A Day With A Lineman #35 ~ A Quick Transformer Change Out

A little snow, a little wind, icy roads, what a perfect time to change out a transformer. Oh ya and it’s 15 degrees Fahrenheit, which makes it real pleasant. The old transformer was perfectly fine but this customer must have been adding load to their service for sometime. Adding load to a service would be like an air conditioner, bigger heater, more lights, anything that consumes electricity. You see the night before this customer’s power was out and when we got called to go there again, we new something was wrong. Our engineer looked into his power consumption and was blown away!! He was using way more electricity than the old transformer can handle. His transformer had been up their for probably 15 years. When a transformer is overloaded it blows the fuse to protect the it. If not fused it would just keep pumping out more amps of current until it explodes or burns the service wire down. So boss man made the call to get a couple of us out there to upgrade this transformer so it doesn’t happen again. The proper size transformer for the amount of power consumption was double the size of the one currently being used. We were pretty sure this guy was growing some crops in his house… if you know what I mean…

We met at the shop and loaded up a new 50 KVA (kilovolt-Amps) transformer to replace the 25 KVA. We had a little discussion about how nasty and slick the roads were and reminded each other to take it easy on the way out. No sense on putting a truck in the ditch just to save a few minutes. Then we hit the icy roads to change out that undersized transformer.

It wasn’t the big puffy flakes of snow falling from the sky, just really fine snow due to the temperature. Earlier in the day it warmed up enough to make the roads wet. Then things froze and it began to snow again. Snow covered icy roads… sounds like fun, let’s go drive a 17,000 pound bucket truck and 35,000 pound Line Truck… slow and easy, slow and easy

I was traveling about 35mph and the Lineman driving the Line Truck was going 25mph. I bet his hands had a death grip on the wheel because a few months back he had an accident. His bucket truck hit a patch of ice and kicked him sideways on the road while going 30mph down a slight grade. His bucket truck went across the oncoming lane, rode up the dirt bank on the side of the road, came to almost a complete stop, then flopped the bucket truck over on its side. So ya, he is a little gun shy to say the least.

While the Line Truck made its way out to the customers house, we got setup and took the old transformer off line. Disconnected all the wires, and loosened the bottom bolt so when the Line Truck got there we were ready to take this transformer off the pole.

A few minutes after getting the transformer ready to be removed the Line Truck showed up. We got it set up, covered the energized conductor, and carefully guided the boom tip over the transformer.

Rigged the Line Truck up to the transformer, put a little tension on the winch line, then removed the top bolt. The old transformer was ready to be brought down and loaded on the truck.

After a few minutes of wiring up the new transformer, adding a lightning arrestor, and bird guard, it was ready to be flown up into place.

Boom up..
Boom Down…
Sting In…
Sting Out…
Winch Up…
Winch Down…
All off…

Just like that the new transformer was in place and all we needed to do was reconnect the service wires, ground wires, and upgrade to fuse size to match the size of the new bigger transformer.

When you have changed out a bajillion transformers in you career, this is basic simple stuff. Back when I was working in California we would have crazy lightning storms that would knock out hundreds of transformers. Working through the night our crew would change out 20 or more transformers… that’s just in one night. I couldn’t even estimate how many transformers I have installed, removed, or changed out in my 18 year career as a Lineman.

We made quick work of this job. From the time I got called at my house to the time I got back home was 3-1/2 hours. It took us about 40 minutes to get to the customers house due to the weather. I got home around midnight and my nice warm bed was calling my name. I’m really hoping no more calls come in because it is frikken freezing out there!! LOL

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