Pinting outside near electric...

LOL, yea nice typo huh?

Get off the metal ladder. Wooden or fiberglass only around electric. Nothing will arc (assuming you're not made of steel and your service entrance is installed properly...).

Jeff

The last time I painted the house near the electric power I taped a brush to a stick, and used that to paint, carefully, around the attachment point. That way I could keep well back from the power line. The job may have been a little sloppy right around there, but I didn't have to worry about touching the line.

Bill Gill

I don't know what the power company would charge to come out and disconnect, but it would be worth contacting them. Our tree trimmer got knocked off his ladder when he touched wet foliage that was in contact with a ?50,000 v. line. He lived to tell about it.

Come on! A pin hole would have to be awfully large for paint to actually enter it (surface tension and all that), and then the resistance of the tiny paint pathway would be so high that current would be trivial. And then of course it has to get through the bush handle, which is probably a complete insulator.

If your ladder contacted the cable, and some current somehow managed to get out (are you suggesting the ladder will scrap the insulation off, or what?), it would flow preferentially down the ladder; I expect aluminum has somewhat better conductivity than a person (presumably with shoes on).

Okay, it is prudent not to rest the ladder on the cable, but other than that...

Hey, go for it......apply your misguided logic and theory to a situation like that and get your ass zapped.....you've been warned Mr. Expert.

I missed that. When did I give dangerous advice? One single example. I'll wait.

This is Turtle.

Wade i know if your careful a metal ladder and power cable will be ok, but i have to see Volts thinking here for pure conditions of the thoughts. Metal ladder + Water base paint + Service entrence power lines = Trouble to any unknowing person. Taking no sides but just logic only.

TURTLE

On the service drop?! I don't think so. That raises an interesting question though. If the insulation is so heavily pinholed, why doesn't the rain short it out? Certainly water is more likely to enter a pin hole than paint, and hot to hot is many times more potent than hot to ladder to dirt. Yet I haven't heard of it happening.

You hear about balloonists and sky divers getting electrocuted on power lines, so maybe transmission lines are not insulated (anyone know about this?) but the service drop is.

You're making the assumption that the service drop is the only thing he could possibly contact with his ladder. Plus, often the weather head has exposed crimp connections that pose potential shorts. Transmission lines are naturally insulated, it's called an air gap. :)

Jeff

Nonsense. I think it's fused at like 10,000 amps back on one of the transformers :-)

Bob