Tree World - View Single Post - Supreme court action to stop line clearance

TreeSpecialist · 27th March 2008, 07:47 AM

George is right.

Undergrounding utilities seems to be a good answer, but it isn't.

I sat on a tree commission studying this very topic about 1 year ago.

Undergrounding utilities :
1) Cost 300 times as much as aerial wires
2) never pays for itself over its lifetime (50 years or so)
3) would cost each homeowner $5 - 7,000 dollars to connect up to it
4) would cut most of the roots of the trees it was meant to save necessitating their ultimate removal.
5) are extremely difficult to trouble shoot when a circuit goes down.

The cost to replace the aerial electrical service in Austin Texas last year was estimated to cost $3 billion and would take the better part of 25 years (and time alone would drive up the cost to even more.)

27th March 2008, 07:47 AM	#14 (permalink)
TreeSpecialist Semi-mature vigorous tree Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: Austin, Texas Posts: 158	Re: Supreme court action to stop line clearance George is right. Undergrounding utilities seems to be a good answer, but it isn't. I sat on a tree commission studying this very topic about 1 year ago. Undergrounding utilities : 1) Cost 300 times as much as aerial wires 2) never pays for itself over its lifetime (50 years or so) 3) would cost each homeowner $5 - 7,000 dollars to connect up to it 4) would cut most of the roots of the trees it was meant to save necessitating their ultimate removal. 5) are extremely difficult to trouble shoot when a circuit goes down. The cost to replace the aerial electrical service in Austin Texas last year was estimated to cost $3 billion and would take the better part of 25 years (and time alone would drive up the cost to even more.)