Tree Trimming and Power Lines

If you see a tree grow­ing close to a pow­er line, don’t try to trim it your­self. Con­tact us through our online form or call CEC at 843–538-5700. We’re here to help.

Doing some landscaping?

If you plan to clear your yard or land of trees for any rea­son, there are some things you need to be aware of — pow­er lines. Cut­ting down trees is seri­ous busi­ness. Con­trary to pop­u­lar belief, trees can be a great con­duc­tor of elec­tric­i­ty so here are a few tips on how to stay safe.

Be Aware of Power Lines

• Look over­head and to all sides sur­round­ing the cut­ting site. Make sure the tree or limbs or your equip­ment won’t come in con­tact with any pow­er lines when it falls.
• Use extreme cau­tion when cut­ting in windy con­di­tions.
• If a tree or limb does fall across a line, do not try to remove it, even if you think the line is not ener­gized.
• Avoid plant­i­ng trees under pow­er lines. Trees can grow into the lines, cre­at­ing a safe­ty haz­ard not only for our main­te­nance crews but also for the chil­dren who climb them. or play near them. Limbs entan­gled in pow­er lines are a fre­quent cause of pow­er out­ages. That affects you AND your neigh­bors.
• Remove weak or haz­ardous trees and call us first about prun­ing trees near pow­er lines.
• Be sure the trunk and branch­es will not reach with­in 10 feet of over­head elec­tric lines when ful­ly grown.
• Trees or shrubs that grow too close to poles may be trimmed or dam­aged by util­i­ty work­ers who need access to the poles.

Around Ground Equipment

• Although it’s tempt­ing to land­scape next to ground-mount­ed util­i­ty equip­ment, please avoid doing so. Dur­ing an out­age, we’ll prob­a­bly need access to your equip­ment.
• Keep shrubs and struc­tures at least 12 feet from the “door” of the pad-mount trans­former and at least 3 feet from oth­er sides.
• If land­scap­ing is placed too close to the trans­former, ser­vice restora­tion efforts can be delayed, and not enough air cir­cu­la­tion can cause equip­ment fail­ure. In addi­tion, work­ers must some­times cut down the plant­i­ngs to per­form the restora­tion work.
• Don’t for­get the meter – although your meter is auto­mat­i­cal­ly read every month, we still some­times need access to check it. So, keep shrubs trimmed to allow vis­i­bil­i­ty to your meter, and please do not fence in your meter.