I’m watching this arborist on YouTube and they have a truck with a bucket on an arm so they can reach heights without climbing. On/after a rainy day the bucket will accumulate water and they mentioned they can’t drill a hole to drain because it will compromise the grounding.
My understanding of grounding/electricity doesn’t explain this. Can someone help me understand why this would make a difference?
Edit: I get it, I/he should have said “electrical isolation” instead of “grounding”. Either way, a hole allowing a stream of dirty water seems to be the answer here. Thanks 🙂
In: Physics
Not an arborist, but I’m pretty sure they call the people working on the ground “groundie”.
Could it be that they meant water would drip from the buck down on to the groundie?
I see no electrical reason to not make a hole for evacuating rain water. Grounding (or isolation) of the bucked does not depend on having a solid structure.
For an insulated bucked designed for high voltage work, there is a point in not drilling a hole as it would void the design/approval rating of the bucket. Breaking through the layers of the bucket will change how it behaves as a high voltage insulator. Might be dangerous might be not. But it would not be up to code. But for an arborist I can’t imagine that a hole would really make a difference unless they are also working on power lines.
I guess they may be renting trucks which are also approved for high voltage work and thus without drainage.
An insulated aerial device that you’re describing doesn’t have the bucket grounded. There are fiberglass sections in each portion of the boom. And the bucket is also fiberglass. This ensures no electricity from the line can reach the ground through you. Any holes in the bucket will compromise it’s dielectric qualities. Most buckets have a basket tilt function. This serves 2 purposes. Tilts the basket for easier emergency extraction of the person. And also you can dump the water out before you use it.
“The purpose of the solid bucket is to maintain electrical isolation, not grounding. People just confuse the two.”
This really sums it up.
A non engineered hole drilled into the bottom of the bucket comprises structural integrity of the bucket, a straight fiberglass bucket has no non-conductive properties by manufacturer. Drilling a hole in the liner would be an automatic fail during inspection not due to water but due to giving electricity an unintended path to ground. There is a non conductive insert that goes inside the bucket that provides 3rd level non conductive properties. The bucket liner, upper boom non conductive area and lower boom insert provide 3rd level dielectric saftey. The point of a dielectric boom is to not give electricity a path to ground. Just depending on the boom for non conductivity isn’t recommended. properly grounding the chassis to earth to give electric an easier path to ground than through the operator and wearing proper insulated gloves are primary defense.
A solid bucket in a bucket truck maintains electrical isolation, acting as a Faraday cage to ensure operator safety. A hole would compromise isolation, allowing water and contaminants to enter and creating a pathway for electrical shock.
Seems like you could put a hole. With a plug…?
The insulated bucket prevents current from flowing through the arborist to earth in the event that the arborist accidentally touches live apparatus. He will technically be live or energised, but the electricity can’t get to the earth because the current is stopped by the bucket insulation.
If you put a hole in the bucket, water (which is conductive) can form a stream out of the bucket to the ground (or to a part of the bucket truck which is not insulated and in contact with the ground). In this case, if the arborist touches the live apparatus, the electricity has a path through him to earth, which would be very bad for him.
Incidentally, the bucket insulation, even in perfect condition, will do nothing to protect the arborist if he touches two live (separate phase) components of the apparatus or live apparatus and something else that is connected to earth.
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