240V overhead wiring in street - is it insulated?

[ARW]

And one where it meets your house please.

But I would say that they are uninsulated.

[John Rumm]

You would likely find that pole only has two phases and neutral rather than three phase - they may choose not to run the third if its only a "dead leg" run of poles to a relatively low estimated total load.

[Andrew]

You can sometimes see the green copper 'corrosion' on older wires that are sheltered from rain.

[Andrew]

That's an old pole because it still has a BT phone wire sharing the pole, something they avoid with upgraded installations.

[Bill Wright]

Saw this last month.

Bill

[Graham.]

I bet that wiped out TMS.

[Steve Walker]

Creosote is still the preferred option for telegraph and power poles AFAIK.

SteveW

[The Natural Philosopher]

Neutral does not really exist for three phases. I have never seen a two phase plus neutral overhead feed and can't see any technical reason for it

Out here its all three phase 11 KV overhead stepping down to three phase

240v stuff with the neutral 'reconstituted' at the transformer

Or occasionally a two wire only feed to a single remote property that is just two phases and no neutral.

[Martin Brown]

Vertically. Horizontal is typically uninsulated 11kV or higher. Vertical is domestic supply. Since there are no strips of insulation hanging off or visible changes in wire diameter I'd say they were completely uninsulated now even if in the dim and distant past they once had some.

They are still very common in rural areas like mine. BT cables still share the somewhat bent mains electricity poles even today.

The mains has been upgraded to a modern aluminium full insulated 3 phase bundle but the cables all share the same poles. Which means we lose both landline phone and electricity simultaneously when the milk tanker fails to make it round the corner on a frosty morning.

[Marland]

That last is a bit ambiguous. I take it you you mean a two wire 2 phase

11Kv line like we had to supply us and a neighbour a field or two along the road, from the transformer it was two wire 240V pole mounted along the field boundary?s to each property. That was single phase live and neutral with neutral grounded to earth at each pole using an uninsulated stranded cable into the ground and presumably a buried earth rod. Not sure if that is pure copper or something else but it has gathered a greenish tinge in the 54 years since I watched the SWEB workers dig holes by hand for the poles. No fancy augers back then. Each pole then had a red enabled plate with the legend PME affixed to it .

GH

[Dan S. MacAbre]

Aren't anglers warned to be aware of the danger of accidentally touching them with their fishing lines while casting? I think I've seen such signs around here.

[NY]

Only if it's somehow rotated on your screen. The image I posted is landscape, wider that it is tall, with a vertical wooden post, three horizontal electricity wires, one below another, and one horizontal BT cable some distance below it. The pole really *is* multi-purpose because it also has a street light on

That's what I would expect. Here's a photo of the house end of those cables:

(yes I know the thick cable running down the wall from the insulators needs another staple to fasten it to the wall near where it bends from vertical to horizontal)

is the overall view of house and pole, showing the street light at the bottom left of picture.

[Roger Hayter]

They replaced the transformer nearby and overhead wires to a few houses on the pole outside our house five years ago, and it still also carries the phone wires to the same houses. But then it is rather hard to see where they could put another pole.

[Dave Liquorice]

B-) Broken connection from line to the wire taking the power over the top of the pole. Bet who ever was on that phase was having some interesting supply variations. Looks to be 33 kV as well not 11 kV.

[Huge]

[23 lines snipped]

Ditto when they replaced out poles.

[Scott]

I don't think 400KV is insulated so why on earth (excuse the pun) would 230 or 240V be insulated?

[John Rumm]

True, for a proper 3ph load. However if its a domestic supply, then individual properties would typically only receive one phase and a neutral (derived at the transformer).

(I am assuming we are looking at the LV side of the supply between transformer and house here. If that is the case you would normally expect 4 wires if all the phases are present with a neutral).

If you have more potential load than would be supported on one phase, and its close enough to do the run at LV, then it might make sense.

All this is only conjecture based on what we can see in the photo obviously.

Yup same here... about a dozen properties fed from one (twin) pole mounted transformer. A while back they re-cabled the LV side and went from 4 air spaced uninsulated conductors, to a twisted bundle of insulated ones.

[NY]

I suppose it makes more sense to insulate 240 V overhead wiring because there is a greater chance of a high vehicle striking it, a tree falling on it (without breaking the wire and therefore the circuit) or a builder coming into contact with it as it approaches a house. Higher voltage lines are higher off the ground (especially pylon wiring) and so is almost impossible for a tall vehicle or a tree to come into contact with it. 11 kV and 33 kV are borderline: higher than 240 V, but still just about low enough for long fishing rods to come into contact with it (or more likely, for arcing to occur) - hence the warning signs on river and canal banks where these wires cross.

I presume that when the electricity company put temporary sleeving around the wires where they approach the insulators on a house when building work is being done, the sleeving has a slit along it (like the foam insulation that is put around water pipes) so it can be put onto the wires without having to disconnect them from the house insulators and insert the wire into the sleeve.

[John Rumm]

Because its lower and more easily accessible, and also connects directly to a customer's property.

[Marland]

400KV cables tend to be well above the height that window cleaners with ladders,aerial riggers, roofers and house painters ,gardeners trimming Wisteria or Ivy and various other tasks that take place around a building which the low voltage services are also located around at similar height to the gutters.

GH