Last week BPU overhead crews were able to do something a little out of the ordinary by assisting Unruh House Moving, Inc with one of their moves. On average, the BPU is hired to aid with one house relocation per year. This home, however, was one of the larger ones our crews have ever assisted. Fortunately, the move went as planned.
BPU’s Superintendent of Electric Operations, Lenny Swaim, describes what is required on our part to pull off one of these jobs, “Our piece of the job is fairly straightforward; the house moving company gives us a couple of routes that will work for them due to the road widths and trees. The BPU then drives these routes, measures all of our lines, and works with them to finalize the best route. Once we have an agreed-upon route, the BPU sends crews out in front of the movers and, depending on the situation, will either raise the lines with hot sticks or take them down as the movers come by. Then, we have other crews follow and put the lines back up. This move took eleven crew members, four bucket trucks, and about four hours of work to complete.”
This route was on our system for about five miles and required us to de-energize and drop twelve lines and three streetlight arms. We also had to raise a handful of lines with hot sticks. James Mickley at Mickfly Aerial captured the awesomeness of this behemoth house move…be sure to check those out!