I was reading somewhere linemen either 'ground' or 'short' all conductors or treat them as hots.
I would think the idea that lines could be hot and deadly would be deeply ingrained in their souls.
All I can think is these accidents are either because they are very tired, a moment of carelessness, or even 'suicide by powerline' where emotionally your gone over the edge and want to end it all and let your family collect the insurance money.
Yes lines are tested, grounded, and treated as if they were live to an extent. I don't know of any place where you would install rubber or use hot sticks where something is grounded. If you were treating a wire down as if it were live you would have to install an in-line disconnect on the break it the wire, close it, sleeve the wire, then open and remove the disconnent, and finally close the fuse or switch. Does that make sense to do that? Not at all.
Personal grounds are used for tripping protective devices. Current has to go to ground before it trips a device and current takes any and all paths to ground and that could include the person who has his rubber gloves on who is standing next to a grounded phase ready to pick it up when you backfeed because you don't give a **** about codes and he dies from step potential. That phase WILL be energized for a split second before the device trips no matter how many grounds are applied.
How about another scenario where somebody goes to hook up what should be a dead house side of a service that isn't attached to a pole and they get electrocuted because you're backfeeding and they don't know enough to listen for a generator. That scenario is even more likely seeing as how utilitlies will use meter readers or underground workers to hook up house sides until the lineman can get back to hook up the pole side during major storms.
Another even more likely scenario is that a phase is down on your sreet and the fuse is blown and you decide you want to try out your jury rigged generator hookup because your lights are more important that other people lives and a pedestrian walking into step potential and dies. Very likely and every lineman I know that has been around for a substantial amount of time has a story about getting backfeed from a generator.
Bottom line is you're an inconsiderate ******* if you think hooking up a generator against code is ok(not the guy I quoted, but the people who do these stupid things) and it's nobody elses fault when they get hurt from it.
All the people that said in this post that it's the linemans fault for getting hurt when you backfeed are assholes. You're the same type of people who would crash your car into someone while you were drunk and blame the other person for not wearing a seatbelt.
Oh and the last sentence of the quoted texted is the dumbest thing I have seen somebody write in a long time. You should be ashamed of yourself whether that's a joke or not. More people get severely hurt or die trying just trying to keep your lights on than you know about and you do them a severe disservice by saying dumb **** like that.
I like to read this forum more than post anything but I couldn't help but rant a little after seeing the stupid comments so you can ignore me if you don't think I have enough posts to speak in here. Also, I can't believe how many times people have said is this thread that it is not only wrong, but illegal, yet DIY'res still think they know better than the people who know FACTS about electrical code and theory. Killing someone with backfeed is criminal neglegence and you will go to jail for it as well as paying that poor man or woman's family back for the rest of you life.
Also if you want to read a little more on about how lineman feel about homeowner backfeed, go to the Powerlineman.com forums and surf around a little bit. Hard to read because a majority of the guys talk in slang and run-on sentences but it may change how you feel about generators backfeeding.
beat away.
