We all enjoy the shade and beauty of our trees but branches too close to overhead lines can create hazardous conditions and cause power interruptions, especially during severe weather. Clearing limbs and trees away from power lines not only helps prevent outages and blinking lights, it also reduces many potential hazards.
As if storms aren’t enough to worry about, did you know that tree sap is an excellent conductor of electricity? This makes even the slightest contact between trees and power lines a fire hazard.
Reliability
Tree trimming helps maintain service reliability. Trees that fall into power lines due to high wind or storms can knock out power to hundreds of members in a second. Not only do lines come down, but utility poles can snap due to the weight of fallen trees—potentially causing lengthy outages.
Not all storm-related outages can be prevented, but we can certainly minimize the damage by keeping rights-of-way clear. The right-of-way, or easement, should generally be cleared 20 feet wide, being 10 feet on each side of the center of the power pole, power line, and or guy wires and anchors, and 25 feet high from the ground to the sky.
Tree Trimming Methods
The 3 most common tree trimming methods for safety and reliability are side pruning, “V” pruning, and “L” pruning.
Contractors
Bandera Electric Cooperative’s tree trimming contractor, Pannell Co., employs an International Society of Arboriculture (ISA) certified arborist and maintains proper credentials to meet the Utility Specialist certification. BEC contractors have vehicle decals displaying the BEC logo.
Inspecting poles and clearing rights-of-way is a part of routine maintenance on the cooperative’s system. Crews may need to access your property to complete this work. Please make sure BEC is aware of your gate combination, or ask for a BEC lock for your chain, so crews can access your property.
We Need Your Help
When you see trees growing near our lines, you can request our free tree trimming service. Fill out the service request form below or call us at (866) 226-3372 to schedule a qualified crew to remove the hazard. Please contact us with any questions. Thank you for your continued cooperation.
If this is an emergency, please call 911 and notify us at (866) 226-3372.