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A "Christmas Tree" Story

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mwilson

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Never happened to us before and probably will never happen again....

The Backstory......
MIL passed away last fall, we are buying her place to settle the estate. A softwood growing next to the house was going to be an issue as the power and telephone lines were running through it.....needed to come down..
So had it on the "To Do" for next spring.......

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Last week the wife gets a call from the Town Office wondering if we would be interested in donating that very tree (Blue Spruce) for the town's Christmas Tree!!! Wife calls me and after finding out that the town would take care of cutting it down, scheduling the disconnect and reconnect of the power lines, also would be fully liable for any damage.......Well WHY NOT!!! Let's do this!!!

It is a double wide so as a result there is a 100 amp breaker built into the meter box which is mounted to the pole behind the home. Breaker has mysteriously half tripped several times in the past year....What an excellent time to change that breaker out myself!! Couldn't afford all of my stuff if I had to hire every little thing done......!!!

Town set up the removal for today, so yesterday I picked up a new breaker at lunchtime.

Waited for the line to be brought down and then went to tell the linemen that I was going to be changing the main breaker and to make sure I was in sight before hooking the power back up......they agreed that was a good idea....I know them both anyways and was pretty sure that they wouldn't kill me on purpose at least.....

In this picture they have already removed the power line as it crosses the road,,,stopped traffic and took it down. They are hooking onto the tree to help bring it in the right direction once cut...


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Now I'm out back changing the rusty breaker in the main box which is hooked to a pole just to the right of these pictures......

The cutting of the tree...go full screen



Now after you have watched the video watch it again and pay close attention to the phone line.....guess what moved when that happened.....yes, the very pole that held the box I was working on...was in it elbows deep sanding the rust off of the connecting lugs when that line started whipping which whipped the pole...almost had to perform an underwear change there for a second...


Went pretty good after that...


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Getting it ready to load on the tag along trailer......Time Life Electrician in the foreground..




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Down the road it goes!!!

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Will at least you got that done now and you can say you had a very exciting time do this job! With a Youtube member of the excitement!
 
How did the bus bar look ?. Usually when a breaker loses tension like that it is from heat and may also mess up the bus bars. Hope that is not the case. It is good you found it before the fire started and a complete melt down.

Dave
 
How did the bus bar look ?. Usually when a breaker loses tension like that it is from heat and may also mess up the bus bars. Hope that is not the case. It is good you found it before the fire started and a complete melt down.

Dave

The two lugs that drop down from the meter were dirty but not burnt. I was sanding those up all pretty when the phone wire whipped the pole and meter box. Connection was very tight, had to wrap my fingers around the lugs and pull them into the breaker.
My forensic analysis is that the water heater failed and was changed out before she bought the place. Water heater not original...
 
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