10.16.2013 - Electric wire is in!

Another Red Letter Day!  Not too long after Jim got to the land, he was calling me that National Grid was back!  They were still in their trucks strategizing when I got there...and Jim was back in the trenches getting rid of some of the tree roots.

 

Back in the trenches

Before long, they got busy working on our poles - one truck at the pole by our driveway and the other truck to bring the electricity from across the street to the new pole they put up down the road.  The first thing they did was start stringing wire from pole to pole.

After that, they had to put lots of brackets and hardware on the pole to get it ready to receive the big transformer unit.  Here it is making its way up the pole!

 

 

In this picture, if you look closely you can see the wires going in between the poles!

 



Once the transformer got up to the top, they got it all secure and then started hooking it up.

They worked a couple of hours and left about noon.  They said they would either be back in the afternoon or tomorrow to put the underground wire in!  So this crew obviously was in charge of inspecting the trench and it was fine to them - yay! 

Jim went back right after lunch and again it wasn't long until he called me that they were back.  He said he was up moving some rocks and the next thing he knew, the trucks were coming up the driveway with the spool of cable!

It was easy to get it into the trench until they got to the conduit crossing the driveway.  After that, they had to really pull and haul the wire the rest of the way up the hill to the top where the transformer will be - I'm sure that was quite a workout for them!

 

There's our transformer on the back of their truck ready to be put into place.

 





 

Setting it down next to the pad where it will go...



 

By the time I got there it was all done and they were pretty much packing up.  I was just in time to hear a lineman's joke...Why does a transformer hum?  Because it doesn't know the words!  Whew...they need to come up with some new material!

Here's the wire in the trench from the pole....

up to the transformer! 

 

They said they would be back tomorrow probably to get the transformer all hooked up!  Amazing - after all this time and starting with nothing, we have electric lines on our property!

 

After they left, Jim called our new favorite Time Warner guy and told him that the wire was in the ground.  So he's supposed to come out tomorrow and hopefully bring the cable that will go in the trench too.  He sidestepped the question of cost though, so that will still have to be discussed.  If it's still $6,000 he'll have to take his cable away.

 

Of course, now Jim has lots more work to do.  The next step is to put layers of sand on top of the wire all the way down the 750' of trench.  After that, if we can get the cable company to put their cable in, he'll have to put more sand on top of that before finally being able to backfill.

 

What an amazing day!

 

On a side note, Jim helped me get our dumpster diving table set up in my office last night - he still has to do some computer wiring to get my address printer over there, but I think it looks pretty good!