Tempus Fugit

Latin (tem-pu̇s-ˈfü-git): Time Flies

Tag: hydro

  • A Day in the Dark

    Hydro is upgrading the electrical service in our area and today the power is off while they replace a nearby hydro pole.

    At about 9:30am the power goes off and the process begins. They go from this…

    Getting ready to remove the old wooden pole

    … to this.

    The new fibreglass pole is in place and most wires moved over and connected

    Four houses are directly connected to this pole. Their connections were cut off and a ground crew attached extensions to these connections for re-attachment later in the day. While this was happening the person in the aerial bucket disconnected all the wires from the pole and removed all the various attachments like the transformer and cross bars.

    Once everything was disconnected from the pole it was cut into several pieces and lowered to the ground. All this happened while the boom truck was wedged between two garages.

    A different boom truck was brought in to place the new pole and a vacuum truck prepped the hole and suctioned away the debris. With the new pole carefully put in place a new transformer is attached and all the lines are re-attached. These lines are all “live” and the one at the top of the pole is the main power wire. I have no idea what the voltage is but it’s a lot. The guy is very careful to keep everything insulated and isolated during the process.

    As promised the power went back on shortly after 4pm. the house was starting to get a little cool so we’re very thankful to have everything up and running again. Quite an eye opener to realize just how dependent we are on electricity and how much we just take it for granted. There were so many times we tried to flip on a light switch or were surprises why the fridge was so dark and that we can’t warm up some lunch in the microwave. We had flashlights and of course the phones but the flashlight batteries could use a refresh as they were quite dim.

    Sunset was 4:36pm and they did continue working for a while in the twilight. An excellent job and you could tell they were really hustling towards the end to make the 4pm deadline.

    Away with the old transformer
    Insulating the top hot wire
    Wires are detached and the top of the pole is removed
    Things were quiet for a bit, lunch break.
    New machine in place to prep the hole
    The new pole is maneuvered into place
    Lines are re-attached
    New transformer is bolted in place
    Almost done

    Two days later the boom truck is back and it seems like they are re-tensioning all the bolts connecting various parts to the pole. In about an hour they are gone and the job seems complete.

  • Wired

    Right on time the electricians arrived just before 8:30am to start on the electric wiring repair where service enters the house.

    We’re about to find out how well we can cope with a short (hopefully) power outage as they replace a section of the wire between the meter and the mast.

    8:44 – power is off

    After about 30 minutes the electricians are done. Now we’re waiting for the city inspector.

    90 minutes later and the inspection arrives. After 5 minutes the inspection is done and passed. Now we’re waiting for Hydro to do the reconnect. It’s 12 noon

    So at 2:20pm there is still no hydro guy. I call and after a couple of transfers and a call back, “he will be there in 30 minutes “. House is cooling a bit but here on the sofa under a sunny window it’s pretty nice.

    3:12 and hydro is here and 3:45 the power is back!

    New wires connected to the mains

    Made a few changes around the house during our outage. We still have a land line but all of the handsets are wireless and depend on power to the base station. All except the old school phone in the basement shop. This is not super convenient. I thought the bedroom corded phone would be ok but nope, it’s plugged into the wall too! So, I replaced it with the old phone from the lake, where there is no more land line.

    The main bathroom doesn’t have any windows so it’s a little dark. I just happened to have purchased some battery operated cabinet lights, also handy in a power outage.

    Cabinet lighting
  • Electrifying

    Electrifying

    I heard a noise in the night. It was a windy night and our hydro wires are right outside the bedroom window. They usually make some noise on a windy night, but this was different.

    The next day while getting something from the shed I looked at the hydro wires and saw what was causing the noise

    Broken insulator

    The insulator (middle left) had broken which released the strain cable from the under eves bracket (top centre). Now the power wires are taking the load of the line to the pole. This didn’t seem too good so I called hydro thinking they would come out a fix it.

    Well, they came out, had a look and then informed me about this!

    Cracks in the wiring insulation

    Both the red power wires have cracks in the insulation right around the wire. It’s original wire, about 58 year old. The hydro guys said they could re-attach the cable to the bracket but there would be about a 50% chance the wire would break and/or a lot of insulation would come off. In either case they would turn off the power to the house. In fact they were only OK with leaving the power on in it’s current condition if we called an electrician today and had it repaired ASAP. Turns out the wire from the meter to the top of the mast where it connects to the hydro line is the home owners responsibility.

    Other Hydro guy good news was that our mast in not up to the current code which requires the conduit to go through the roof to a mast head above the roof as opposed to a bracket on the eves. However, we might be “grandfathered”. If we need to come up to code he estimated $3,000+, yikes!

    So I check around for a recommendation on an electrician and make the call. He seems quite good and ready to do the work. I send my contact info an some pictures and he offers to stop over tonight and have a look.

    In response to one of the pictures he says the soffit will need to come off. I ask Scott to stop by that evening and he removes the soffit for me.

    Soffit off

    While he’s here the electrician arrives and checks out the wiring. He’s already checked with the City of Winnipeg electrical inspector and I’ll be allowed to just replace the wire from the meter to the mast head, the way less expensive option. With permits and coordination the repair should get done in about a week. Hopefully, before the wires break which would be a whole new scheduling problem.