Electrical service in Schaefferstown
Schaefferstown is a village with a lot of farm ground around it, and the thing that shapes the electrical work here is distance. Buildings sit far apart on rolling ground, and a run that is long enough changes the answer rather than just the drive.
Ten to fifteen minutes from Myerstown, down the 501 or across on the 897.
Distance is a design problem, not a driving problem
A conductor big enough to carry the current can still drop enough voltage along the way that a motor at the far end will not start on a cold morning. That is not a fault anybody finds with a meter at the panel, because at the panel everything reads correctly.
The arithmetic is worked through in voltage drop on long runs, and the usual fix is a distribution point closer to the load rather than a larger service back at the house. How that arrangement works is in the distribution point on a farm.
Yards that grew by addition
Almost no farm out here was wired to a plan. It was wired to a sequence: the house, then the barn off the house, then the shop off the barn, then whatever came next off whichever panel was nearest at the time.
That causes three problems that all appear years later. Feeders sized for the first building carry four. Voltage drop stacks along the chain. And the grounding and bonding become impossible to trace, which is the mechanism behind most stray voltage complaints. What that rebuild involves is in rebuilding a farm service entrance.
Around Schaefferstown
Route 501 and 897 through the village
Heidelberg Township dairy ground
Grain handling and feed systems
Newmanstown and Womelsdorf approaches
Long overhead and underground spans between buildings
Hill ground where the far end of a run is a long way down
What we are called for
The work Schaefferstown asks us for
Long feeder runs between buildings
Overhead and underground runs sized for the voltage drop rather than only for the current they carry.
Farm service entrances and distribution points
Rebuilding how a yard is fed, which is usually the job underneath the complaint rather than the complaint itself.
Parlour work between milkings
Cooling, vacuum and pipeline circuits fitted into the gap the herd leaves, not the gap that would suit us.
Stray voltage work
Measured properly rather than with a meter between a pipe and the floor, and usually a bonding problem underneath.
Backup where the line comes back late
Out here an outage runs longer than it does in town, which changes what the set has to carry and for how long.
Lighting that survives the air
Ammonia works into driver compartments and corrodes terminals from the inside, so the fixture is picked for the room.
Work of this kind
Working in Schaefferstown
- Often the wire is big enough for the current and still too small for the distance. Voltage drop is the usual cause, and the answer is either larger conductors or a distribution point closer to the load.
Worth reading
Tell us what the building has to run
Describe the job and where in Schaefferstown it is. If somebody closer would serve you better on that particular job, we will say so.