Our industry is in the middle of a construction boom. Upgrades, increased capacity and population sprawl are creating a record number of construction projects. I asked line workers what is driving the construction boom in their service territory.

“Our construction started about 10 years ago. It hasn’t slowed down since,” says Don Eubank, Southwest Tennessee EMC manager in Jackson, Tennessee. “Subdivisions are springing up in Tipton County, outside of Memphis. Covington is the same way. People just don’t want to live in the city. We try to do most of the work ourselves, but in the summer, our numbers on new-home hookups double, so we contract some of our work out.”

Xcel Energy’s Steve Laubhan says, “For the last 12 to 15 years, Colorado has had a huge boom in new installations. Capacity projects and cable replacement are also driving the work. The initial undergrounding of infrastructure back in early to mid-1970s is maturing. That cable is now reaching the end of its useful life.”

Everyone agrees utilities are doing more construction, but according to Laubhan, the linemen aren’t doing the construction. “You won’t very often see a journeyman on a trencher or a backhoe, or even setting poles,” says Laubhan. “In fact, our utility linemen are doing less construction work. It makes good business sense. You’re paying these journeymen high dollars for their skills and experience. Why would you want them setting on a trencher?”

Rudy Urias, a line construction superintendent, agrees. “In the past five years, Tucson Electric Power has started contracting more of our work out to contractors who mainly do the finished product — setting transformers, tie-ins, service drops. We are short on people, so when the work picks up, we hire contractors.”

Eubank says, “New subdivisions are pushing out everywhere. Southwest’s service territory ranges from the Mississippi River on the west to within approximately 30 miles of the Tennessee River on the east. We are the largest electric cooperative in West Tennessee, with customers in suburbs that border cities like Memphis, Covington and Jackson. I think we have 190 new homes scheduled for this summer in Memphis alone. Because of the long, narrow geographic shape of our service territory, it is necessary for Southwest to operate four districts in order to provide quality service to our customers. We have district offices in Brownsville, Jackson, Covington and Henderson that are operationally autonomous, providing light line construction and maintenance, new electric services and routine customer services. We are building out to new subdivisions in all of these districts. During our peak season, some of our districts subcontract the extra work out to contractors.”

In-House Line Maintenance

But most utilities say they are keeping the maintenance work and high-priority jobs in-house.
“We have smaller crews today than when I was coming up,” says Laubhan. “There was a period of 10 years or so when we just didn’t hire very many helpers and grunts. Now there’s a shortage. Our linemen do the repair and restore work, and contractors do the heavy feeder build work and the dirt work. Our crews also do most of the heavy terminations.”

Urias says, “In Tucson, our linemen install the backbone: the distribution primary. We run it to the transformer sites and the contractors install the transformers, make up the cable in the transformers and run the service to the house. I’d say we contract out 20% to 25% of the construction work.”

The Lineman’s Workload

So, how is construction work affecting the lineman’s day-to-day job?

Urias says, “We have a lot of new underground going in. Last year it kicked our butt. We had so many new subdivisions, we worked overtime for months. ”

Eubank says, “Our line work is kept steady with upgrades on the system. As a line gets loaded, you get into some balance problems if you don’t do something about it. In some cases, our crews are going in and replacing old wire with bigger wire.”

Urias says, “We are hiring helpers and apprentices. When we started this process, over 100 applicants took the test. We had only planned to hire eight, but three of the applicants had similar scores, so we received authorization to hire 11. These pre-apprentices have just completed two weeks of climbing school and will be helpers for a year before starting their apprenticeships. We also have 20 new apprentices in line construction. There’s still a lot of attraction to the job as a lineman.”

Eubank and Laubhan agree. Regardless of the construction boom, line work is a great profession.