With new regulations coming down from OSHA, utilities are faced with increased clearances, requiring many lineman to forego rubber gloves and go back to hot sticking on some lines. Of course, many utilities don’t use gloves and continue to hot stick their lines.
Tim Jones, field construction supervisor with Kansas City Power and Light, arranged to have Jim Dukart and me out to the field site where their crews were upgrading a 12.47-kV line on poles having 34 kV attached. The line was a radial feed being upgraded from the Industrial Park substation to the Gower substation, so the line needed to be upgraded live to serve the 1500 people who live in Gower, Missouri.