Utility Pole Maintenance

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dmerrell

Member
Typically are the pole owners responsible for pole condition and maintenance?
Situation: Dense, heavy (rain & ice covered) vines climb pole and guy wires all the way up to the transformer. A technician working on that pole gets zapped and thrown from his ladder, but lived to tell about it.
Any guess how many volts the vines could carry?
 
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charlie tuna

Senior Member
Location
Florida
Re: Utility Pole Maintenance

if the resistance of the vine is low then you will have near line voltage running through the vine! i have seen sever damage to sensitive electronic equipment due to vines growing up on utility lines. it is almost like the knowledge of lightning - almost unpredictable. people have been killed by this problem. i have seen substations blown apart by vines - it like throwing a chain into a sub-station when it gets low enough resistance ---look out=wam!!!
 
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hurk27

Senior Member
Location
Portage, Indiana NEC: 2008
Re: Utility Pole Maintenance

We stay off the vine LOL
beerchug.gif
 
charlie

charlie

Senior Member
Location
Indianapolis
Re: Utility Pole Maintenance

We have a lot of fun but we do not always answer the posed question. :D
Typically are the pole owners responsible for pole condition and maintenance?
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Yes and no sometimes. How is that for an answer?

Yes, the pole owners are responsible for the pole condition and maintenance unless there is a written contract between the owner and another entity that makes the other entity responsible. A case in point is that we have a joint pole agreement with the local telephone company that spells out a joint responsibility for pole maintenance. If that vine or tree were to be trimmed by the telephone company, we would be required to pay 1/2 of the costs for trimming or removal since we would get benefit from the work.

The situation described sounds very dangerous. However, the pole owner would not be held liable unless he knew about the situation. We do not go around looking for vines but if someone were to report that type situation, we would fix it. :D
 
charlie

charlie

Senior Member
Location
Indianapolis
Re: Utility Pole Maintenance

We use Osmose for checking our poles and they do pole reinforcement but we change out our own poles (I do not think Osmose does that type of work). :D
 
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