Our favorite camp up on Mingus Mountain had a dig in event where they hit the underground conduit that feeds half of camp with a backhoe, and it was a mad scramble to get them back operational with freezers full of food and some 120 guests due any minute for a week long stay. 😬😬
When they called us, we immediately started figuring out first what it would take to get them back up and running immediately, and second, what their permanent repair needed to look like.
At our request they got us some pictures of the damage so we could asses what needed to be done. Fortunately, only two conductors suffered any real dam out of the seven that are in that conduit, and they were significantly different so getting them crossed up wasn’t an issue.
We had park staff open up all the panels and junction boxes involved and send us pictures so that we could verify that the damage was limited to the dig in spot. This is important as often times a wire snagged by an excavation machine will get pulled pretty far and can destroy breakers, conduits, boxes , bussing, and even the entire panel. Again, they were fortunate in that none of that extensive damage occurred. So we were able to walk them through the process of temporarily repairing the damaged wires with what they had on had to get the camp back in full operation-and just in time as the first guests were showing up as the temporary repair was completed.
While all that was going on, and for several hours afterwards, we hunted down and ordered the parts and pieces they would need for us to implement a more permanent repair.
Last last week we had everything in finally and we were loading up the Freightshaker into the evening.
Once everything was loaded and secured, we hit bed because the next day was going to be a long one.
We rolled out of bed around 4 am and immediately started preparing the last minute things that needed attended to-like packing food for the day, pre-tripping the truck, double checking parts and load securement, etc.
we hit the I 40 heading east into the rising sun and let the truck eat up the miles towards camp.
About 3 hours later we were back up on the mountain in the cool pines again.
Next, we had to lay eyes on the damage and make sure all was as it had seemed in the pictures and communications that we had received.
It mostly was, and we saw no reason why our plans and the parts we had brought wouldn’t work, so we got right to it.
They got lucky and didn’t hit their gas line that’s just a couple inches from the conduit, so they had that going for them.
First, we shut down all the circuits associated with the damaged conduit, and then removed and carefully labeled each conductor from the electrical panel. Then we cut out the several feet of damaged conduit being careful to not further damage the existing wires.
With that accomplished, we cut out the damaged section of wires, and installed a sweep and riser.
Then we installed a new section of conduit with another sweep and riser on the section of conduit coming from the panel, which was fortunately only about 30’ away.
We taped the whole mess up and together to keep dirt out. We would be re-using the wires in the sweep on the far side of the panel, as it was a several hundred foot run from the point of damage to the next j-box. We would pull new wire from the panel to the new, second sweep.
One thing that they didn’t luck out on was the fact that where the damage was, and consequently where the hand hole or ground junction box would have to be was right in the middle of their main access road. And while that made it easy to accesses the repair site, it also meant that we would have to use a heavy duty traffic rated hand hole, which is pretty expensive and very heavy, but is rated to withstand up to 40,000 pound axle weights.
The box itself weighs 120 pounds, and the lid is another 70 pounds. So we broke out one of our secret weapons to move and position the heavy box that made it super easy.
Having the crane hold the box in place while we back filled around it made this part of the job easy.
Then we had to pull in all the new home run copper conductors.
Once that was done, we began the somewhat tedious task of splicing all the wires back together. Because this is a ground box and a below-grade splice scenario, the appropriate splice blocks are needed. We used direct burial rated, utility grade splices.
Even though these splices are considerably faster and easier than using split bolts, it’s still time consuming, and getting everything to fit in the hand hole just right takes a bit of doing, but we got it done in fairly short order.
Once we were satisfied that all the connections were properly made, it was time to install the steel plate lid.
With the repair completed, the job was almost done-but not quite.
We re-energized the circuits, then went throughout the camp and verified that all the affected areas had proper power and all the appliances were working as they should be.
Once that was verified, we cleaned everything up, loaded up the truck and secured everything, then hit the road west towards home-now driving into the setting sun. 🙄 Sometimes you just can’t win driving into the sun. 🤷♂️
We would finally get back to the shop around 9 pm, where we scrounged a late dinner, some much needed showers, and headed for bed.
A long, but successful day!