RoxtarRyan: If you're in an area where you are prone to many long-lasting outages, sure, I recommend it, but for getting it as a "just in case" thing, it might not be worth the money to get it and get it installed and maintained.

If you're going to have a large propane tank and more than 4kW of generator power installed, you might as well just go off grid.

Which makes me believe PEPCO has taken political measures to make this illegal, or at least excessively costly -- like a steep annual inspection fee. Being a monopoly isn't a lick of good unless you're running a racket.

I'm glad we had the government take over and regulate electricity.

I'm sure we won't have any problems like this with health care!

yeah nobody should ever complain because one time someone somewhere went without power for a long time, so that invalidates all your complaints.

Walker: To add insult to injury PEPCO then told him to get a lawyer if he didn't like their response. Worst. Electric Company. EVER!

Ameren has them beat. I promise. Farking price-gouging assclowns.

I do like underground power lines. Got power back about 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina came through and 36 hours after Hurricane Wilma came through. With memories of having no power for 8 weeks after Hurricane Andrew (and no cable TV service for 6 months).

Ima_Lurker: vernonFL: A lot of the outages are because of things like this:

[t1.gstatic.com image 275x183]

This is not an easy fix.

It would be if they cleared the trees from around the power lines. Not unusual around here to see the trees growing through the power lines.

/or is it the power lines going through the trees?

Yes - clear all trees within 100` of any suspended powerline. That'll do the trick.

/have you really thought your plan through?

FishyFred: I bought an ice cream cake yesterday to celebrate the emptying of the freezer and the return of electricity.

My power just went out again.

Death to Pepco.

Forgive me. I had to laugh.

Rerouting existing power lines underground would be ridiculously expensive. In an average neighborhood I would guess between $10,000-$20,000 per house.

Trenches need to be dug so the cable can be laid, that means ripping up whatever is on that land and replacing it: streets, driveways, sidewalks, fences ect. Then all new transformers need to be installed, pole mounted transformers cannot be mounted on the ground. Then all new drops need to be installed from the new ground mounted transformer to each customer. That means more tearing up yards, sidewalk, driveways, pools, basement walls ect. Once the new lines are up and running and every customer has been reconnected to the new underground grid the existing overhead grid needs to be removed.

Also the wire used for underground is much more expensive that what is used for overhear. The overhead wires are bare aluminum, no insulation. Underground wire needs to be insulated with very tough coatings. The wire also needs to be bigger. Uninsulated wired installed overheard dissipates heat much better than wire insulated with rubber and dirt. Underground lines need to be larger in diameter.

Anyone who whines that the power company won't bury electrical lines is an uninformed idiot.

I am wondering where in MD they are heading into their second week of no power. Come on subby who has been without power for more than 6 days

RoxtarRyan: If you're in an area where you are prone to many long-lasting outages, sure, I recommend it, but for getting it as a "just in case" thing, it might not be worth the money to get it and get it installed and maintained.

If you get a good one, chances are you'll make it back when you sell your house.

vernonFL: I got my power back on yesterday, it had been off since Friday night.

I think people need to stop complaining. The crews are working hard, its 97 degrees outside, and they needed to take care of hospitals and nursing homes first.

Yes. Right after, here in Ohio, we get the power back up and running to the soccer stadium. Then the hospitals and nursing homes and get theirs. Assholes.

ronaprhys: Yes - clear all trees within 100` of any suspended powerline. That'll do the trick.

/have you really thought your plan through?

But really, it's obvious to everyone in Montgomery County that the trees are in serious need of trimming.

missiv: Forgive me. I had to laugh.

My housemate reports the power is now back.

I will spare Pepco a life sentence in Azkaban, but I will instead make them listen to Vogon poetry.

max_pooper: Rerouting existing power lines underground would be ridiculously expensive. In an average neighborhood I would guess between $10,000-$20,000 per house.

The number I read was $15 million per mile of underground cable. Obviously, this makes sense in dense neighborhoods. Not so much in suburban and rural areas.

Walker: Worst. Electric Company. EVER!

It's called monopoly. You'll take it and like it because fark you.

Here's what I don't get- Verizon is laying fios lines all over the freaking place. What's different about putting FIOS in and putting electric lines underground? Could they work together and reduce the cost?

All of the utilities on my neighborhood are buried. But it all falls apart when you look at where the feeds come from.

vernonFL: A lot of the outages are because of things like this:



This is not an easy fix.

Is that a parking ticket on the front of the truck? What asshole cop gave that out?

jayphat: vernonFL: A lot of the outages are because of things like this:



This is not an easy fix.

Is that a parking ticket on the front of the truck? What asshole cop gave that out?

I think that's the one that says "For Sale" as a joke.

Still out at my house in Crownsville, MD. We are told it will be fixed on Monday. Fortunately, there's power at our marina and we've got a comfortable boat there. I'm glad I bought that instead of a polo pony.

Katie98_KT: Here's what I don't get- Verizon is laying fios lines all over the freaking place. What's different about putting FIOS in and putting electric lines underground? Could they work together and reduce the cost?

The FiOS lines around me are up on poles like the power lines.

Pocket Ninja: "I will do my best to legalize a program by which one randomly chosen senior PEPCO executive per year is hunted and killed in a public spectacle" would be the only policy plank any politician running for election in Maryland would ever need.

Ima_Lurker: trees from around the power lines. Not unusual around here to see the trees growing through the power lines.

/or is it the power lines going through the trees?

CSB time:

My parents had a tree in their backyard that grew to hang over some power lines. The tree died and started to split down the middle. It was a matter of years, maybe months, until the branch hanging over the power lines broke off and took out the lines and my parents' deck. They called up the power company to see if they'd be willing to split the cost of taking down the tree in order to save their lines. No dice. The company would pay to replace the lines if the tree went down, but they wouldn't pay to have it preemptively taken down.

My guess is that it was because they had insurance that would cover the line replacement in case of a natural disaster (or a tree falling). Either way, it worked out for them since my parents ended up paying to have the tree removed anyway.

pisceandreamer: It's really not helping Pepco in that every time there has been an extended outage in the past 5 years, they've said they would fix the infrastructure, and they haven't done anything.

It's been happening longer than 5 years. About 12 years ago, when I lived on the fringe of their service area, I had power through BG&E. A bad winter storm took down Pepco customers for 4 days. I never lost power.

Same issues back then: "Oh, your power's out? We had no idea!"

Pepco's phone workers will all quit soon.

Katie98_KT: Here's what I don't get- Verizon is laying fios lines all over the freaking place. What's different about putting FIOS in and putting electric lines underground? Could they work together and reduce the cost?

Nope. The fiber lines and the high voltage power lines need to be separated because when Verizon needs to dig up their lines to repair/replace them they want to be able to to dig freely without risk of electrocution.

Digging the trench is only a small cost of re-routing power lines underground.

rugman11: Ima_Lurker: trees from around the power lines. Not unusual around here to see the trees growing through the power lines.

/or is it the power lines going through the trees?

CSB time:

My parents had a tree in their backyard that grew to hang over some power lines. The tree died and started to split down the middle. It was a matter of years, maybe months, until the branch hanging over the power lines broke off and took out the lines and my parents' deck. They called up the power company to see if they'd be willing to split the cost of taking down the tree in order to save their lines. No dice. The company would pay to replace the lines if the tree went down, but they wouldn't pay to have it preemptively taken down.

My guess is that it was because they had insurance that would cover the line replacement in case of a natural disaster (or a tree falling). Either way, it worked out for them since my parents ended up paying to have the tree removed anyway.

In Texas, the power delivery company has teams constantly driving around giving haircuts to trees.

max_pooper: Rerouting existing power lines underground would be ridiculously expensive. In an average neighborhood I would guess between $10,000-$20,000 per house.

Trenches need to be dug so the cable can be laid, that means ripping up whatever is on that land and replacing it: streets, driveways, sidewalks, fences ect. Then all new transformers need to be installed, pole mounted transformers cannot be mounted on the ground.

Wrong!

Ever see one of these and wonder what it was?


picture hosting

It's an underground horizontal drilling machine. It can bury cables without damaging surface ground features. There are much larger models for larger cables. These things can tunnel for over a mile without altering damaging pavement or any other ground feature.

More info here:
Link

max_pooper: Anyone who whines that the power company won't bury electrical lines is an uninformed idiot.

The buried lines have a higher initial cost, but there is much less maintenance. You don't need to regularly trim trees or repair lines. You may not save money in the long run, but anyone who thinks life is only about money is a sociopathic douche. Power is as much about reliability as it is efficiency. And if the buried lines are limited to new installations, nothing gets torn up or removed.

The most pragmatic argument against burying lines is that it becomes MUCH more expensive to upgrade them. . . but as we've found over the years, the power companies don't upgrade anyway. If they're gonna neglect existing lines for 30+ years, might as well make 'em so no one has to pay any attention to them.

FishyFred: max_pooper: Rerouting existing power lines underground would be ridiculously expensive. In an average neighborhood I would guess between $10,000-$20,000 per house.

The number I read was $15 million per mile of underground cable. Obviously, this makes sense in dense neighborhoods. Not so much in suburban and rural areas.

A mile is 5280 feet. Lets assume the average lot is 75 feet wide, may very in your neighborhood and I'm not taking into account cross streets. 5280/75 = 70, so that's 140 houses per mile. $15 million/140 houses = $107,000 per customer, slightly more than I guess-timated.

After this storm, there's been a big chorus of people demanding that Pepco bury all its lines. Aside of the insane cost and logistics of burying lines in existing neighborhoods and under busy existing roads, a good portion of Pepco's suburban lines are ALREADY buried! After Hurricane Irene last fall, a lot of those buried lines got farked up, and in that case, they often had to go house-to-house and dig up lots of equipment that wasn't really engineered right when it was buried years ago. Had the lines been overhead, it's entirely possible they'd have fixed things much faster. Many people were offline for a week or more.

Pepco is comically bad. They just got fined something like $45,000,000 a few weeks ago because of their awful performance in general and in the aftermath of Irene and various ice storms in recent years. They aren't really getting any better.

By contrast, I live in a rural area. I have what used to be Allegheny Power. Service is stable, and the longest I've ever been offline was 52 hours after a huge ice storm a few years ago. I was out for just 36 hours after the derecho, and some parts of my valley were back on in less than 24.

I'm in Maryland and have been disappointed by BGE several times over the years. Finally sprang for a generator big enough to run the sump pump, fridge, TV, cable, router, laptop and a few other low juice items.

Haven't had a power outage over 45 minutes since.

RandomRandom: max_pooper: Rerouting existing power lines underground would be ridiculously expensive. In an average neighborhood I would guess between $10,000-$20,000 per house.

Trenches need to be dug so the cable can be laid, that means ripping up whatever is on that land and replacing it: streets, driveways, sidewalks, fences ect. Then all new transformers need to be installed, pole mounted transformers cannot be mounted on the ground.

Wrong!

Ever see one of these and wonder what it was?

[s18.postimage.org image 640x480]
picture hosting

It's an underground horizontal drilling machine. It can bury cables without damaging surface ground features. There are much larger models for larger cables. These things can tunnel for over a mile without altering damaging pavement or any other ground feature.

More info here:
Link.

Horizontal boring is very expensive. Cut/trench/repair is usually cheaper, depending on what is in the way. In a utility easement it's cheaper to dig. When crossing busy streets or expense surface features, the additional expense of boring is worth it. Either way, getting cables underground is much more expensive that stringing them on pole overhead.

It's fascinating reading about the ineptitude of these companies. I have relatives in Williamsburg, VA (they went to stay with my mom in Tennessee when the storms knocked them for a loop).

I have PG&E in California, and as far as I can tell, PG&E knows about outages as soon as they happen, because they monitor the entire grid network and have devices in place to report failures. You can go on the PG&E website and see a map of outages, their status, and repair estimates.

Then again, we rarely have major storms. Mostly just earthquakes and heatwave-related power outages.

RandomRandom: max_pooper: Rerouting existing power lines underground would be ridiculously expensive. In an average neighborhood I would guess between $10,000-$20,000 per house.

Trenches need to be dug so the cable can be laid, that means ripping up whatever is on that land and replacing it: streets, driveways, sidewalks, fences ect. Then all new transformers need to be installed, pole mounted transformers cannot be mounted on the ground.

Wrong!

Ever see one of these and wonder what it was?


picture hosting

It's an underground horizontal drilling machine. It can bury cables without damaging surface ground features. There are much larger models for larger cables. These things can tunnel for over a mile without altering damaging pavement or any other ground feature.

More info here:
Link

Someone just got told! [Ohsnap!.jpg]

That being said, not every company has one of those awesome toys, I imagine.

Second week? Subby must be a time traveler because today is Thursday and the storm hit Friday night. That's six days ago.

Power just went out at work... time to go home!

dragonchild: but anyone who thinks life is only about money is a sociopathic douche. Power is as much about reliability as it is efficiency. And if the buried lines are limited to new installations, nothing gets torn up or removed.

Exactly.

And what about the economy costs to business for power outages? It's not just residents without power, it's businesses and government agencies those businesses require. Figure in those losses to the equation, and underground power become far more economical. In areas that suffer frequent storms, the overall economic cost is likely to be substantially cheaper than above-ground lines.

From what I've witnessed (and I grew up with Pepco), most of the power problems that take days and days to fix are directly attributable to homeowners/neighborhoods too stingy to have their trees properly maintained.

You want to complain about neglect, take a long, hard look in the mirror first.

RoxtarRyan: Oh, god no... I think a person might need a bit more than 4kW to go off grid.. maybe 10kW to be safe, in case of power spikes. Not only that, but the consumption rate of about 5 gallons of propane every hour for about 6kW, you'd be out of 50 gallons of propane in 10 hours.

Living off grid is a different mindset. You don't think of all the goodies you want and budget power for all of them at once; you find out what you can afford and learn to budget the electricity.

Gas heat and solar panels go a long way toward mitigating spikes, BTW. Cold snaps have no impact on a gas-heated home, and the hotter it is the more power you get from the panels. That said it's better to think of central air as an opulent luxury not even the bourgeoisie enjoyed because, well, they didn't.

Gyrfalcon: max_pooper: Rerouting existing power lines underground would be ridiculously expensive. In an average neighborhood I would guess between $10,000-$20,000 per house.

Trenches need to be dug so the cable can be laid, that means ripping up whatever is on that land and replacing it: streets, driveways, sidewalks, fences ect. Then all new transformers need to be installed, pole mounted transformers cannot be mounted on the ground. Then all new drops need to be installed from the new ground mounted transformer to each customer. That means more tearing up yards, sidewalk, driveways, pools, basement walls ect. Once the new lines are up and running and every customer has been reconnected to the new underground grid the existing overhead grid needs to be removed.

Also the wire used for underground is much more expensive that what is used for overhear. The overhead wires are bare aluminum, no insulation. Underground wire needs to be insulated with very tough coatings. The wire also needs to be bigger. Uninsulated wired installed overheard dissipates heat much better than wire insulated with rubber and dirt. Underground lines need to be larger in diameter.

Anyone who whines that the power company won't bury electrical lines is an uninformed idiot.

Your thought on costs are probably underestimated OVERESTIMATED, but the rest of your statement is spot on. Especially the last sentence.

/by a lot

dragonchild: RoxtarRyan: Oh, god no... I think a person might need a bit more than 4kW to go off grid.. maybe 10kW to be safe, in case of power spikes. Not only that, but the consumption rate of about 5 gallons of propane every hour for about 6kW, you'd be out of 50 gallons of propane in 10 hours.

Living off grid is a different mindset. You don't think of all the goodies you want and budget power for all of them at once; you find out what you can afford and learn to budget the electricity.

Gas heat and solar panels go a long way toward mitigating spikes, BTW. Cold snaps have no impact on a gas-heated home, and the hotter it is the more power you get from the panels. That said it's better to think of central air as an opulent luxury not even the bourgeoisie enjoyed because, well, they didn't.

The 2nd-century Chinese inventor Ding Huan (fl. 180) of the Han Dynasty invented a rotary fan for air conditioning, with seven wheels 3 m (9.8 ft) in diameter and manually powered.[2] In 747, Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-762) of the Tang Dynasty (618-907) had the Cool Hall (Liang Tian) built in the imperial palace, which the Tang Yulin describes as having water-powered fan wheels for air conditioning as well as rising jet streams of water from fountains.[3] During the subsequent Song Dynasty (960-1279), written sources mentioned the air-conditioning rotary fan as even more widely used.

Delmarva Power customer here. Power went out at 11:20 Friday night. We were back up on Sunday at 2 pm. I was lucky that my marina had power and ice; we were able to shower there after cutting up the trees that came down on my lot and a general yard clean up. Six 10 lb blocks of ice saved the freezers and fridge.

The biatch was going to work at the dealership with no A/C and all the black top. We were able to fry an egg on Monday on the lot surface. Power was back up at work today, though.

RandomRandom: Figure in those losses to the equation, and underground power become far more economical. In areas that suffer frequent storms, the overall economic cost is likely to be substantially cheaper than above-ground lines.

I honestly don't know and wouldn't count on it. I am NOT making the case that burying lines would save money in the long run. Again, power distribution is not always about how cheap you can get it.

That said, the cost to an economy for a power outage is probably understated. It's not the duration the power's out but the disruption that causes most of the damage. For example, if a restaurant loses power for half a day they're probably obligated by law to toss everything in the fridge. That adds to the financial damage from lost business.

Power distribution is about reliability, THEN cost. That people in this thread have it exactly backwards speaks volumes about how pervasive the Wal-mart consumer mentality is these days.

max_pooper: Either way, getting cables underground is much more expensive that stringing them on pole overhead.

Sure, it costs the power company more, but what about the costs to the overall economy?

Power companies are regulated monopolies. Their responsibility isn't just to their shareholders, they also have a legally mandated responsibility to their customers.

Underground power lines are certainly not the best use of resources in every area, but in regions that suffer frequent severe storms and have lots of trees, underground lines could save the economy a great deal of money.

The power companies probably won't take on these kinds of costly upgrades unless forced. Given that they're regulated monopolies, it's time for the regulation boards to do their job and start mandating a long term plan for underground lines.