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Hi everyone. Do houses with above ground wires for pseg have more outages and issues than below ground? I would think it would but thinking about winter specifically and how the above ground wires pull through some of those snowy days. Thinking of buying a house that has the wires across the (narrow) street. Also, anyone know of a particular dept within pseg to call to find out the history of a particular street's issues. Thanks!
Above or below, they are eventually served by an above ground grid. Really has more to do with aesthetics than service reliability. Maybe underground is a bit better but not a reason to factor in buying a house.
we rarely go down in most of our areas with under ground services even in storms like sandy . it is not the big transmission lines that are a problem . usually it is the local poles and exposed transformers. we have a few underground transformer explosions every now and then as the road salt eats things .
but it is so rare we have power outages .i can count the number of times on one hand in 40 years .
Are there even any areas on LI that have buried lines from pole to house? Just curious.
As for outages I think, as mathjak said, most problems originate away from the house locations anyhow. I've lived in houses where the wires from the pole to our house went through huge trees and the streets were tree-lined, and had outages MAYBE two or three times a year for brief periods (not counting Sandy, Gloria, etc of course.) The area I'm in now has zero trees from pole to house and few on the streets, yet I have "nuisance outages" here (anywhere from two to twenty minutes) once or twice a month for no apparent reason.
What blew my mind the last time I was house hunting was the number of neighborhoods that had the poles running along the back of the property lines rather than the street. Didn't like that at all, and that was the first time I'd encountered them. The lines were still overhead to the house, too. I guess the rationale was that the streets would be more attractive but I'd think most people spend more time in their backyards than front yards and so why make those areas uglier with utility poles? Makes no sense IMHO. Not to mention repair crews needing access etc.
There's no solid evidence one way or another that above/underground lines prove more/less outages and in any way should prevent you from buying a home...unless your concern is based solely on aesthetics.
Some homes can have some crazy wires either cutting across their property, or actually coming into the actual house at weird positions.
The other problem with overhead wires are the neighbors who are "master gardeners" (in their minds). I had a neighbors tree fall on my fence during Sandy because she argued with Bartlett Tree service on which branches to remove. She refused to allow them to cut several branches one of which fell on my fence. As she was the customer they left it against their suggested branches to remove.
In the past I saw people directing the Asplund crews on which branches to leave and which ones they can cut. Then when the power would go out they complained.
*sigh* And yet another nuisance outage today. As I was on the computer at 11 a.m. *WHOMP* the house power goes out. Texted "OUT" to the PSEG number and got a return text saying "Your location is part of a known outage for safe repairs. Estimated power restoration time is 1:00 pm" Yeah, well, just great. Luckily the power came back on in a half hour but still.
This was the third short term outage this month. The other two happened overnight so I don't know how long those lasted but I can always tell it happened: I have two air purifiers that switch to a different color (default) display if their power is turned off while operating and then comes back on.
Hi everyone. Do houses with above ground wires for pseg have more outages and issues than below ground? I would think it would but thinking about winter specifically and how the above ground wires pull through some of those snowy days. Thinking of buying a house that has the wires across the (narrow) street. Also, anyone know of a particular dept within pseg to call to find out the history of a particular street's issues. Thanks!
Yes of course. Icy rain, wind, trees, heavy snow can all take down small power lines on the street as well as the occasional vehicle crash. Anyone who has lived with both systems can attest that power outages, even flickering power, is much less common with underground systems. Plus you don't get ugly misshaped clumsy CONEd/PSEG-trimmed trees away from power lines or streets entirely missing trees down one side due to the power lines.
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