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Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: TURobY on July 10, 2007, 07:18:33 am I live in the Renaissance neighborhood and have two mature trees on my lot. Both trees are on the property line with half of the trunk and foliage over my property and half on my neighbor's.
Question #1: How do I go about getting my power-line buried? One of the trees constantly drops branches onto the power line leading to my house. I'd like to see if the line could be buried to prevent loss of power while simultaneously maintaining the mature canopy. Question #2: I would like to have the branches trimmed. Do I only have access to the branches on my side of the property line? Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: Breadburner on July 10, 2007, 07:33:22 am Call an electrician.....And Yes.....
Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: cannon_fodder on July 10, 2007, 07:49:09 am I concur with breadwinner.
Call PSO, they will tell you to take a hike more than likely. Even if you offer to pay for it, they are probably NOT going to help you out. I'm not sure why, but this has been my experience in the past (with PSO, about 6 months ago). The branches that are in your neighbors zone of control are his, for all intensive purposes. You must seek permission to both enter his property and trim his (your) branches. In reality... if you do enter and trim the tree there is not likely to be any monetary damages. Your real risk would be pissing off your neighbor. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: sgrizzle on July 10, 2007, 07:55:18 am Talk to your neighbor. If you trim the tree and he believes himself to be the owner, then there is the possibility of being in trouble for trimming it. The general rule is that you are responsible just for branches on either side.
Call an electrician and/or PSO. You might try their forestry department at 877-367-6815 (It's toll free, but it goes to Tulsa) and tell them you have a problem service line from the pole to your house and want to know the procedure to get it buried. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: brunoflipper on July 10, 2007, 08:05:57 am quote:[B)] Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: brunoflipper on July 10, 2007, 08:15:17 am quote:burying a pole drop is pricey... the length of the run and then how many turns they have to make increase the price but it can be done... an associate did it for a run of about 30 feet with two turns- it was $3500... i'm going to hold out for pso to come through and bury them all... i'd gladly take the big green box in my front yard... interesting that the NIMBY (or i guess NIMFY) in forest hills voted against the burying because of the boxes... and now the south maple ridgies are going to do the same... ****, i know of two of those whackadoos who have permanently installed wholehouse generators... so what do they care?... i will volunteer for the big green box if theyd get rid of the poles... put a damn shrub around it for crying out loud... Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: tulsa1603 on July 10, 2007, 08:39:42 am quote: The power line leading to your house is your property. I talked to PSO about having mine buried, and they made it clear they weren't very interested, even if I was paying. I think you can have a private electrical contractor do it for you, but it will definitely cost $. You can trim straight up at your property line. I have a friend who has a gorgeous old oak tree, but her neighbor HATES trees. So she has this beautiful canopy above her yard, but precisely at the property line, the tree is sheared straight up! I wouldn't recommend doing it that way. :) Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: cannon_fodder on July 10, 2007, 08:56:50 am quote: D'oh! "For all intents and purposes..." Language has evolved the point where most people would not recognize the correct usage. That, and I can honestly say I have not written this saying out since discussion cliches in my Bus Com class. Nor, for that matter, do I believe I have had the pleasure of reading it correctly drafted for an equal amount of time. I am guilty of continuing the Americanization of the former English language. [;)] Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: patric on July 10, 2007, 11:27:17 am quote: When we buried ours (pre-AEP days), we provided the trench to PSO's specifications, then PSO laid the cable in and connected it -- at no price difference than had it been aerial. Now AEP wont even talk to you for less than $2000 (or whatever it takes to discourage you from burying it). quote: Only about one home in eight get the green box, whereas with pole-to-pole (aerial) neighborhoods, just about everybody has a pole in some corner of their yard. I think you would have to be terribly mis-informed to argue in favor keeping this... (http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/electric_power/images/distribution_transformers3.jpg) instead of upgrading to this (http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/electric_power/images/underground_transformer.jpg) (http://www.we-energies.com/educators/ed_images/photos/elec_terms/transformer1xx.jpg) Well, at least the mayor and her friends are getting their neighborhoods done: Charlane-Ranch Acres (http://"http://www.psoklahoma.com/news/underground/docs/Charlane-RanchAcresUGMap.pdf") ForrestHills-Wildwood (http://"http://www.psoklahoma.com/news/underground/docs/ForrestHills-WildwoodLayout.pdf") Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: sgrizzle on July 10, 2007, 12:26:45 pm I know they are working in Broken Arrow too. One of my coworkers is going through the part where PSO is trying to get right of ways in place to run the lines.
Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: brunoflipper on July 10, 2007, 12:29:05 pm that is just it, it is my understanding that the forest hills-wildwood stopped secondary to resident protest... south maple ridge is about to do the same...
and yeah, you'd be an donkey to think that aerials, telephone poles and constant service interuptions are better than a freaking green box... i'd take the box any damn day... Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: patric on July 10, 2007, 03:16:50 pm quote: At what point do the protests arise, before the work begins or after the residents see how AEP does it? I can see misinformation sabotaging the first instance, but AEP must be doing a horrific job to screw up the second instance. Could doing a job the worst way you possibly could (or doing it for $1,000,000 a mile) conceivably sway public opinion from putting undergrounding requirements in, say, any master Plan the city might be working on? Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: brunoflipper on July 10, 2007, 04:10:43 pm quote:they protested when they heard there were going to be boxes in some of the front yards... they all said "NIMFY" and pitched a fit... my understanding is that it was purely the aesthetics that torqued the richie riches... Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: inteller on July 10, 2007, 05:59:12 pm i wish they would bury more transmission lines like that one stretch of 71st between yale and harvard.
Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: patric on July 10, 2007, 06:41:16 pm quote: You know, since they're building this from scratch, is there any reason why they're putting the transformers in front yards in the first place? Ill bet every one of these homes has their meter in the back yard, where most aerial wires enter. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: sgrizzle on July 10, 2007, 06:56:12 pm quote: They have to clear an area for horizotnal drilling, they don't trench. You would risk drilling the gas lines in the backyard. I'm sure they could, but then everyone would want PSO to pay to rip out and replace the fences, sod, storage buildings, etc, etc, etc. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: patric on July 19, 2007, 11:35:25 am The first letter arrived in mid-June, announcing plans to replace the historic neighborhood's old overhead power lines with a new underground system.
After years of storm-related outages, and recent disputes with the power company over its aggressive tree-trimming policy, most people in south Maple Ridge seemed to welcome the news. Then a second letter arrived. "When people found out they would have to have these ugly green boxes in their front yards, they decided maybe it wasn't a good idea after all," said John Hair, one of the Maple Ridge homeowners who circulated the second letter, complete with photos of the above-ground transformers. Now the power company faces a vocal opposition to its plan to bury the power lines, and the outcome could have ramifications citywide. In a project that will take at least 15 years to finish, American Electric Power-Public Service Company of Oklahoma has identified more than 700 miles of overhead lines to bury across metropolitan Tulsa. Part of the upscale Maple Ridge neighborhood, centering around 21st Street and Cincinnati Avenue, is among the first places scheduled to have the new underground system, and how the work is performed there will set a precedent for the rest of the city, Hair said. "It can be done right or it can be done wrong," said Hair, who runs a consulting firm that specializes in the "horizontal directional drilling" technology that AEP-PSO will use to install the underground cables. "We want to make sure it's done right." Launching what they informally call a "Stop the Box" campaign, Hair and his neighbors like the idea of burying the power lines -- they just want the lines buried in the easements behind their homes instead of in front of their homes. If the lines are buried along the streets of Maple Ridge, about one out of 10 homes will have a transformer box in the front yard, creating what Hair considers an eyesore. "This isn't just about Maple Ridge," he said. "It won't stop here. This is going to be done all over Tulsa." To gauge how widespread the opposition is, the Maple Ridge Neighborhood Association next month will conduct a poll of about 370 affected homeowners. Rodger Goodhead, the association's president, said if the majority vote against it, AEP-PSO has told him it will abide by that decision. "I wouldn't hazard to guess how the vote will turn out," Goodhead said. "But it's controversial, I can promise you that. And emotions are running very high right now." The ballot, however, will offer only two options -- either bury the lines in front of the homes, or go back to the controversial tree-trimming operation. And for Hair, that's a false choice. With his own expertise in burying cables, he insists that it can be done in back. And that's the only way to preserve the historic beauty and charm of midtown neighborhoods like Maple Ridge, he said. "It's just a bad design to put any utility in somebody's front yard," he said. "We need a policy, not just for Maple Ridge but for the whole city, that utilities should be located behind a home, or at least on the side." AEP-PSO considered putting the buried lines in back of the homes, where the current overhead lines are located. But the backyards wouldn't allow access for the large-scale equipment that AEP-PSO will use to dig the tunnels for the underground cables, company officials said. "This is an older, affluent neighborhood where people have made a lot of changes over the years," said Steve Penrose, the AEP-PSO manager in charge of the burying project, or "undergrounding" as the industry calls it. "People have added onto their homes. They've added garages, swimming pools, fences, landscaping." (You can't have overhead power lines near a pool in Tulsa; they would already have to have been buried or the pool well clear of the right-of-way. ed.) With digging scheduled to begin in September, south Maple Ridge was chosen to be among the first areas to see the work because it suffers from a disproportionate number of storm-related outages, and because residents were among the most vocal critics of AEP-PSO's aggressive tree- trimming policy. Residents complained that beautiful, mature trees were left haggard and ugly, scarring the looks of the entire neighborhood. "To prevent the outages, you have to separate the trees from the power lines," Penrose explained. "You can move the tree away from the line by trimming, or you can move the line away from the tree by undergrounding. There's no third option." Measuring about 3 feet wide and 3 feet tall, the above-ground transformers have been used nationwide since the 1960s. AEP-PSO has already installed many of them, apparently without controversy, in the Ranch Acres area near 31st Street and Harvard Avenue as well as another area near LaFortune Park. And the boxes are a common sight in south Tulsa and the suburbs -- although, often beside or behind homes, rather than in front. The rest of the story: http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?articleID=070719_238_A1_spanc62548 I dont suppose subsurface (buried) transformers that other utilities like PG&E use have been considered? Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: pmcalk on July 19, 2007, 12:31:15 pm quote: I don't think gas lines would be a problem--they generally run in front around here. Fences, sod, ....that's another story. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: pmcalk on July 19, 2007, 12:33:54 pm quote: Last I heard, MapleRidge won't be getting rid of any poles anytime soon, even if they agree to bury the lines, because SBC & Cox still run on the poles. I believe SBC owns the poles--unless they decide to bury as well, MapleRidge will be stuck with both. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: sgrizzle on July 19, 2007, 12:49:38 pm I think PSO usually owns the poles but won't remove them until they are vacated.
My gas, cable, electric and phone all run through my backyard. If you had to add a line through horizontal (blind) drilling I'd want you to go through the front. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: Oil Capital on July 19, 2007, 02:09:00 pm quote: Correct. PSO owns most of the poles in town. But after they remove the electric lines, the poles will be sold to AT&T (which currently leases space from PSO). My gas, cable, electric and phone also run through the backyard. I think that's the case for most of midtown, if not all of Tulsa. Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: patric on July 19, 2007, 02:35:15 pm quote: Do you see Cox saying they cant bury their cable in the back because ONG has gas lines there, or AT&T saying they cant bury their lines because of cable, etc.etc. Utility location and coordination is not rocket science, and they all have the equipment to mark their lines for other ROW users. Want to find all your utilities? 1-800-522-OKIE http://www.callokie.com Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: pmcalk on July 19, 2007, 02:39:05 pm I don't know where you live in midtown, but my gas line runs in front, and did at my old house as well. South MapleRidge, all gas runs in front, too. The person who spoke from PSO/AEP to MapleRidge donkey'n said the poles belong to SWB. Maybe they've already sold?
Title: 2 Questions: Burying Power Lines/Tree Trimming Post by: sgrizzle on July 19, 2007, 02:48:50 pm quote: Yeah, I remember SBC running new lines in the backyard, they tore out every backyard fence and trenched to avoid hitting lines. Maple Ridge won't allow that. |