Loading Up the Juice

 7 a.m., and here comes Kootenai Electric Cooperative. Seemingly every truck they own. A bucket truck, a pole truck, a pickup truck, and a backhoe. Mayhem ensues. Backhoe digs a hole for the first telephone pole; water wells up from the spring seepage along Cable Creek. The pole won't stabilize and needs rock or gravel to help set the pole. I call a neighbor who offers up a mound of broken concrete from his place. Three bucket loads later - and a bit of anxiety on the part of the neighbor's mastiff - the post hole is filled and tamped solid. The second pole, on the west side of the creek, draws no water. Easy peasy.

 

The bucket truck goes into action, cross-trees are bolted onto the poles, and wires are strung between them.  The power module is set into place at the first switchback in our driveway, and the transformer near the home site is prepped.

 From conduit sweeps at the module, a cord is shot up the conduit to the transformer using a vacuum, much like a bank. drive-through deposit tube. The cord is attached to a thick power cable wound around a spool on the cable truck and winched down through the conduit to the module. 

When that's done, the cable truck rolls down to the module and the process of cable pulling begins again, blowing a cord up to the module from the telephone pole and winched back down to the pole.

The wiring will be finished early next week after additional excavation work on Monday - backfilling the foundation and trench, digging the power line trench from the transformer to the house; digging the water line from the well to the house; digging the line from a propane tank to the fireplace input; and digging out the septic field. Then, Kootenai Electric will turn on the power - shoot me the juice, Bruce!

Closing on the construction loan is Monday.