POWER!

It's been longer than it should have been; many, many headaches which shouldn't have been; too many conversations with bureaucrats and corporate types which shouldn't have sounded so much like a bad parody of themselves; it's been frustrating, aggravating, irritating, tiring, .... well, maybe you get the gist of it?

But, finally, we are "officially" on the grid.  Or to put it plain and simple, we now have a 220V, 100A service (and a meter) and have disconnected the "temporary" power line running to our neighbors some 200 feet away.  Perhaps this doesn't mean much to you; we do tend to take electrical power for granted and simply assume that our local power company (outrageous as they may be) will somehow (magically?) assure delivery without an particular effort on our part.

But, at the same time, most of the people who read this will be city dweller (or town dwellers, etc) and are in a position to take such things for granted.

It's not quite so simple, however, when you live "Down at the End of Nowhere."

First, when we bought the property, the nearest electrical service was some 500-600 feet away on Coyle Road ... on the far side of Coyle Road.  When we bought this property, not only was there no power but there was no telephone, no water, no gas, no cable TV ... but there was a paved road.

Since moving in here, we do have a phone line (and DSL); we "discovered" a water line (more on that in a moment) but still don't know where it was running to; we use LPG (which is delivered) and we started using a generator/inverter arrangement with a large battery bank for our power.  The down-side?  Expense!

Even just running the generator to keep the battery banks charged was running a lot of expense and, a year and a half ago, after our neighbors (finally) had a working connection to the grid, we laid out 250 feet of 2-2-2 power cable to bring a 220V / 40A service over to our distribution panel.  Legal?  Not really.  We were paying for the electrical power but definitely not an arrangement that the power company would have approved of.

The problem, of course, was simply a matter of expense.  I got quotes on bringing electrical service to our location and ... well, I didn't faint but I didn't exactly jump up and down with joy either.  Bluntly ... it was outrageously expensive.

We aren't starving and aren't going cold, etc., but a limited income is still a limited income and we were talking about 4-5 months (total) income just for the electrical service.

On the one hand, we're very accustomed to doing things ourselves and for ourselves.

On the other hand, physically, I'm more limited than I was a decade or more ago -- meaning I don't have the strength and endurance for heavy physical labor.  

So, we looked at a compromise solution: do as much as possible for ourselves but hire someone for the heavy part (excavation for buried conduit, etc).  Maybe it doesn't sound like much -- 400-500 feet of trench, 2 feet deep, maybe 1,000 cuft of dirt ... only a few tons, nothing really ... right?

Okay, getting the trench dug was -- unexpectedly -- the simplest part of the task.  Even laying the conduit wasn't that bad and the second day saw a pit at the power pole, a second pit at our place with a power service panel waiting for a meter, a second wire run up the driveway to our distribution (my workshop) and a new buried line running back down to Mary's "greenhouse".

Of course, the trenching really tore up our gravel drive but that wasn't exactly unexpected. (We didn't expect the trenching to break a waterline which, for a while, seem to be threatening to immerse the trench.  There are no waterlines out here ... never have been ... and, after a half-hour or so, the water stopped flowing ... and we never did discover where, why or whatever was behind the waterline.

What was even less expected ... well, it went like this.

Step one was to call Puget Sound Energy to activate the installation.  In response, PSE gave me a 5-day window (work days only) during which we could expect the installation crew.

Naturally, five days later ... no crew.

Call again, apologies but a storm had disrupted power elsewhere and the crews had been tied up.  But they'd have some one out in a couple of days.

A couple of days later, I spot a red card attached to the service box.  Had the service crew bothered to let us know they were there?  Of course not ... what they had done was leave a list of gripes.

1) depth ... was the conduit a full two-feet below ground (they didn't really think so)

2) rope -- the rope I had strung through the conduit (so they could pull wire) was too small.

3) elbows -- the 3" elbows (which I'd bought from local suppliers and which were the only size they had) need a 24" bend radius (all I'd found were 12" radius).

4) need a wider gap between the conduit and the riser to the box  (okay, that at least was easy to provide).

5) need a second ground rod (with a continuous ground wire).  That one wasn't too hard but driving these copper-clad steel rods in this soil (well laced with Coyle potatoes as they're euphemistically called) is not even close to easy.

6) No L&I inspection -- I'd called L&I (Labor and Industry) first thing about an inspection and I'd been told -- wrongly as became increasingly usual -- that L&I didn't need to inspect a "homeowner" installation; that they only inspected "commercial" and "contractor" installations.

Okay, I was aggravated (putting it mildly) but I had a supplier special order 3" elbows with a 24" radius (i.e., they simply were not available locally ... and maybe that tells you how commonly they're required).

And I replaced the rope (I was tempted to use some really heavy rope -- like 1" diameter and stiff as a board -- on each end and splice a more reasonable length in the center.)

As for the depth, I simply measured it and put 24" length markers on top of the ends of the conduits ... showing where ground level actually was (or would be once filled in again).

And I used a hacksaw to widen the gap between the ends of the conduits.

And I added a second ground rod (only a 4' one but enough to satisfy).

And all of this has taken some time, not least simply because I was disgusted with PSE and PatElCo (their contractor) but also because I needed some help to dig up a section of conduit to replace an existing elbow with the new, larger, improved elbow and also because I did have other things happening -- such as being out of town on a job, finishing the roof over my deck ... various things.

So, finally, I was ready to call L&I again (and raise some hell as required).  This time -- different story -- yes, they do inspect (regardless of who was doing the work) but also I need to pay for a permit.  Of course, I can do that part online, right?

So, with L&I's rep walking me though the process, I filled out the application and used a credit card to pay the $54 fee.  I do this kind of thing all the time; so much so that I have a utility which generates "one-time" credit cards for electronic transactions (I don't like giving out my real card info).  

And everything's going fine until the payment program asks me for my ISO Country Code.

Okay, everybody who knows what an ISO Country Code is, please stand up.

What? Nobody? (Of the seven people in Jefferson County who know what an ISO Country Code is ... I'm two of them.)

Then I guess you also don't know that the ISO Country Code for the US is 840 (there's a second code for major outlying islands of the US, this just applies to the lower 48, Alaska and Hawaii).

So, how do I come to be familiar with ISO Country Codes?  Mostly because I've used them but I've NEVER asked anyone else (i.e., anyone using my software) to know what they are; only to select a country from a list (the code is filled in automatically.)

To be perfectly honest, I had to look up the US code; it's been a while and I'd forgotten.

So, I input the code, right?

And it's rejected!

To keep it short, in addition to the country codes, there are also 2-Alpha and 3-Alpha country identifiers.  For the US, these are US and USA respectively.

And the only thing the idiot programmer -- blame where blame is due -- was ready to accept was the 2-Alpha identifier, not the ISO Country Code which he/she had explicitly requested.

Just one more in a long list of frustrations.

But sometimes we get lucky ... even if it doesn't feel lucky at the time.

Some while later (I've forgotten exactly how long), an L&I inspector finally showed up ... and left another list of complaints.   More frustration!

Again, an interval.  Partly a matter of having other things to do, partly simple frustration and exhaustion but, finally, I called the L&I Inspector (at least this one had left his name) and found myself -- utterly surprised -- talking to an actual, intelligent and communicative engineer.  

And engineer!!!   I can always talk to an engineer!!!  It's just bureaucrats and corporate bubble-heads that drive me up the proverbial wall.

Yes, it did have a number of items needing attention.  He even arranged to come out and meet me and go over them in detail.  And they even made sense.   (Of course, a couple of the requirements had little purpose except to satisfy some corporate bubble-heads but ... at least, they weren't complete nonsense.)

And, when he left, there was a green tag on the box!  Finally!

Another call to PSE/PatElCo, another 5-day window ... and another week without anyone showing up ... naturally.

Call again, apologies again, same kind of problems, crews tied up with emergencies but there'll be a crew in the area on Thursday ... and they'll be at my place first.  First thing in the morning!

And, even bigger surprise ... they were.

And this mess (see below) was finally tied to the grid and powered on.  (Of course it did take me an hour or so -- at the other end, in my workshop -- to remove the temporary cable from our neighbors and tie the new service into our panel but that was done before I broke for lunch.)

Now all I have to do is get some help to fill in the work pits and then I can rehang our gate (on the post at the left) and Mary can do some landscaping and ... ye gads! I'm glad it's over.

BTW: start to completion time?  Try four months.  Four frigging months of run-around and garbage ... and, short of duress -- I'll never have talk to PaTelCo again.  (Of course, I do have the intelligent engineer's phone number in my file -- some things should be treasured.)

But now we have POWER!  (And our backup generator and inverters, of course.)