In the morning, I had a bunch of mailings to take care of at the post office and then headed into Hadley to talk to the printer about all the upcoming work. As I was nearing home, Jim texted me that the utility workers were there. But the big news - he talked to them and they said, no problem, they would move the pole where it was supposed to be and where it was marked on the street. So we don't have to move the stone wall or do all that work - I told Jim it was a miracle! Jim said it was worth a shot to ask them, but we never figured they would move it since the pole anchors were already set in place. But these guys were really nice (they all have been) and said it was fine.
So when I got there, one pole was already in place farther down the road and they were just setting up the one by our driveway. It was really fun to watch them - they certainly have it down to a science and put these things up pretty quickly.
 |
| Men working ahead - good sign! |
 |
| We have a utility pole! |
After the pole is in place, they backfill it and use a small compactor (looks like our concrete vibrator) to compact the dirt around the pole.
After they were done, the two guys who did all the work stayed and talked to us for about an hour. They had 2 new kids - the ones doing the flag work on the road - that just sat in their truck waiting while these guys talked. Really, everyone here is so nice. They all love the area and are just happy to talk to you about it.
One thing that was a little bothersome - our utility planner told Jim that he had to buy all the specialized conduit for making the transition from the pole to the trench and then it's about 10' in the trench from the pole - along with all the fittings. So of course, that's some of the stuff that Jim bought when he was in Ohio last trip. The line guys said - no, we put all that in. So now we have all this expensive stuff and don't need it. And it's not like it's an easy return to Wolff Brothers from NY. Oh well, price of doing business sometimes.
I went home, got lunch and some hydraulic fluid for the excavator - another issue, one of the cylinders is leaking. Of course, Jim has no place to work on these things. Will have to be another winter project somehow. But it's not major - he can still use it. Just needs to make sure it doesn't run out of fluid.
Meanwhile, Jim got back to work. Now he can finish the trench work from the pole to meet up with the rest of the trench.
Then before long, another crew shows up to get the poles ready for the wires! It was also interesting to watch - one crew worked on one pole and the other on the pole by the driveway. You can hardly see them in the bucket in the picture below but they are putting up the framing.
And here's what it looks like all done!
They were just finishing up, when a Time Warner truck pulled in the driveway! This guy was amazingly nice. He understood our frustration. He said that someone had come and done an estimate at one point when we weren't there - over $6000 to get cable up the hill! That's not a typo - $6000! But apparently, most of that money was trenching the line. We can't have the "normal" cable line that people have to their homes - that can only be 300' or it loses signal strength. So we have to have a high-powered line to go 700'. But because we have the trench all done and we told him we were going to have 2 structures on the property, he said that figure was crazy. So we don't know what the new figure will be, but he took all his measurements and said he'd get it all drawn up. Jim told him that the electric would probably go in this week so we'd like to get the cable in after that. He seemed to think that would all be good - he gave us his personal business card with his cellphone number (no more calling customer service!). He just told Jim to let him know exactly when the electric is going in and he'd make plans to have someone out here after that.
So quite the amazing day - everything we were waiting for all happened today!
These are just leaves on the ground but they looked so pretty - all the different colors kind of made a mosaic!
Update...Jim got the trench dug from the pole to meet up with the other trench! And he got it all crumbed out. So the only thing left is to get a layer of sand down on this section. Quite the day!
No comments:
Post a Comment