Add a lug - live or dead...

[Cow]

I would say you are escaping the fact you came here asking for opinions and you are getting them.

To me the obvious solution is turn it off further up stream no mater how much trouble that may be.

I agree. A building that size should have it's own transformer, so I don't understand why you can't have the POCO kill the power to it?

 

[tkb]

OK, let's forget any mention of live work, politics of being self-employed and your mom jokes. (which is not an invitation for your mom or her jokes)

The method of shutting this off, is that 50 year old switch. Would you just walk up and pull that handle?

About 5-6 years ago, I was called to a job in CT to connect generators for the POCO during an outage that they were having.
One building was a 22 story hi-rise residential building with seniors and hookers.

We had to make the connections of the temp cables in two 4000 amp main switches.

I think that were GE switches.
There was a long handle and a little window that would show red or green to indicate the position.

When we operated the switches they made the sound like they switched and the color changed, but we didn't see any of the fingers move. We tried them a couple of times
We found that the grease on all of the moving parts turned to varnish. There were globs of hardened green grease on the moving parts and nothing would move so the switches wouldn't open.

We had to remove all of the main fuses. What a PITA, there were 8 bolts per fuse and we had to remove 6 fuses while everyone was waiting for power.

We notified the FD and the EI of the problem with the main switches and they contacted the owner of the building.

It was a fun scene when the owner arrived and was confronted by the FD and EI.
The owner swore up and down that they test the switches "all the time".
He kept saying that he paid his bill, in very broken engilsh.

From what I saw, those switches haven't moved in 30 years.

I disconnected the generators when the POCO was ready and reinstalled the fuses so they could re-energize the buildings.

I left the problem with the EI, FD and owner to work out.

 

[PEDRO ESCOVILLA]

go cold, you'll live longer. there's no reason to try to an install like you describe hot. one wrong move and you're dust, forget toast. OSHA does require it be shut of. so does common sense

 

[petersonra]

There is not really a "good" answer to this problem.

You start fiddling around in there and cause an arc flash and even if you come out alive, how long will it take to get the power back on for the building when they have to do extensive repairs or equipment replacement. And who is going to pay for the equipment that failed as the direct result of the work you tried to do?

 

[hillbilly1]

There is not really a "good" answer to this problem.

You start fiddling around in there and cause an arc flash and even if you come out alive, how long will it take to get the power back on for the building when they have to do extensive repairs or equipment replacement. And who is going to pay for the equipment that failed as the direct result of the work you tried to do?

I don't think there is a court in the nation that will find against you by following OSHA guidelines, if the switch fails, it will all be on the owner for not maintaining the equipment.

 

[hillbilly1]

There is not really a "good" answer to this problem.

You start fiddling around in there and cause an arc flash and even if you come out alive, how long will it take to get the power back on for the building when they have to do extensive repairs or equipment replacement. And who is going to pay for the equipment that failed as the direct result of the work you tried to do?

Sorry, re-read your post, are you meaning if he did it live?

 

[JoshL]

OK, let's forget any mention of live work, politics of being self-employed and your mom jokes. (which is not an invitation for your mom or her jokes)

The method of shutting this off, is that 50 year old switch. Would you just walk up and pull that handle?

Knowing that it is a Pringle switch, I would not shut off the switch without a plan to replace or perform maintenance on the switch during the shutdown as others have suggested. If working on the switch, you have to shut off the source anyway, so I would shut off the source, replace or maintain the switch, and add the lug at that time. That way you don't have to worry about operating a 50 year old switch while it is live.

My experience with certain Pringle switches is that without frequent maintenance, you have low odds that you will be able to get the switch to open fully and close fully. I have only seen one fail to open, but I have seen many fail to close fully and then you are really stuck in a tough spot.

The idea of shutting off the souce to avoid operating the switch is safer, but I wouldn't like shutting off the source to avoid operating the switch because I don't feel it is safe, then not fixing anything with the switch to make it safer. Also, if it has ground fault protection, I wouldn't feel good about leaving a switch where I felt it might not open in a ground fault. That is why I feel that the switch must be maintained or replaced no matter what at this point.

 

[cowboyjwc]

All it would take is the slip of a wrench or the dropping of a bolt to make a quick fix a bad idea.

My other concern would be with equipment that old is after you turn it all off is it all going to come back on?

Two weeks ago had a contractor add a meter socket and breaker to a panel. Had the poco shut it down. Work was finished, POCO reenergized and the house meter blew right off. No idea why, it had been there for 30+ years, but went boom all the same.

 

[petersonra]

Sorry, re-read your post, are you meaning if he did it live?

yes.