At the 2006 Kansas Municipal Utilities Underground Workshop in Winfield, Kansas, utility representatives said trying to respond to trouble calls and maintain back-yard systems is getting harder to access. Brad Modlin, the electric distribution director for the city of Mulvane, said, “Alley pole lines are pretty easy to get trucks to, but flower beds, fences and dogs have made most private easements more and more inaccessible.”

Front-Yard Debate

“Trying to deal with easements has gotten out of hand,” said Modlin. “Ordinances allow homeowners to plant and build wherever they want to, so homeowners have planted shrubbery, built fences and in at least one case built a concrete wall over the utility easement.

“Moving the system to the front yard is too costly and older small-town neighborhoods just don't have the room in the front yard,” added Modlin. For this reason the city of Mulvane and most other utilities attending the fall meeting said they are leaving their systems right where they have always been — in the alleys and in back-yard easements.

Overhead Versus Underground

The verdict is still out on the advantages of overhead lines versus underground. The city of Winfield's Will Crow said, “Winfield has had its share of ice storms, so city fathers would like everything buried. But when we take a look at the cost of converting the system to underground, they move on to the next subject.”

Cities also find that overhead lines in back yards have the highest outage durations, partially because they are on the oldest part of the system but also because of the inaccessibility. But the installation cost of running new lines to the front of the house and tearing up customers' yards, plus asking homeowners to convert the meter base at the house is hard to justify.

Another related concern that utilities have with an underground system is safety. The city of Mulvane's Modlin says, “Unless you have good labeling on the elbows and disconnect coming up out of the riser, you don't know which direction the load is flowing. These elbows, which some companies call ‘load break connectors,’ need to be color-coded or labeled with arrows. We use color-coding and arrow stickers that say ‘source elbow’ and the ‘load elbow.’ Other utilities use a number-labeling or tagging system to make sure maintenance crews know what they are working with.”

New Construction

“Mulvane is front-loading most of its new lines,” said Modlin. “We're setting the poles and, in some cases, the underground conduit just off the roadway in the front yards, with padmounted transformers.”

Many municipal utilities in the workshop said they are going to fiberglass for transformer vaults. Winfield's Crow said, “We preferr fiberglass over steel because of the corrosion. Water sprinkler systems are rusting the steel cabinets.” Crow added, “Transformers are hard to come by since Katrina. It doesn't matter if you're needing padmounted, 3-phase or pole-top transformers, delivery times that used to take 10 to 12 weeks are now 6 months out or longer.”

Long Wire Pulls Can Go Bad

When the discussion turned to pulling wire, Winfield's Randy Harding said, “We had some bad experiences trying to pull wire through plastic elbows. When the wire locked up solid on the pull-back, we inserted a sewer camera borrowed from the water department in the conduit to pinpoint the problem. The camera showed that the pull line had burned through the sides at the 90-degree (plastic) elbow joints, and the wire had wedged in the cutout slots at the elbows.”

Several people in the workshop discussion said they try to use steel elbows, which has prevented the elbow problem. Harding said, “After the last incident, which was a long pull, we went to an elbow with a longer sweep compared to the sharp 90-degree bend. We are also staying away from the longer pulls.” Mulvane is also trying a continuous-roll conduit product that has a prelubricated coating inside the pipe.

Winfield's Crow says, “We sometimes connect a straight 8-ft section of steel pipe to the conduit at the end of the conduit run in the tie-in pit for added support. The steel pipe is stronger and more rigid, which holds up better under the weight of the larger switch cabinet pads. Even more critical, the steel pipe keeps the joint at the base of the riser from snapping off on longer wire pulls.”