The mysterious green box at the end of your driveway

[+JamGuys]

Okay, before a certain recent thread was mercifully shut down by MooseMob, I enquired about the precise nature of the "green box at the end of your driveway" that featured tangentially in the discussion. I'm happy to report that I've just found the answer and that it's a "padmount transformer" which is "used in electrical power distribution systems to step down voltage from the high voltage terminal of an underground electrical distribution systems to the low voltage terminal thereof going to the end user's electrical system, etc." So, I did finally gain a piece of useful information from that never-ending discussion!

[+9Key]

[+Moose Mob]

Thank you.

 

And I would appreciate it if we did not discuss folks getting drowned by the water meters, explosions from gas lines or becoming brain dead from cable boxes.

[+JamGuys]

Thank you.

 

And I would appreciate it if we did not discuss folks getting drowned by the water meters, explosions from gas lines or becoming brain dead from cable boxes.

[Mushtang]

Thank you.

 

And I would appreciate it if we did not discuss folks getting drowned by the water meters, explosions from gas lines or becoming brain dead from cable boxes.

You think anyone here would express concern over things like that happening???

 

[+KJcachers]

padmount as opposed to polemount. Similar thing as those big gray cans up on the poles just in a pretty green box on a concrete pad. usually used when electrical wiring to the building is buried in the ground.

Edited January 8, 2009 by KJcachers

[+Sioneva]

Thank you.

 

And I would appreciate it if we did not discuss folks getting drowned by the water meters, explosions from gas lines or becoming brain dead from cable boxes.

 

... sadly, the restriction came too late for for Vinny, who was drowned while out hamster caching ...

 

*takes hat off as sign of respect*

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Thank you.

 

And I would appreciate it if we did not discuss folks getting drowned by the water meters, explosions from gas lines or becoming brain dead from cable boxes.

 

... sadly, the restriction came too late for for Vinny, who was drowned while out hamster caching ...

 

*takes hat off as sign of respect*

Actually, I am still alive, albeit in pretty bad shape, and I am still in the intensive care ward, all because of the following mishaps which occurred yesterday afternoon:

 

While seeking a newly-listed cache which was a putative hamster cache, I determined that the cache container must have been hidden behind a water meter located near the back door of a commercial bakery in southwestern Baltimore. While in the vicinity of the water meter, it exploded from what the police later told me was "...dangerous water overpressure due to failure of lunar-tide correction algorithms at the water plant" sending me -- by now half-drowned and battered by the massive flood of water -- flying across the alleyway, where my left arm struck a cable box on the wall of an electronics store.

 

Unfortunately, the cable box delivered a near-lethal jolt of dangerous high-potency cable juice (please note that cable juice is, watt for watt, over 340 times more dangerous to human life than regular electricity) surging through my body, rendering me nearly brain-dead.

 

As my body flopped and jerked convulsively in the alleyway from these two combined insults, accumulated natural gas from a previously-undetected leak in a nearby gas line ignited due to the flow of cable juice through my body and its subsequent incandescence.

 

The resultant explosion not only burned me badly, but sent my poor hapless body flying over 300 yards down the alley and across the street, where it landed on a sewer grate, where I was nearly killed by dangerous levels of hydrogen sulfide gas emerging from the sewer below.

 

Some helpful passerby rolled me off the sewer grate, thus likely saving my life, but the spot where they left me, while awaiting arrival of the ambulance, was in front of a broken storm drain grate on the side of the street. A feral pet alligator which had been living in the storm drain emerged from the pipe through the broken grate and bit my arm.

 

As soon as I recover, that is, if I recover, I plan to fly out to Bellevue, Nebraska and install a mysterious green metal box on a concrete pad near the end of Sioneva's driveway. She will, in her naivete, blithely and casually assume that it is simply a padmount transformer owned by the local electrical utility company.

 

.

Edited January 8, 2009 by Vinny & Sue Team

[+J-Way]

[Vinny's story deleted for brevity and sanity]

But did you find the hamster cache?

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

[Vinny's story deleted for brevity and sanity]

But did you find the hamster cache?

No. And, after my experience, I will not try to hunt it again.

[+Isonzo Karst]

I suppose the water meter explosion drowned the hamsters, unless perhaps you're wrong on the cache location. Signal bounce in an alleyway can be brutal. Still, it goes to show, once again, that hamster drowning is a necessary albeit, rare, consequence of hamster caching.

Best wishes on your recovery.

[+The Leprechauns]

There's a padmount transformer a mere nine feet from my front door. (I just measured.) My young daughter and I walk past it all the time, and we plant flowers around it. We have suffered no ill effects.

 

I thought of hiding a hamstercache behind the transformer. But then Vinny would know where I live, and I regard that as "unsafe." I do not hide unsafe caches.

 

For more on drowning hamsters, see this thread.

[+Sioneva]

[Vinny's story deleted for brevity and sanity]

But did you find the hamster cache?

No. And, after my experience, I will not try to hunt it again.

 

I thought the alligator would be sure to succeed. I will simply have to try again.

 

Once I investigate this weird green box that appeared on the edge of my driveway this morning, anyway. I'm sure there is a cache behind it.

[+Too Tall John]

And I would appreciate it if we did not discuss... becoming brain dead from cable boxes.

Coming soon to a TV near you:

 

You can become brain dead in HD.

 

[+Harry Dolphin]

I enquired about the precise nature of the "green box at the end of your driveway" that featured tangentially in the discussion. I'm happy to report that I've just found the answer and that it's a "padmount transformer"

 

I'm supposed to have a green container at the end of my driveway?!? I don't have one! I feel so ... cheated!

[+JamGuys]

I enquired about the precise nature of the "green box at the end of your driveway" that featured tangentially in the discussion. I'm happy to report that I've just found the answer and that it's a "padmount transformer"

 

I'm supposed to have a green container at the end of my driveway?!? I don't have one! I feel so ... cheated!

Maybe it's in your yard?

 

Edited January 10, 2009 by JamGuys

[+J-Way]

Those are only in newer subdivisions with underground utilities. My house has overhead utilities (power, cable, and phone are on poles), so no big green box for me.

[+TrailGators]

I have a green box in my yard, but it's for....

 

[+Glenn]

 

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

[Mushtang]

 

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

[+Too Tall John]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

[+Glenn]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

[Mushtang]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

Dude, neither one of us thought it was actually electricity draining out. We were joking. Didn't you see the laughing and smiling emoticons?

[+Glenn]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

Dude, neither one of us thought it was actually electricity draining out. We were joking. Didn't you see the laughing and smiling emoticons?

I though I WAS playing, now your the one taking it serious just because I didn't include a in my post. Sorry.

Edited January 10, 2009 by Glenn

[+Too Tall John]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

Dude, neither one of us thought it was actually electricity draining out. We were joking. Didn't you see the laughing and smiling emoticons?

I though I WAS playing, now your the one taking it serious just because I didn't include a in my post. Sorry.

Just be careful, because what we're really talking about here is Dihydrogen Monoxide, a compound that has caused more death and destruction than... well, just about anything else! When Dihydrogen monoxide and electricity come in contact, the results can be dangerously unpredictable!

 

Beware!

 

 

 

[+Too Tall John]

...It also causes double posts....

Edited January 10, 2009 by Too Tall John

[+mertat]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

Dude, neither one of us thought it was actually electricity draining out. We were joking. Didn't you see the laughing and smiling emoticons?

I though I WAS playing, now your the one taking it serious just because I didn't include a in my post. Sorry.

Just be careful, because what we're really talking about here is Dihydrogen Monoxide, a compound that has caused more death and destruction than... well, just about anything else! When Dihydrogen monoxide and electricity come in contact, the results can be dangerously unpredictable!

 

Beware!

 

 

 

No! No! No! What they don't want you to know is that it really contains hundreds of hamsters on little hamster wheels. How else do you think they can generate enough electricity to power your house? However, they can't risk errant hamsters coming into contact with their trained electrical-generating hamsters so they have certain safeguards in place to prevent that.

[+Glenn]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

Dude, neither one of us thought it was actually electricity draining out. We were joking. Didn't you see the laughing and smiling emoticons?

I though I WAS playing, now your the one taking it serious just because I didn't include a in my post. Sorry.

Just be careful, because what we're really talking about here is Dihydrogen Monoxide, a compound that has caused more death and destruction than... well, just about anything else! When Dihydrogen monoxide and electricity come in contact, the results can be dangerously unpredictable!

 

Beware!

 

 

 

No! No! No! What they don't want you to know is that it really contains hundreds of hamsters on little hamster wheels. How else do you think they can generate enough electricity to power your house? However, they can't risk errant hamsters coming into contact with their trained electrical-generating hamsters so they have certain safeguards in place to prevent that.

 

You do know that hamsters contain large amounts of dihydrogen monoxide! Good thing I swore the stuff off years ago. By the way the withdraw symptoms are awful!!!

[+somatachlora]

I laughed so hard I cried!!!

[+tsnyder88]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

Dude, neither one of us thought it was actually electricity draining out. We were joking. Didn't you see the laughing and smiling emoticons?

I though I WAS playing, now your the one taking it serious just because I didn't include a in my post. Sorry.

Just be careful, because what we're really talking about here is Dihydrogen Monoxide, a compound that has caused more death and destruction than... well, just about anything else! When Dihydrogen monoxide and electricity come in contact, the results can be dangerously unpredictable!

 

Beware!

 

 

 

No! No! No! What they don't want you to know is that it really contains hundreds of hamsters on little hamster wheels. How else do you think they can generate enough electricity to power your house? However, they can't risk errant hamsters coming into contact with their trained electrical-generating hamsters so they have certain safeguards in place to prevent that.

 

You do know that hamsters contain large amounts of dihydrogen monoxide! Good thing I swore the stuff off years ago. By the way the withdraw symptoms are awful!!!

 

[+markandsandy]

Never poke at a padmount transformer (green boxes on boulevards). It doesn't say no geocaching so I guess placing a geocache on one is fine.

I think that's just because they don't want you to poke a hole in the side and let the electricity drain out all over your shoes. That stuff is pretty hard to clean up too.

 

Well, I'm told that if you use a good wet mop, it comes right up!

 

 

 

 

I see that you have some experience with this. But that isn't electricity draining out it is PCB (Polychlorinated biphenyl) which at one time was commonly used a coolant in transformers but due to the high health and environmental hazards it's production was banned years ago.

Dude, neither one of us thought it was actually electricity draining out. We were joking. Didn't you see the laughing and smiling emoticons?

I though I WAS playing, now your the one taking it serious just because I didn't include a in my post. Sorry.

Just be careful, because what we're really talking about here is Dihydrogen Monoxide, a compound that has caused more death and destruction than... well, just about anything else! When Dihydrogen monoxide and electricity come in contact, the results can be dangerously unpredictable!

 

Beware!

 

 

 

 

So that's what happened; someone poked a hole in a padmount transformer! I couldn't get home for two days last week because of record levels of Dihydrogen Monoxide in the rivers around here.

[+Sioneva]

I laughed so hard I cried!!!

 

Hmmm. You appear to have had an episode of spontaneous dihydrogen monoxide leakage. I suggest that you seek medical attention immediately! Too much of that sort of thing causes your external visual equipment to turn red... not to mention creating odd sounds and making the olfactory equipment clog!

[+Star*Hopper]

I laughed so hard I cried!!!

 

Hmmm. You appear to have had an episode of spontaneous dihydrogen monoxide leakage. I suggest that you seek medical attention immediately! Too much of that sort of thing causes your external visual equipment to turn red... not to mention creating odd sounds and making the olfactory equipment clog!

 

If it turns red, zomg! YES!! call the medics. It's s'posed to be yellow. & you just change yer drawers.

 

BTW - I wanta put out this really really really ....(you get the idea...) really hard-to-find cache, & since there seems to be several chemical experts around, anyone know where I can get some unobtanium-based paint?

 

~*

[+Too Tall John]

BTW - I wanta put out this really really really ....(you get the idea...) really hard-to-find cache, & since there seems to be several chemical experts around, anyone know where I can get some unobtanium-based paint?

Can't get it.

 

...Especially since they stopped using it when they started using hamsters again...

[BassMasterCHS]

I have one at the end of the driveway, and it's been replaced three times over 5 years. Each and every one has caught fire and made loud electrical buzzing noises...then the power for the entire street goes out until TECO comes along with a new unit.

[+Sioneva]

I have one at the end of the driveway, and it's been replaced three times over 5 years. Each and every one has caught fire and made loud electrical buzzing noises...then the power for the entire street goes out until TECO comes along with a new unit.

 

Poor little hamsters... yes, they are prone to spontaneous combustion.

 

And they buzz.

[+KD7MXI]

[+The Jester]

Hey, I thought you weren't supposed to touch those things with a 10 foot pole!

[+sbell111]

Hey, I thought you weren't supposed to touch those things with a 10 foot pole!

That's why he's using an eight foot pole.

[Mushtang]

Hey, I thought you weren't supposed to touch those things with a 10 foot pole!

That's why he's using an eight foot pole.

He's obviously using it to retrieve the log book from the middle of all those high power wires. He's not stupid.

[+Glenn]

I have one at the end of the driveway, and it's been replaced three times over 5 years. Each and every one has caught fire and made loud electrical buzzing noises...then the power for the entire street goes out until TECO comes along with a new unit.

 

And yet people still think those are good places to magnetically attach caches to.

[+sbell111]

I have one at the end of the driveway, and it's been replaced three times over 5 years. Each and every one has caught fire and made loud electrical buzzing noises...then the power for the entire street goes out until TECO comes along with a new unit.

 

And yet people still think those are good places to magnetically attach caches to.

I wondered how long it would take before someone used this thread to try to resurrect the closed one.

[+jackrock]

Hey, I thought you weren't supposed to touch those things with a 10 foot pole!

That's why he's using an eight foot pole.

He's obviously using it to retrieve the log book from the middle of all those high power wires. He's not stupid.

 

I thought they said to NOT poke those things.

[lecarlyle]

Hey, I thought you weren't supposed to touch those things with a 10 foot pole!

That's why he's using an eight foot pole.

He's obviously using it to retrieve the log book from the middle of all those high power wires. He's not stupid.

 

I thought they said to NOT poke those things.

 

He can poke it. He's a professional.

[+Sioneva]

I have one at the end of the driveway, and it's been replaced three times over 5 years. Each and every one has caught fire and made loud electrical buzzing noises...then the power for the entire street goes out until TECO comes along with a new unit.

 

And yet people still think those are good places to magnetically attach caches to.

I wondered how long it would take before someone used this thread to try to resurrect the closed one.

 

Franken-Glenn? Is that where all the electricity is going to?

 

Thread-resurrection... sounds scary.

[+wavector]

Franken-Glenn? Is that where all the electricity is going to?

Thread-resurrection... sounds scary.

 

As long as the subject continues as a joke there are going to be serious comments. Making jokes about utility infrastructure may be entertaining, I don't deny that many seem entertained, but Glenn is actually quite right.

 

Jodie Lane's family received just over $7 million dollars when she was killed, and of course she wasn't geocaching when she was killed so logically no geocachers are at risk.

 

So go ahead and keep joking, and I will go ahead and do as I was trained to do, I will use the specialized tools and employ the procedures outlined in my training before I touch transformers, poles, guy wires, masts or any other part of the utility infrastructure. The utility company trains employees and deploys specialized equipment to deal with a known hazard. Making a joke out that hazard on these forums does nothing to diminish the risk.

 

The electricity "leaked" out of the "fixture" through Jodie Lane and into the ground, her life leaked away with it, not so funny.

 

I have no doubt that a geocacher will be killed in a stray voltage incident, it is only a matter of time. Jodie Lane was the first person in Manhattan killed by energized infrastructure but the utility company has been aware of the risk for a long time, that is why they provide tools and training to all employees who have to work on or near their equipment, it isn't a joke.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

I have no doubt that a geocacher will be killed in a stray voltage incident, it is only a matter of time. Jodie Lane was the first person in Manhattan killed by energized infrastructure but the utility company has been aware of the risk for a long time, that is why they provide tools and training to all employees who have to work on or near their equipment, it isn't a joke.

I have no doubt that a geocacher will be killed by a meteorite, but we don't live underground because the risk is minimal.

 

Find a risk, any risk, and someone has likely died from it, no matter how improbable.

 

Same with padmount transformers. There is indeed risk. Google "padmount transformer" and you will find all sorts of known dangers.

 

However, the US is rife with lawyers who love to prove liability on the part of any company with deep pockets. It might be said that they are much more dangerous to companies which don't pay attention to safety than are padmount transformers.

 

My thinking is that if padmount transformers represented any real risk of getting companies on the losing end of a wrongful death liability lawsuit then they would have padmount transformers inside secure facilities. As it is, since power companies deem them safe enough for unprotected installation in residential neighborhoods, I believe that they've done enough research to prove them an acceptable risk.

 

My issues with them are two:

1) There is no way you have permission to attach anything to them.

and

How lame can a hide get?

[+wavector]

However, the US is rife with lawyers...

 

My issues with them are two:

1) There is no way you have permission to attach anything to them.

and

How lame can a hide get?

 

Actually the number of transformers needed are so large and the risks so small that there will never be any attempt to protect them or fence them from people. When transformers are exposed to traffic bollards are used, this is common in parking lots and along side roads.

The risk is not acceptably low for regular approaches. Every worker who is required to work on or near this infrastructure receives training, I took three weeks of power awareness training and I am supplied with several specialized tools as are all my co-workers. The risk is appreciable for those working on this equipment, the risk is appreciable enough that protocol is defined for all acceptable approaches. If all workers are trained and supplied with tools yoiu can bet that the reason is real, costs to train workers and supply them with tools are high but the risk is much higher, it isn't as you say acceptably low for people who are required to approach this equipment regularly.

 

As soon as you have a geocache hidden on the equipment you have regular approaches, the same standards for safety apply, it isn't safe, no one should be telling others that it is safe.

 

There was no lawsuit involved in the Jodie Lane settlement. There was public recognition of the danger by ConEd, there was an amended program to test and repair stray voltage occurences in ConEd infrastructure, there is a continuing call from her family for more training for police and others who might have to deal with energized infrastructure in an emergency but there isn't one mention of acceptably low risk.

 

So I do agree that hiding a cache or any stage of a cache on a transformer or on any electrical infrastrucutre is very bad I disagree completely with your assessment that the risk is acceptably low, it isn't.

[+Nozzletime]

This was in the paper today.

A dog was electrocuted while walking with his owner down a street.

 

http://www.torontosun.com/news/torontoandg...016536-sun.html

[+Sioneva]

sbell, you win. It took 41 posts!