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Power lines

Started by Madman_Mark, April 07, 2010, 09:43:29 PM

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Madman_Mark

How do you tell which line is the high voltage line running to a house, or the most dangerous one etc... ? Im not doing any cutting anywhere near any lines but Im just wondering, thanks.

chet

BE safe,  ;)  They are best considered all hot and dangerous.
I am a true TREE HUGGER, if I didnt I would fall out!  chet the RETIRED arborist

chevytaHOE5674

Quote from: Chet on April 07, 2010, 09:54:32 PM
BE safe,  ;)  They are best considered all hot and dangerous.

This man speaks the truth.

Gary_C

Generally the highest wires are hot and they can be over 4000 volts. When you see three wires on a crossbar, that is the three hot phase conductors and the ground or neutral is the single wire below.

You do not want to see how much damage those feeder voltages can do. I once saw where it instantly melted all the tires on a dump truck. But that one was 33,000 volts.   ::)
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

PineNut

Don't remember where I read it but several years ago one power company was having trouble with people cutting off the lower line for the copper. (We had copper lines by our house until Katrina took them down.) The power company changed the hot line to the lower one. Seems that ended the copper loss. So the lower line may not be the ground or neutral. I have also noted that some transmission lines do have a ground wire above the hot wires.

sawbob011

tops typically hot but if your close enogh to be messing with the bottom line you are close enough to get hit by the arc from a hot line as I understand it. As I recall the 4000 volts in one of those lines can arc out some 10 feet in the right conditions so you can get zapped without even touching it.
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Ron Wenrich

4K is a low level line.  Lots of them are a lot hotter than that, even single phase lines.  If I recall, 12K is more prevalent in your heavier populated areas.

The number of layers on the insulators tell you how hot the lines are.  The high power lines running in my field are 350K.  They snap and crackle when it snows. 
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

pineywoods

ANY of them will kill you. Be cautious. Had a case here recently of a copper thief who threw a chain with hook over a 4800 volt line. He lived to see another day, but will never be normal.
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stumpy

I used to be a lineman, and we were always told that more people are killed with house current(120v/240v) than any others.  My point is, treat all wires, regardless of their location as "hot" and dangerous.  Also, as far as I know, all power lines in the U.S. are constructed with the highest voltage at the top.  On Transmission lines, there is a wire at the top that is not a neutral.  It is a static wire.  It's grounded and is used to dissipate the static electricity that emanates from the high voltage wires. When we worked transmission lines, it was better to do it on a damp day.  That way the static charge tended to "burn" off in the air.  Thus the "crackle".  On dry days, it just kept building and if you touched the tower with bare skin, you could get a pretty good "rap"
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pappy19

A logger and good friend of mine was killed years ago in McCall, Idaho when he pulled up on a side road next to a convenience store to get some grub. Just before getting out of his self-loader, he heard hissing and thought one of his tires was going flat. When he jumped out he was zapped. His self-loader was touching the overhead power line and he didn't notice it. When he jumped off it grounded on him. He was dead almost immediately. Watch your overhead and don't jump off without looking.
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ely

the guys are right so far , mostly. main thing is treat them all hot. stay away from them. there is so many different configurations within any different power grid they are too numerous to mention here. makes no difference where the nuetral wire is, top or bottom, even it can carry enough current at any given time to kill you.

submarinesailor

Ely,

I know what you mean.  While I was working as a construction and later as a controls electrician, I got hit twice be a "back feed" neutrals.  Both times it was 277 lighting than had been wired wrong be some counterparts.  After thing I always check the neutral to see if it's hot or not.  Also I got grabbed by 480 on my first boat.  I think it would have killed me if I wasn't a young man back than.  That one hurt me.  Actually, all 3 times hurt me, but that one was something else.

Bruce

easymoney

even inside buildings you never know when some so called electrician has got wires wrong. i was installing a sound system in a courthouse in a small southern town. everything was going ok untill i was stringing some speaker wires and i touched one of those old metal radiators while stripping a speaker wire. i got quite a jolt. i discovered someone had hooked the third wire on a wall plug to the hot side of the line rather than to ground. :o that made the chassis of the amplifirer hot.

Fla._Deadheader


We changed over from Delta (phase to phase) to Wye (Phase to ground), way back in the 60's-70's.

  I would imagine most if not all systems have now been changed over.

  WYE systems go from Phase to ground to operate. This is the Primary lines, NOT the house lines.

  IF that NEUTRAL (ground) wire is broken, it WILL have the same voltage-amperage as the top wires on the poles or towers. Typical systems are 7200-12,500 Volts, and UP.

  Jumping out of a vehicle is Ok, IF you do NOT touch the vehicle while touching the ground. Think Bird on a wire.  ::)

  There were a few incidents of guys burned or killed in the company I worked for, so, I quit that line of work, and went on my own.
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   First, it is ridiculed;
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   Third, it is accepted as self-evident.

-- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

bushhog920

i,m with the vol fire dept see lots of trees on power lines, we saw the sap boil in one on a line.

bill m

If you must jump out of a vehicle with wires on it jump as far as possible and when you walk away do not pick up your feet shuffle them so you avoid a step potential shock.
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Magicman

We had a problem several years ago with folks climbing up and cutting the copper neutral down.  One night a guy climbed a pole and attempted to cut the "bottom" wire......except the neutral had already been stolen.....fried.... >:(

His family sued the power company for not having a neutral.  ::)   The judge threw the case out.
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