I wonder what that cost

[orezok]

About 5:30 Friday afternoon, my power goes out. It happens from time to time, but usually never lasts more than an hour or 2 so I ignore it and figure SCE will have it back up shortly. The Generac kicked in and all was well when I went to bed. Generator ran all night (very unusual) and in the morning I called SCE and reported outage. When I looked outside at 5:00 all my neighbors had power. Hmmm…

Somehow SCE knew that my power was out and had sent someone out to investigate. Maybe the smart meter is smarter than I think.

I go to my CCTV, and see that a service truck is at the house at 1:00 AM, opened the transformer and left after about 20 minutes.

I call SCE to see what the back in service will be several times and finally get a real person who states “up by noon”. Noon comes and goes and no service. Call again and was told up between 3 and 6. Six PM passes and no service. Called again and was told, workers are on the way and they don’t know ETA. Well generator is purring along so no big issue other than it’s eating $3.00 propane and solar is also down.

Crew finally shows up just before 8:00 with a service truck, a bucket truck and 5 workers. I talk to them and they tell me that that were dispatched from Bishop in northern CA, a 5 hour drive from my house. I don’t know if some local crews were sent east for hurricane repair or what.

They state that some component failed on the pole that services my property and it will take 4 to 5 hours to repair. Power came back on about 11:00 so they exceeded their estimate. I’ll bet thet were enjoying the overtime!

They have another 5 hour trip back home today. I wonder what that cost SCE?

 

[EddieWalker]

The last time I lost power, the guys who showed up to fix it where out of Mississippi. I'm in East Texas.

Somehow the metal rod that holds the hot wire at the top of my power pole had gone bad. It took about ten minutes to remove it, and install a new one. I have no idea how long they spent going from pole to pole to figure that out..

 

[ponytug]

@orezok I'm glad that things are back on track for you.

We've had a few 1-2 customer outages, so I tend to call in the outages, just in case (line fuses and transformers, and insulators). The smart meters do get polled every few minutes, but it can take awhile for the the information to get over to the outage group in PG&E land. SCE is better and worse than PG&E in my experience.

@EddieWalker Crews have a gizmo that can pulse loads onto a line and measure the time delay to the issue, and get a read out in feet to the problem. The Telco version is a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer), but I don't know if that is what the electrical version is called. We've had both of them used here more than a few times... Also works for cable, and something similar for fiber optic lines. Yes, I think that it saves a great deal of time for crews. I remember trying to find line faults before the equipment was widespread/existed. Pick a point half way along the line, check, then check half way from there on the direction towards the fault, check the half with fault half way, check, check, check. Slow and painful.

All the best,

Peter

 

[oosik]

Last month we had two outages - VERY unusual. The co-op utility service guys came in to check my line and service during both outages.

It was a heavy equipment operator who had knocked down a power pole at a construction site. Same operator - same heavy equipment - both times. Appears he got better training or now a new operator on this equipment.

Both outages - last month - were within three days of each other.

First outage - four hours. Second outage - two hours.

Practice, practice..................

 

[bigtiller]

I was the only one to loose power last week. The power guys found a dead squirrel at the base of the pole.

This 22 inch piece of plastic should stop the next one.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

I was the only one to loose power last week.

Oh no, you weren't.

Loud boom on Wednesday, then the generators came on. Never did ask why we had no power and the neighbors did.

 

[oosik]

I know there are squirrels out here. I've seen two pine squirrels in the 42 years out here. The chipmunk population makes up for the lack of squirrels. I've never seen a CM up a power pole. Must be a good reason.

However - the various types of wood peckers have no fear of the power poles. Up on top - they peck away. You can hear the pecking from a quarter mile away. Perhaps - defining their home range.

 

[Dftodd]

The last time I lost power, the guys who showed up to fix it where out of Mississippi. I'm in East Texas.

Somehow the metal rod that holds the hot wire at the top of my power pole had gone bad. It took about ten minutes to remove it, and install a new one. I have no idea how long they spent going from pole to pole to figure that out..

We have a lot of sub contractors working for entergy running around our area.

So I wonder if you experienced similar and why the repair crew was from Mississippi.

 

[Dftodd]

I know there are squirrels out here. I've seen two pine squirrels in the 42 years out here. The chipmunk population makes up for the lack of squirrels. I've never seen a CM up a power pole. Must be a good reason.

However - the various types of wood peckers have no fear of the power poles. Up on top - they peck away. You can hear the pecking from a quarter mile away. Perhaps - defining their home range.

Squirrels offing themselves by shorting out transformers and sub stations is a common occurance around our area.

I haven't seen a chipmunk around here.

Lots and lots of squirrels and flying squirrels though.

 

[ponytug]

Squirrels offing themselves by shorting out transformers and sub stations is a common occurance around our area.

I haven't seen a chipmunk around here.

Lots and lots of squirrels and flying squirrels though.

Here, too. Two squirrels once took out the county's largest employer (23,000+) by shorting out the transfer switch between the grid and the site's cogen power plant, leaving everything dark. There happened to be a replacement switch on the East coast, otherwise 120-180 day lead time for replacement. It still took close to a week to get the replacement from the East coast to the West coast and in place. As far as I can tell, there isn't much inventory of larger electrical equipment anywhere.

Speaking of "Booms". My then to be wife and I were walking out of a local bakery, ordering a wedding cake, and walked under some power lines.
"BANG!" followed by a slightly charred seagull landing at our feet. Scared the living daylights out of both of us.

I have since seen triangular additions to crossbars to keep birds from getting too close.

What does this triangle do?

This photograph shows an electrical power distribution line in beautiful Summit County, Colorado, at an altitude of about 9100 feet above sea level. The first reader to post a comment correctly ex…

blog.oppedahl.com

Stay safe out there.

All the best,

Peter