Pole saws and power lines

snowy74

Any one give me some good safety pointers on using a pole saw near insulated and non insulated power?

Eric Frei

Yeah, here's some real good advice.

Unless you hold a close approach ticket as req'd by your local law/energy company etc stay away.

for standard service drops here the regulation is 3m away unless you have an M31 close approach ticket, then it's 1m.

To work closer you will need to be certified, have insulated gear, rubber gloves on, inert saw etc.

In most cities the power company is responsible for lines to the first point of contact within the property boundary. On acreage that's usually a pole, in suburbia it's usually the eves or roof etc.

If the service wire is in contact with vegetation then that vegetation is out of bounds for you to touch, it could be live.

Service wires are not considered insulated but coated, and are treated the same as uninsulated wires.

Now the exposed wires in the street, again 3m but the distance increases as the voltage carried by the lines does.

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Apocalypsse

Get your Limits of Approach, many places do it like NMIT. Most councils/their contractors will clear the wires/services in the street but not on the property.

snowy74

Yep, limit's of approach makes it legal but it doesn,t make the pole safer. When we work out of a bucket it's nicely insulated but when we use a pole saw from the ground?? I trust myself 99% of the time.

Apocalypsse

Know your clearance limits and stick to it, feather stuff down around the lines so you dont get hangers on the line. I find myself clearing service lines most days of the week now.

dannyboysfc

This forum is not a substitute for official training and you shouldn't work around powerlines without proper training.

The answer would be verry carefully, if they are high voltage lines you should not ever make contact with them either with the pole saw or the piece you are cutting or you could die, start a fire, cause an outage, burn down the wires, destroy expensive power distribution hardware, etc... You would more than likely be held financially responsible for damage caused to the power lines or damaged property if you make a mistake.

southsoundtree

You could die because you are set on fire. your body on fire. burned from the inside out. Flames. Bad news.

You might be able to have the residential service drop (running from the transformer-typically a grey box on the pole- to your house) removed by the power company for the day, possibly for free.

armless

hi all new to this forum i know a gent who was working for a tree company contracted by an electrical company when working in north east victoria touched the power lines with pole saw blew holes in his feet where his spures where and in his butics where his clips on his harness was and threw his hands where he was holding on to the pole saw did not do any thing about it as he was woryd about what the manager would say even after his mum who was a nurse said to do somthing about it dident any how' m' found out and it was all hush hush like every thing else thats happend with in this company this manager is a cow boy and should knot be in the tree bussiness at all it shows through boys he hires .cant give names for privacy reesons thanks armless might give knames in the futer

Drouin Tree Service

All the more reason to use an EWP with an INSULATED hydraulic saw,It never ceases to amaze me when theres contractors using power pruners from EWPs when the company they are contracting to think they have the upmost saftey!

Turning a blind eye,A guy i know was working in gippsland trimming near a swer line with a power pruner and got a zap luckily not death but curled his finger nails like pork crackle.

OHAS is a minefield but the basics are most often overlooked.

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Drouin Tree Services | Excavator Hire - Drouin and SE Gippsland | Landclearing Melbourne

armless

hi lopper sorry i should of said this bloke was clyming and no i whont give names in the futer .so now you know when i say cow boys i mean cow boys.

Therrin

Wow, too much ? Learn to spell dammit
Holy Jesus I just read your first post.... that entire thing was ONE sentence! *Therrin shakes his fist in rage*

Out here I've got a number for the local power-co guys, if I call ahead of time for a certain day they'll come out early and drop the lines to a house. Then come back later when I'm finished and put them back up. No charge.

They said they'd rather come out and do it for free than have shit go sideways and have to bring out a whole crew to fix things.