How to reduce the number and length of power outages? (Philadelphia: how much, new house)

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by fisheye

The 138 kV lines cost about $2 million per mile and, I think, the 69kV lines are about one and a quarter million/mile. I do not know why your quote was so high; except they might get you for a much smaller job or it still requires all of the engineer reports of the larger jobs?

Directional drilling, flood zone, size of the job (500 ft. +/-).

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

Directional drilling, flood zone, size of the job (500 ft. +/-).

I had asked my sister about what she thought of local ordinances like Franklin Township in Adams County. She works for our local township and she wrote back:

"It would be tough to create an ordinance for tree removal/planting maintenance in the right-of-ways. Currently we have anywhere from 20’ right-of-ways to 100’ right-of ways in Pocono (Rt. 611 runs from 33’ to 100’ right of way through Pocono). It would take the state and township to set a universal standard for width and then either legal action to take more or less right of way, from the property owner. Then you have a problem with if a tree is in a power line, do you really want a property owner cutting it down?

PPL and Verizon did trim trees up until about 5 or 6 years ago. Verizon has just stopped maintaining their copper lines and PPL has backed off due to people suing them for cutting their trees.

Franklin Township has property maintenance ordinance which is a very strict set of rules for property owners. It is very difficult to enforce and puts a hardship on elderly and second home owners. One tough Zoning officer could be citing you for having your grass grow over 4” or for a planting that he/she deems a weed and not a flower. Most townships in Pennsylvania have fought against property maintenance ordinances."

So, like I originally stated: these are not easy questions. If I had a good direction or good answers; I would start bugging my local Representative (of course that does not guarantee change).

[medievalbooks]

It is a hardship on a lot of folks....but it will be much more of a hardship if the trees aren't pruned, taken down. We have to deal with this...by thanks to the OP, we checked out the info on the Franklin Township site and if we had an issue. We just moved to the area. Have to put money away since our tree is hanging over the lines. So now we have to look into finding an arborist before a storm comes along and takes the tree down. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by medievalbooks

It is a hardship on a lot of folks....but it will be much more of a hardship if the trees aren't pruned, taken down. We have to deal with this...by thanks to the OP, we checked out the info on the Franklin Township site and if we had an issue. We just moved to the area. Have to put money away since our tree is hanging over the lines. So now we have to look into finding an arborist before a storm comes along and takes the tree down. If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.

Your thanks should go to medievalbooks; they posted the ordinances for Franklin Township.

Maybe this might help? If your tree is between your house and the first utility pole and it is hanging over the electric lines; then maybe the electric company will come out and prune you trees back if requested. If they will not do that; they might be willing to cut off the electric while you have a company remove/prune the trees. PP&L in my area would prune back our trees when requested and as long as it fit in their schedule for line maintenance. Anyway; it might save you some dollars simply contacting your electric company and asking if they will prune your trees - nothing ventured; nothing gained.

Of course, if the trees are only over the cable or phone lines, you might be out of luck - but you could still try.

[2nd trick op]

Originally Posted by Bailey340

Move more power lines underground.

High-tension, long-distance power lines can't be moved underground due to leakage/loss/(grounding) issues; but it seems just about impossible to explain this to a non-technical public easily swayed by over-simplified environmentalism.

[medievalbooks]

/scratches head....


On Cape Cod, after one of the hurricanes, we had electrical lines buried along the offroad about 1000 feet from the main road. Previous to that, I was without electric except for an electrical cord that went to house in back, for a month. Their lines weren't affected. For that month, I could run one light and one appliance at once. Anything battery powered was used and it was not in the winter. Now mind you, it has been 20 years or more and the family had to pony up the costs, but it was not anywhere near a million dollars to do the job. At the time, was rather an unusual thing to do but pre hurricane the electrical lines were in a former neighbor's property that had long been abandoned and well something had to be done after the hurricane took em down.

[medievalbooks]

Originally Posted by fisheye

Your thanks should go to medievalbooks; they posted the ordinances for Franklin Township.

Maybe this might help? If your tree is between your house and the first utility pole and it is hanging over the electric lines; then maybe the electric company will come out and prune you trees back if requested. If they will not do that; they might be willing to cut off the electric while you have a company remove/prune the trees. PP&L in my area would prune back our trees when requested and as long as it fit in their schedule for line maintenance. Anyway; it might save you some dollars simply contacting your electric company and asking if they will prune your trees - nothing ventured; nothing gained.

Of course, if the trees are only over the cable or phone lines, you might be out of luck - but you could still try.

Hmmm...tis an idea. Will pass this by my husband....

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by fisheye

I had asked my sister about what she thought of local ordinances like Franklin Township in Adams County. She works for our local township and she wrote back:

"It would be tough to create an ordinance for tree removal/planting maintenance in the right-of-ways. Currently we have anywhere from 20’ right-of-ways to 100’ right-of ways in Pocono (Rt. 611 runs from 33’ to 100’ right of way through Pocono). It would take the state and township to set a universal standard for width and then either legal action to take more or less right of way, from the property owner. Then you have a problem with if a tree is in a power line, do you really want a property owner cutting it down?

PPL and Verizon did trim trees up until about 5 or 6 years ago. Verizon has just stopped maintaining their copper lines and PPL has backed off due to people suing them for cutting their trees.

Franklin Township has property maintenance ordinance which is a very strict set of rules for property owners. It is very difficult to enforce and puts a hardship on elderly and second home owners. One tough Zoning officer could be citing you for having your grass grow over 4” or for a planting that he/she deems a weed and not a flower. Most townships in Pennsylvania have fought against property maintenance ordinances."

So, like I originally stated: these are not easy questions. If I had a good direction or good answers; I would start bugging my local Representative (of course that does not guarantee change).

I'm not familiar with PA regs any longer, but don't the electric companies have an aerial easement to trim back from their lines?

Here in Maryland it's X feet from and above the lines (I want to say 15 ft. back for branches and 25 ft. above but I may be wrong). They, or rather contractors, can trim on private property back to those limits.

Trimming is one of those non-glamorous things which pisses everyone off. Trim the trees and people yell that the companies are butchers. Don't trim and they yell when the inevitable branch or tree comes down and causes an outage. The tree coming down can't be forecast usually.

[mgforshort]

We have a whole house natural gas generator. It is big enough to run our house and two neighbors with AC and heater going. The cost was $ 7500 parts and labor but the installation was a difficult job; three companies refused to do it until I found Rogers Electric.
When in auto mode, the power goes out, wait 20 seconds, Generac starts up (like a car, has battery to start) and we have lights and everything. When PG&E fixes the power outage the Generac powers itself down.
I could have gotten a gasoline powered generator for a fraction of the cost, the only disadvantage would be driving over to a gas station with a bunch of cans once a day, maybe every second day.
With the natural gas and the big Generac I don't even need to get out of the bed.
It is located in our garden shed, next to the garage, and I can't tell if it's running or not when I'm in the house. When standing next to it the sound is louder than a car though.

[fisheye]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

I'm not familiar with PA regs any longer, but don't the electric companies have an aerial easement to trim back from their lines?

Here in Maryland it's X feet from and above the lines (I want to say 15 ft. back for branches and 25 ft. above but I may be wrong). They, or rather contractors, can trim on private property back to those limits.

Trimming is one of those non-glamorous things which pisses everyone off. Trim the trees and people yell that the companies are butchers. Don't trim and they yell when the inevitable branch or tree comes down and causes an outage. The tree coming down can't be forecast usually.

I think that trimming is an impossible job; you will never keep all the people happy all the time. That said; times have changed in the last thirty or so years. We have gypsy moths, emerald ash borers, hemlock woolly adelgids, eastern tent caterpillars, acid rain, ozone and other pollutants and all of that has taken a toll on our forest. Within half a mile of my house there are currently five or six dead trees leaning against telephone and cable lines. The trees would end up on our roads if the utility lines were not stopping them. Of course neither the cable or telephone companies will do anything about the problem. And our township will not cut them down anticipating problems with the wood in the road at a later time.

What I would like to see is maybe a compromise. Many landowners do not have the funds to hire expensive tree trimmers. But wood does have a value; for firewood, lumber and for paper pulp. Most trimmed timber would not be sold for lumber; too many problems with dead and close to the road timber (metal buried in the trees). My thinking is that if we had regulations that would require the removal of all dead wood that could become a potential problem for our roads and utility lines; maybe we could give our property owners a time limit to remove the dead themselves. After the time is up then firewood companies or pulp companies could come in and remove the wood at reduced cost to the owners or maybe, even, no cost? Of course the companies would have to be bonded and insured and, hopefully, work with the landowners to choose mutually beneficial times?

Of course no solution is perfect and some companies would want to be selective which wood they would cut. Most firewood companies have no use for softwood and pine. Maybe there would not be enough profit in this trimming business to attract companies to participate?

What we are doing now is not working. Our cable companies are losing customers and our phone companies want to go wireless. Either we make them responsible for their hardlines or we have to come up with a new system. Even if we did (if we could) make them more responsible; that would still not solve all of our problems.