won't take too much to kick the top one out if it gets jarred.

I noticed that myself, once you pointed it out! (can't tell you how many times I walked in those garage doors and never noticed). I meant to ask the builder when he got back from Xmas vacation, but I forgot. I will on Tuesday.

I wonder if you can hold a F40T12 out the window and it'll glow...

Come on over, I'm not sticking anything out that window!

Yeah... I don't really blame you

Tell me this is just photoshop?!

No photoshop-don't even have it. What you see is the actual deal. It is being relocated. I made sure the inspector saw this when we walked thru, and he was calling the POCO before he left the job.