While you can’t help it if a tree on public land falls on powerlines, there are ways to minimise the damage that could be caused by your private trees. Photo: EvoEnergy Facebook.
As Canberra continues to weather its summer storms, locals have been reminded there are ways to ensure trees don’t become an issue for your home.
Throughout the year EvoEnergy has teams that go around and see whose backyard trees could be too close to powerlines and other assets, and let the residents know if they need to take action.
Tree branches need to be at least one metre away from powerlines, and 1.5 metres away from low-voltage powerlines.
If power needs to be turned off in order to make the trees safe, that will cost you.
Instead, customer deliver assistant manager Bronwen Butterfield said there’s a cheaper way to keep your trees away from powerlines.
“Trim them before they get too close,” she said.
“It’s pretty hard to measure [the required distance] from on the ground, so we suggest to customers that it’s actually better to keep them trimmed well away, so it doesn’t go anywhere close to that one metre.”
If you’re doing regular trimming then you won’t need a tree surgeon to come and help.
Given the abundant rain of the past three years, pruning may need to be done more often than usual.
Another piece of advice is to make sure you’re not planting any trees under the powerlines in the first place.
The general tip is that you should find out how tall the tree will eventually grow and then plant it that far away from the powerlines, as then the tree canopy can also be taken into account.
“So if you’re buying a plant and it says it’s going to be five metres high, plant it five metres horizontally away from a powerline to avoid an issue,” Ms Butterfield said.
If powerlines are brought down in your backyard, don’t assume that they are no longer live.
While EvoEnergy has safety mechanisms in place for when powerlines fall, they’re not considered safe until they have been isolated and manually tested.
General manager Peter Billing said you should stay at least 10 metres away from a downed powerline, as well as anything that could be a conductor of electricity.
This includes your car or fence.
“If you have a Colorbond fence or something like that, if the wires happen to be draped across … and if they were still live, then that Colorbond fence will still have electricity going through it,” Mr Billing said.
If you got too close that could result in a severe or even fatal electric shock.
You can report an outage, as well as low or fallen powerlines, to EvoEnergy on 13 10 93. You can also check the website to see if outages have been reported in your area already.
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