Good morning!!!!

[jbrumberg]

Are you going to get hammered? Or just pleasantly pissed.:drink:

I do not do "hammered" well anymore I now lean towards pleasantly "happy."

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I do not do "hammered" well anymore I now lean towards pleasantly "happy."

In situations like those you described, Jay, I prefer comfortably numb. Bourbon @ 3 fingers per x 2 usually does it...:drink:

 

[RedNeckGeek]

First repairman from the utility showed up about 10AM, only 2 1/2 hours after I phoned in the outage. He'd already looked at the pole and transformer and found two blown fuses. Said he couldn't understand what would cause that, and I came clean with the digging and the bare spots on the wire. He starts to climb down in the trench and I move to turn off and unplug the generator, then clarify for him what that line does an how I've been backfeeding the subpanel in the garage with the generator output. Came clean about not using a transfer switch, got a little lecture, which led me to confess my sin and plead for mercy, being as when the Safety Shutoffs started I couldn't get an electrician to install one, and was within a couple weeks of replacing it with a whole new inverter based solar system. That settled him right down; I think he appreciated that I leveled with him and wasn't trying to hide anything. That kind of behavior gets people killed. We had a pleasant time from there. He trimmed back the cracked conduit, showing me a cool trick for cutting it with string, then he wrapped the torn insulation with electrical tape to get me by. Another crew is supposed to show up this afternoon with a new transformer, and before he left I had the name of a metal building manufacturer not far from here where he got his 40'x60' barn. Really nice guy, as have been all the PG&E people I've worked with. Now maybe with a new board and CEO the company can get its head out of the dark place it's been and start taking care of business.

My take away is to kill the main breaker so the buried line isn't hot while I'm digging. That way even if I crack the conduit and scrape a wire again, I can make the same repair and still be able to have grid power. That transformer has been making noise since I bought this place, so that'll hopefully end up better, too. I was told there would be no charge, but then again the next crew may have a different idea about that...

In the first hour after resuming the dig, more than half what came out of the trench was large ottoman sized rocks. and now the top of the trench is 3' over my head, enough that I don't really feel comfortable going into it anymore.:shocked:

 

[sodamo]

RNG, glad to hear repair went well.
I can’t imagine getting in any trench that deep. Be careful.

 

[sodamo]

RNG your story reminds me of an incident of my own back a few years ago. I had lost my catchment tanks due to a combination of insufficient fill and significant rain fall that caused the tanks to float up, busting their connections, necessitating relocation.
I had prepared the new pad area and thinking I might want to shore the back banking a bit with some roofing tin I proceeded to pound in some steel fence posts. Of course there would be a rock here and there. One post proven particularly stubborn so I just redoubled my efforts with the post pounder, finally breaking thru. Wasn’t many minutes later wife went to house and yelled back there wasn’t any power. A quick check showed my inverters all off - I remembered the conduit run to the house, but thought I was far enough away. Sure enough, I had driven the post thru the conduit and 2 conductors, shorting out system. Unfortunately it didn’t just trigger the breaker but took out the inverter. This was about half distance between house and utility shed. Was quite a challenge to get enough slack to splice damaged conductors, then repair the PVC conduit. Ended up replacing the inverter. As each section of house was on own subpanel and I only damaged the run to spare bedrooms life wasn’t interrupted during repair.

 

[Bird]

RNG, glad to hear repair went well.
I can’t imagine getting in any trench that deep. Be careful.

Yep, as David said. We'd hate to lose you.

 

[Thomas]

64F high thin clouds.

5 miles down the road elevation 510 ft and dandy lions are popping up and sounds lawns mowers,here 1310ft mostly brown no signs tree buds popping.
Got lot more done today and I thought for even clean the inside pickup and gave new burn barrel good try out.
While outside working heard loud crack than crash large pine tree finally fell across neighbor driveway which been dead couple plus years with bad lean...what nasty mess and flatten mailbox.
Time fire off bbq for my kind of cheese buggers. :licking:

Enjoy the evening all.

 

[jbrumberg]

In situations like those you described, Jay, I prefer comfortably numb. Bourbon @ 3 fingers per x 2 usually does it...:drink:

The perfect % and dosing.

BTW: Your learning "on the fly" both on the ground and in the air is pretty impressive. I am not worrying about the "in the air" escapades along the learning curve of debris fields/fly-aways. Be careful on the "terra firma."

 

[RoyJackson]

I do not do "hammered" well anymore I now lean towards pleasantly "happy."

I always try to maintain the "pleasantly happy", but occasionally (rarely), I take one sip too many...
And both my wife and stepdaughter let me know all the details the next day...

 

[RoyJackson]

…and now the top of the trench is 3' over my head, enough that I don't really feel comfortable going into it anymore.:shocked:

Before I went in the Navy, I worked as a plumber's helper/apprentice. I liked the job, but working in trenches really sucked...especially after a rain. Most were, BTW, well over my head.
Although safety requires shoring the side walls, that didn't happen often. It is imperative you always...without fail...have someone on the ground who can both dig you out and call for help.