Friday, August 03, 2007

Thanks Mrs. Gates

Our lovely neighbor across the street granted an easement to the power company to bring a line across her yard to the bottom of our driveway (the main power line runs behind her house). The power company began work earlier this week - clearing a path and setting a pole in her backyard:


The power company tells us, however, that our proposed transformer location (which I understood they had approved) is too far from the house - 360 feet, a distance that makes carrying the right amp service difficult. I assume fixing this problem is going to mean digging up our conduit and that is going to mean more money, but I haven't caught up with my excavator yet...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Are you working with Alleghany Power on this? I am jealous that you are getting electricity. We have been trying for 3 years and still no luck (Northern WV/ Deep Creek Md area)

The distance on your box should be good. We have an 1,850' distance from the nearest box. Alleghany Power marked locations for 4 transformer boxes to cover that distance. Tha works out to about 450' distance between the boxes. Do you have a transformer at the end of the line? That would solve any electrical drop issues.

Chris said...

Allegheny Power's got quite a rep, heh? They haven't been bad for us so far - responsive to calls, not TOO long a wait to get in their cue for new service - but we'll see how this little problem resolves itself. The excavator says he talked with the line engineer about the location and they ok'd it.

About the distance on the box: they're telling us that the transformer's distance from the house (360') is the problem. We've got a 1500' driveway, and there's an AP line at the bottom (across our neighbors yard). So the plan is to bring the power underground all the way up the top, then hit the transformer and knock down to our service 120/240. And getting the line up the hill is easy. But apparently being more than 250' from the transformer means some drop issues, so that's what we're trying to work out.