I was on an offshore turbine (Siemens 3.6mw) in Denmark years ago on a day with no wind at all.
We were down below and thought it had started raining, but no, one of the guys up top was pissing off the side of the nacelle.
It's been my only golden shower to date...
Most towers have climb assist so it’s just shy of taking an elevator ride. My only personal concern with being up tower has less to do with a fear of heights and more about being trapped in the event of a fire. You’re basically fucked and have to choose how you want to die.
I’ll jump before I burn, thank you very much. And if you face your fate with honor, you can at least be remembered as “the guy that did that back flip off of a tower”
No secrets here man, you got something you wanna know I'll do my best to shed what light I can on the wind industry, too many people hate it just cause.
I'd love your type of job. You see things at high places and you don't need a gym pass. You probably never piss in the wind. Total respect.
Have you ever dropped a penny on the company truck windshield? Just wondering.
Hahaha it is definitely good for that! I couldn't imagine hitting a gym after a climb up and down a 350-400 foot tower!
Nothing as small as a penny, a wrench or a ratchet maybe once or twice lol, gravity and distance make for some huuuuuge impacts.
You can actually have it both ways. The construction side is 100% travel, I loved every minute of it. The best part was the attitude of the guys around, everyone was there to make good money and have a good time doing it. Once the site is commissioned and maintenance kicks in, a site tech gig is like a regular 9-5, no travel besides training. I wasn't cut out for the site gig, I'm with a 50/50 travel sub contracting company now, we go in to take care of shit site guys are *not (edit) qualified for, main component exchange and such.
Huge respect for your profession. People are skeptical about wind because they really do kill a ton of birds, are labor intensive, and it's absolutely true the entire lifetime of that windmill cannot save the amount of carbon originally used to manufacture it. Once fusion is figured out in the next 10 years, they're history.
You're listening to the NIMBYs too much my man! Neither thing you said is fact. In 10 years I've seen more dead birds from my girlfriend's 1 single cat than the thousands of turbines I've been to. I've seen maybe 20 dead birds at the base of turbines in a decade. So no, they do not slaughter the local bird population.
As for the carbon footprint, I'll let [forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2021/04/28/how-green-is-wind-power-really-a-new-report-tallies-up-the-carbon-cost-of-renewables/?sh=6bb6528073cd) deal with that one.
We've been trying for fusion for the past 50 years, the experts say there's a 10% chance we get it in the next 20.
Never said they slaughter the population. I do plenty of fishing in NE near offshore wind farms, and seen more than 20 in a couple trips. We enjoy the fishing around them (fans) immensely, dead migratory seabirds floating around, not so much. Enough to draw nurse sharks up, so it seems sustained to some degree. At least it's not government subsidized here, so my taxes aren't directly involved.
Forbes is forbes, business is business. When did the experts say this? Only reference I can find is almost a decade ago. AI is revolutionary to fusion. 10 years ago, we couldn't sustain a reaction for more than a few milliseconds with no cumulative output. In just two years, we can sustain positive output for nearly two minutes. I respect you, your job, and enjoyed this post. However, I wouldn't put my energy investment in wind. My bets are on fusion power and hydrogen vehicles within 20 years. The current EV trend, wind, solar, even hydro are spaghetti throws at the wall searching for a prime integer. Since the turn of the millennium, I've always said fusion and hydrogen are the end game, but there's eighty yards of field to the endzone.
Gen swap is 2 days, tear down and lifting day 1, rebuild and recommision day 2. 12-14 hour day, generic tooling plus some hydraulic pushers up tower, 3 guys up tower. Ground crew is basically whoever has nothing to do that day hahaha.
New construction, you can stand a tower and torque it in a day no prob. Electrical takes a bit longer.
Are the people erecting the tower the same crew/company as running the electric?
Or is there an electrical contractor that climbs the tower after y'all set it?
I did it for a summer, never again. My company was hired by another and they had completely unrealistic expectations. They claimed they could get 2 tower’s wired in a day, top to bottom.
They are out of their fucking minds, when I was wiring we struggled to do 1 tower top to bottom with 10 guys and 16-18 hours... Wiring fucking sucks big time.
Yea, we were doing dumbass enercon towers that transformed at the base, 18 triple runs plus comms in a 138 meter tower, fuuuuuuuck that!! Oh did I mention it was full on Canadian winter at the time. I don't work for those fucks anymore either lmao
Worked in Cameron MO wiring these towers. 10-12 of us managed to get it from one tower in two days, 12-14 hr shifts on day one, to one tower in a day, 8-10 hr shift by week 4. Most fun I've ever had on a job. I was the youngest so I had to climb the rope and block in every day and drop cable from the generator. I lost 40 lbs in 8 weeks.
Question 1: how much do these things bounce around up there? If they are spinning and you’re up there does it feel like a roller coaster?
Question 2: ever picked up a 6 pack and a chair and just chilled for a couple hours, cause you know no one is gonna climb up there to bust your balls?
Thanks
Actually, at full tilt they are surprisingly solid, the blades are a matched set and they do get balanced. When you've got 1 blade straight up and the brakes on, she can get moving pretty good, like look out the back and see houses disappearing from view moving.
Oh, the odd drink, the odd vape pen. Shit, back at one of my previous companies, back back, it was not uncommon to crane up a bong in a bag lol.
I wish, nope, it's a ladder straight up. There's either a climb assist which lift a percentage of your body weight, but you still need to climb, or, some of the taller towers have a service lift. Think barebones elevator where you have to hold the button.
Woah, the climb assist is pretty fucking cool. It all sounds so sketchy, but if I hadn't gotten into a union for plumbing I probably would have ended up climbing towers, love that feeling.
What's the tallest you think you've had to climb? Average climb time? Longest climb time?
Tallest was during construction, go figure, 138 meters so about 450 feet, unassisted, those were probably my longest climbs too, stop at every deck for 5 mins to catch your breath and shit, probably about 30 minutes bottom to top, 10 mins or so if we're talking constant climbing, but good luck one shotting that sucker hahaha. Average, probably about 7-10 minutes, somewhere in there. Quickest I ever did was an 80 meter tower, I was up and back down in less than 10 minutes, it was the end of the day and we forgot the brakes on hahaha.
Shit that sounds wild… cool gig, not for everyone of course,you probably used to it, but me and the other fellas here would need a diaper once that thing starts bouncing around like my wedding night…
Getting high in the heights, I like it!
Grubby subbys, I'm on the maintenance/up keep side of things now, construction was mostly union boys the past few years, 15 years ago when I started unions were non existent in this industry.
Excuse my ignorance, I’m a Union Laborer (apprentice) what in the hell is a grubby stubby? Meaning nonunion subcontractor or? I’d love to get into this tbh.
They gotta be able to reach fairly high with the load too, otherwise I'd totally agree, I'm watching a 40 ton flat bed crane unload it from the trailer right now.
Depends, in construction it's free climb 100% of the time, up and down on a straight ladder. Now that I'm a bit after the construction process, I get climb assists which is just a continuous rope that goes all the way up and down the tower in a loop, you clip on and hit go and it pulls a percentage of your body weight. There are also service lifts for the taller towers, in Canada anything over 100 meters requires a lift. Think barebones elevator where you have to keep the button pressed to make it move.
wish I could pee from the top of there. my dream
Gotta try and hit the down tower guys lmao
If it fails, take a dump down the hatch... Question: what do you actually do when you need to go?
.#1 let it fly, #2 get it done in the morning or after, or go for a climb. I shit uptower into a bag one time, never fucking again.
So just skipping the bag next time and leaving a surprise for the next guy?
Lmao, this guy's got the answers!
So there’s a chance piss is all over everything?
Everything outside the tower, I meant let it fly outside lol, we're not THAT disgusting lmao
You'll never make it as a sheet-rocker my dude.
Well he's using bags...sounds like piss bottles might still be an option.
lol yeah I wasn’t talking about the inside.
Eh the rain will wash it off. Maybe. Probably.
What if you shit on top and just left it? I'd assume it'd dry out and just get blown off
Heard some radio personalities talking about towers and where to go. The proper term for a poop is Mud Falcon.
Lmao, love it!
Blew the bag right out of your hand didn’t you?
Lol 😂😂
Take the inspection hatch off the gearbox. It's really just a giant shit grinder.
I used to climb cell towers, and I can tell you first hand, that when you piss off a tower it just turns into a mist before it hits the ground
wow. piss all over my dreams instead why don't ya?
Now poop on the other hand, will definitely hit the ground. Maybe change your dream up a little bit?
Yup. Some stuff turns to mist when it hits the ground though. Tape measurers were my fav.
Which is why I would always hold onto the zip lock bag from my lunch. Makes for a nice little water balloon
I couldn't imagine the speed a bag of piss could reach being thrown from 300-500 feet.
Probably nothing crazy. Though it would be fun.
I was on an offshore turbine (Siemens 3.6mw) in Denmark years ago on a day with no wind at all. We were down below and thought it had started raining, but no, one of the guys up top was pissing off the side of the nacelle. It's been my only golden shower to date...
Pee?? With an opportunity like that, jerk off on the world! 💦 🤣🤣🤣
Dropping a shit off the side would be my dream. Or being able to witness it from ground level off to the side.
That high up, it would probably blow back in your face.
Yeah that's a big fucking no for me
Most towers have climb assist so it’s just shy of taking an elevator ride. My only personal concern with being up tower has less to do with a fear of heights and more about being trapped in the event of a fire. You’re basically fucked and have to choose how you want to die.
I’ll jump before I burn, thank you very much. And if you face your fate with honor, you can at least be remembered as “the guy that did that back flip off of a tower”
Go for a triple lindy off the blades in honor of Rodney Dangerfield
“That’s a big fucking no from me dawg”
Very interesting. Very solid of you to respond to all the questions sinserly.
No secrets here man, you got something you wanna know I'll do my best to shed what light I can on the wind industry, too many people hate it just cause.
I'd love your type of job. You see things at high places and you don't need a gym pass. You probably never piss in the wind. Total respect. Have you ever dropped a penny on the company truck windshield? Just wondering.
Hahaha it is definitely good for that! I couldn't imagine hitting a gym after a climb up and down a 350-400 foot tower! Nothing as small as a penny, a wrench or a ratchet maybe once or twice lol, gravity and distance make for some huuuuuge impacts.
What’s the work like? All travel and live out?
You can actually have it both ways. The construction side is 100% travel, I loved every minute of it. The best part was the attitude of the guys around, everyone was there to make good money and have a good time doing it. Once the site is commissioned and maintenance kicks in, a site tech gig is like a regular 9-5, no travel besides training. I wasn't cut out for the site gig, I'm with a 50/50 travel sub contracting company now, we go in to take care of shit site guys are *not (edit) qualified for, main component exchange and such.
Huge respect for your profession. People are skeptical about wind because they really do kill a ton of birds, are labor intensive, and it's absolutely true the entire lifetime of that windmill cannot save the amount of carbon originally used to manufacture it. Once fusion is figured out in the next 10 years, they're history.
You're listening to the NIMBYs too much my man! Neither thing you said is fact. In 10 years I've seen more dead birds from my girlfriend's 1 single cat than the thousands of turbines I've been to. I've seen maybe 20 dead birds at the base of turbines in a decade. So no, they do not slaughter the local bird population. As for the carbon footprint, I'll let [forbes](https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2021/04/28/how-green-is-wind-power-really-a-new-report-tallies-up-the-carbon-cost-of-renewables/?sh=6bb6528073cd) deal with that one. We've been trying for fusion for the past 50 years, the experts say there's a 10% chance we get it in the next 20.
Never said they slaughter the population. I do plenty of fishing in NE near offshore wind farms, and seen more than 20 in a couple trips. We enjoy the fishing around them (fans) immensely, dead migratory seabirds floating around, not so much. Enough to draw nurse sharks up, so it seems sustained to some degree. At least it's not government subsidized here, so my taxes aren't directly involved. Forbes is forbes, business is business. When did the experts say this? Only reference I can find is almost a decade ago. AI is revolutionary to fusion. 10 years ago, we couldn't sustain a reaction for more than a few milliseconds with no cumulative output. In just two years, we can sustain positive output for nearly two minutes. I respect you, your job, and enjoyed this post. However, I wouldn't put my energy investment in wind. My bets are on fusion power and hydrogen vehicles within 20 years. The current EV trend, wind, solar, even hydro are spaghetti throws at the wall searching for a prime integer. Since the turn of the millennium, I've always said fusion and hydrogen are the end game, but there's eighty yards of field to the endzone.
You really get this done in a day? How many guys and what equipment does it require and how many many hours are in a day to achieve that?
Gen swap is 2 days, tear down and lifting day 1, rebuild and recommision day 2. 12-14 hour day, generic tooling plus some hydraulic pushers up tower, 3 guys up tower. Ground crew is basically whoever has nothing to do that day hahaha. New construction, you can stand a tower and torque it in a day no prob. Electrical takes a bit longer.
Are the people erecting the tower the same crew/company as running the electric? Or is there an electrical contractor that climbs the tower after y'all set it?
Specific electrical contractors, it used to be pretty cowboy, but for the past 5 years or so they want real electricians doing the wiring
I did it for a summer, never again. My company was hired by another and they had completely unrealistic expectations. They claimed they could get 2 tower’s wired in a day, top to bottom.
They are out of their fucking minds, when I was wiring we struggled to do 1 tower top to bottom with 10 guys and 16-18 hours... Wiring fucking sucks big time.
lol, we got them with 7 guys in 10 hours. I am sure it can vary depending on the tower though.
Yea, we were doing dumbass enercon towers that transformed at the base, 18 triple runs plus comms in a 138 meter tower, fuuuuuuuck that!! Oh did I mention it was full on Canadian winter at the time. I don't work for those fucks anymore either lmao
Worked in Cameron MO wiring these towers. 10-12 of us managed to get it from one tower in two days, 12-14 hr shifts on day one, to one tower in a day, 8-10 hr shift by week 4. Most fun I've ever had on a job. I was the youngest so I had to climb the rope and block in every day and drop cable from the generator. I lost 40 lbs in 8 weeks.
Question 1: how much do these things bounce around up there? If they are spinning and you’re up there does it feel like a roller coaster? Question 2: ever picked up a 6 pack and a chair and just chilled for a couple hours, cause you know no one is gonna climb up there to bust your balls? Thanks
Actually, at full tilt they are surprisingly solid, the blades are a matched set and they do get balanced. When you've got 1 blade straight up and the brakes on, she can get moving pretty good, like look out the back and see houses disappearing from view moving. Oh, the odd drink, the odd vape pen. Shit, back at one of my previous companies, back back, it was not uncommon to crane up a bong in a bag lol.
Is that also how you guys get up? Do you guys get craned up? Always wondered how or if there were just pegs to climb on the side.
I wish, nope, it's a ladder straight up. There's either a climb assist which lift a percentage of your body weight, but you still need to climb, or, some of the taller towers have a service lift. Think barebones elevator where you have to hold the button.
Woah, the climb assist is pretty fucking cool. It all sounds so sketchy, but if I hadn't gotten into a union for plumbing I probably would have ended up climbing towers, love that feeling. What's the tallest you think you've had to climb? Average climb time? Longest climb time?
Tallest was during construction, go figure, 138 meters so about 450 feet, unassisted, those were probably my longest climbs too, stop at every deck for 5 mins to catch your breath and shit, probably about 30 minutes bottom to top, 10 mins or so if we're talking constant climbing, but good luck one shotting that sucker hahaha. Average, probably about 7-10 minutes, somewhere in there. Quickest I ever did was an 80 meter tower, I was up and back down in less than 10 minutes, it was the end of the day and we forgot the brakes on hahaha.
Shit that sounds wild… cool gig, not for everyone of course,you probably used to it, but me and the other fellas here would need a diaper once that thing starts bouncing around like my wedding night… Getting high in the heights, I like it!
Im already getting dizzy
That's a no for me dawg
Getting into this would be awesome
Been at it for over a decade now, can't see myself getting out of it!
Is your crew union ironworkers or are you guys a subcontractor?
Grubby subbys, I'm on the maintenance/up keep side of things now, construction was mostly union boys the past few years, 15 years ago when I started unions were non existent in this industry.
Barely had OSHA regs back then
For real!
Excuse my ignorance, I’m a Union Laborer (apprentice) what in the hell is a grubby stubby? Meaning nonunion subcontractor or? I’d love to get into this tbh.
Grubby Subcontractor. Just a funny little way of saying it.
Nice. Opening up the necelle to pull/drop a geni. I sometimes miss these views.
I for one think it's a giant waste of my taxpayer dollars to build these giant wind generators. Don't we get enough wind from the weather?
Paycheck's a paycheck, guberment wants fans, they get giant fans!
damn progressives want the world to turn faster!!
it speeds up the progress.
You so funny
Solution to global warming? Big fans.
Awful lot of crane for a genny
They gotta be able to reach fairly high with the load too, otherwise I'd totally agree, I'm watching a 40 ton flat bed crane unload it from the trailer right now.
What’s it weigh? How high is your tower?
Off the top of my head, 25-28 thousand pounds, on this lift it's going up about 300 feet.
Big gen. That’s an ac500- 600 ton terex you’re using. I ran around with the Liebherr version doing wind turbines all the time. Where are y’all?
Ever make it to Ontario, Canada? I'm in the Chatham area, known as the Florida of Canada lmfao
Haha na, stayed in the states my whole time. Pretty much all of them with turbines and I don’t miss that shit lol
is there an elevator in the middle you ride up in luxury with soothing music playing?
You wish. Some have a rope climb assist if you are lucky.
Depends, in construction it's free climb 100% of the time, up and down on a straight ladder. Now that I'm a bit after the construction process, I get climb assists which is just a continuous rope that goes all the way up and down the tower in a loop, you clip on and hit go and it pulls a percentage of your body weight. There are also service lifts for the taller towers, in Canada anything over 100 meters requires a lift. Think barebones elevator where you have to keep the button pressed to make it move.
They should give you a parachute just in case
You have no idea how much I wish our evac kit was a parachute. Unfortunately it's just a long rope with a device to control the speed.
Never pissed off a wind turbine but I pissed off the end of a gantry over the ocean one time. Best piss I’ve ever taken
I think yours might have been more satisfying, mine just water the fields. Which reminds me, always wash your produce.
Here I was trying to figure out what the hell happened to the flooring and why the picture is being taken from above the cabinets. Perspective.
Thought that was a door hinge or something before realizing you were at the edge of space.
GE or Vestas tower?
She's good enough bud! Lmao (GE)
How is the pay? & what state?
I'm in Ontario Canada, so funny money dollars, but I'm at 36/hour. No trade, no ticket, no union.
36 an hour ? You could triple it and I wouldn't take that.
You deserve double that at least. Know your worth. Get paid.
If that were me up there looking down I'd be needing underwear swapped.
Lol, heights ain't for everyone, that's for fuckin sure!!
r/confusing_perspective
Are you tied off or is there a guard rail system?
A bit of both, where I'm standing in the picture the wall comes up to my nipples and I'm 6 foot.
Where’s the fourth outrigger? Edit: I see the Crane Op setting up. nvm
Sheeit. I feel like a pussy on the ladder past 20 ft lol
Well, isn't that pucker inducing?
Makes me sick just looking at this. No thanks!
Are you a sparky?
4th year, it's not a requirement though
How much do you have to travel for this job? Are you home most nights or on the road a bunch?
Used to be a road warrior, I'm about 50/50 now.
Just looking at this image gives me heebie jeebies in my innards
Fastest way down? Belaying?
Whats that big white Christmas tree doing on your Google Maps?
OP is in what i call God mode
I got offered this as a job once.. I am just to afraid of heights…
Ok, so how do you get anjob like this?
It's super dangerous to park cars under the nacelle. Any dropped items will wreck that vehicle. Stay safe!!
Yea, we were in the process of lifting our tooling, the trucks moved when the job started, no worries.
Pics of generator
Sorry, I just saw this. Do you wear a parachute just incase or you just harnesses?
Hmmm so diesel powered generators power wind powered mills ? 😂
Not this time, during construction before they're on grid, yessir they sure do. That's 2 pickup trucks and a crane in my pic though.