Where oh where to begin since I last blogged?

Well at the beginning of October the company I work for experienced a labour disruption for the first time in its history. Our union held a vote and the vast majority of its union members voted to strike. We were picketing for four days until negotiations delivered an offer that the union agreed to take back to its members. I picketed at what used to be our head office, but is now being used as more of a satellite building, starting every day at 6:30 am. People!! I don’t even get up for WORK for six thirty in the morning, but this was important. That’s part of the joy of belonging to a union, believing in solidarity.

I haven’t seen what the new offer is yet, but hopefully it is something fair that everyone can live with because picketing in November doesn’t sound like it would be any fun.

Tracy.

Have I mentioned how much I hate painting? Although I’ve come to discover that its not the actual painting that I hate, it’s the prep work. The clearing out the room, the laying down of paper or drop cloths, the taping of trim,  the removing all outlet and switch covers, the taking down of light fixtures, and painting corners and ceilings, this is what I actually hate. The swooping across the room with the roller is a breeze.

And picking the colour!! When did this get so difficult? There’s only like half a million bajillion colours to pick from, and who the heck comes up with these names? There are like twelve names for one shade of yellow- straw hat, buttery dream, manila envelope, angel’s halo, french toast, morning sun, romance, etc…

And then once you figure what colour each room is going to be and that they don’t clash with each other, you breath a sigh of relief and think you are in the clear. Then the nice people behind the paint counter ask,  ”What kind of finish do you want on the walls?”  There’s flat, semi flat, semi matte,matte, eggshell, velvet, semi gloss, gloss, acrylic, latex and list goes on and on.

Painfully I became aware of the fact the I do not possess a colour-matching gene in my DNA. My mother does, (thankfully) so my house is not a kaleidoscope of weird mismatched colours.

For a number of our stations and for the past couple of months, a crew has been driving around testing the integrity of ground grids.  This is done yearly, and is to ensure that the ground grid is intact.  The ground grid’s function is to keep all non-current carrying objects (such as the structures) at the same potential.  It also provides a reference point to ground for equipment and testing, and allows us to isolate apparatus in need of repair.

Rather than digging up the grid by hand, we have the help of a soft dig crew.  Basically a large truck with a pressurized water hose and vacuum sprays the rock and digs a trench revealing the ground grid while removing the limestone rock and mud.  This makes for a muddy messy job, which restricts me from bringing my phone or camera around to take photos.

Once the grid has been dug up, a new ground rod is pounded into the ground.  A piece of 4/0 copper is cadwelded onto the end of the ground rod.  The other end of the copper whip is attached to the existing ground grid.  The old ground rod is removed.

I remember being the new person on the crew, not knowing anything yet. It was really hard trying to fit in. That’s why, when new people start at my work, I do everything I can to make sure that I am nice to them. I try to just give them time to learn and soak up what is going on at the site. I don’t like the way that some of the journey people treat new apprentices.  It doesn’t really instill confidence in their apprentices if every time they do something wrong they are made fun of or even ignored for the work they do.  When I’m done school I will do everything I can to treat people with respect, even if they make mistakes.  We aren’t perfect and even people with tons of training and experience make mistakes. They hate it just as much as anyone when their mistake is brought to the forefront and constantly talked about.

Well, it’s been a month already! It’s amazing how fast time goes by. I’m still around, and just one more month of school and I’ll be back in the work force. School is  a lot of fun, and I learned a lot more about my trade. It’s scary how much material we’ve covered already. I am exited to get back to work, and apply and practice all the new things I learned.

It’s getting cold outside. Even though this summer wasn’t the greatest of summers, it’s coming on to wintertime pretty quick. During the summer it was easy to get by without having to watch what you wear for the day. But lately it’s been hard to know what you will need to wear to work, because the day starts off cold and then gets warmer later on.  You may tend to under dress and that isn’t very good. If you do and get cold you could chill yourself, catch a cold and end up missing work. What I find works is always making sure you wear more than enough clothing that will last you all day long. Also, it would be good to get into the habit of taking along a few extra pieces of clothing that are dry. In the fall it tends to rain and no one likes to be wet and cold. It can really make your day miserable.

This week at the site where I was working, a guy I work with hurt himself. He was doing something he wasn’t supposed to and it ended up costing him a trip to the hospital in an ambulance and a few days off work. Luckily his injuries weren’t as bad as they could have been; he didn’t break anything or paralyze himself. I’m sure we’ve all at some point done something that wasn’t the smartest move just to get a job done. I know I’m guilty of that myself. Even though you may complete a job a little faster than the next guy, you have to make sure you’re doing it safely. I myself would rather finish a job with all my bones and limbs intact then risk losing them. Life would not be very good with a missing arm or leg, or maybe a finger or two. Even not being able to move would be horrible! So when doing any work just make sure you are doing it safely and have someone with you in case anything should happen. They will be able to give whatever attention is needed in case of an emergency. Let’s face it, we aren’t perfect and accidents happen from time to time.  Even when we are working safely.

We were pulled off of ACR commissioning for a day to assist a crew with major breaker maintenance.

Upon inspection of the 66kV oil circuit breaker, it was found that a crucial adjustment was overlooked during the last maintenance period, and a lot of damage had occurred to parts of the breaker female contacts.

Since these breakers are a couple decades old, replacement parts can be hard to find.  The majority of the pieces can be machined at the Waverly service shop, and others can be salvaged.  The contacts were disassembled, and the damaged parts were removed and replaced.  Halfway through this process, I was pulled outside to repair a damaged oil tank liner, because I was the only person small enough to comfortably fit inside.  I donned an oil resistant body suit, and was lowered into the tank.  I drilled holes through the fibreglass liner, and tied it together like a shoelace with wax string.  Unfortunately, there is no photographic evidence of my venture into the tank.

Another week, another circuit breaker to maintain.  This particular breaker was due for mechanical and insulation checks.  Due to the size of the contacts, the mechanism requires a lot of force to drive the breaker into the closed position.  This is accomplished pneumatically with an air compressor.  The breaker trips with a large spring.

Mechanical checks require us to ensure proper operation of the trip and close commands.  We verify various gaps and measurements as per manufacturers specifications.

Insulation checks require us to test each individual bushing and phase.  The bushings have a factory rated capacitance that we compare our results to.  We also check for proper contact and pre-insertion resistor values.

While testing this breaker, we found that one phase gave us half the expected resistance value.  To investigate, the 12,000L of oil contained in the breaker was drained.  We climbed inside the breaker manhole, and troubleshot until the problem was discovered.  (Unfortunately, there was so much carbon and oil residue around, it was impossible to take a photo of the breaker guts without damaging the camera.) We repaired, and tested.  The breaker was sealed back up, and filled with oil.  Our “as left” tests were completed with satisfactory results.

Pictured below is the Canadian General Electric 115kV Oil Circuit Breaker.  The large circle on the right of the breaker is the manhole.  Behind the door is where all of the mechanical components are stored.