Cleaning eavestroughs, pruning and planting trees, hanging holiday lights and even playing outdoors near powerlines are all activities that can all be hazardous and require planning and taking precautions.
Outdoor Electrical Safety Tips
Follow these safety tips to stay safe around electricity.
Proximity to Powerlines
When undertaking outdoor activities — standing on a ladder, trimming trees, or cleaning eaves, remember to keep your body and equipment at least three metres (at least 10 feet) away from overhead powerlines.
Call Before You Dig
Electrical and other dangerous hazards are lurking everywhere underground. Never assume you know the location or depth of a cable, wire or pipe. Contact Ontario One Call to request a FREE underground electrical locate on your property.
Trim and Plant Trees Safely
You are responsible for keeping trees trimmed on your property. This will go a long way in avoiding power outages due to trees contacting powerlines. Make sure you keep a safe distance away from overhead powerlines.
Temporarily Disconnect Power
Contact us to temporarily disconnect the power to your property when working near powerlines around your property, installing an EV charging station, upgrading your electrical service and maintaining customer-owned electrical equipment. This service is provided free of charge and is available during regular business hours.
Electrical Safety Colouring Sheets and Safety Videos
Be a Power Safe Kid! Use these colouring sheets to learn how to stay safe around electricity outdoors.
- Download the “Keep Away from Downed Powerlines” colouring sheet (PDF)
- Download the “Don’t Climb on or Play Near our Transformers” colouring sheet (PDF)
- Download the “Don’t Climb the Fences Around our Equipment” colouring sheet (PDF)
- Download the “Don’t Climb Trees or Fly Kites Around Powerlines” colouring sheet (PDF)
Lucky the Squirrel teaches you how to stay safe around electricity.
- Don’t use damaged power tools
- Keep 3-6 metres from overhead powerlines with your body and tools
- What should you do if a powerline falls on your vehicle and it catches fire?
- Overhead powerlines are very dangerous
- Keep a safe distance from transformers & electrical equipment
- Stay 10 metres or more away from downed powerlines
- Call before you dig
Powerline Safety
You could receive a severe shock, burn or even be killed if you touch or even come too close to an overhead or underground powerline.
Powerlines are Dangerous
Awareness of potential shock hazards associated with electrical distribution equipment like hydro poles, powerlines, transformers and transformer stations is crucial.
Follow these tips to stay safe around powerlines:
- Keep away from electrical transmission and distribution lines. Always obey the safety signs. If a toy ends up inside a transformer station, Contact us – don’t try to retrieve it yourself. Never fly kites in a place where you can see powerlines.
- Look up when working near powerlines. Before you start work, know where the powerlines are. Always have a signaller – someone who can watch to make sure you stay a safe distance away – and remember, you don’t have to touch a powerline for it to hurt you. Electricity can jump or ‘arc’ from a powerline to a metal object (like a ladder, pole, or truck boom).
- Call before you dig. Whether it’s in your yard or on a job site, always make sure underground powerlines and other utility equipment are well-marked.
- Watch for downed powerlines. If you see one, stay back at least 10 meters (33 feet or the length of a school bus), call 9-11, and Contact Us.
Call Before You Dig
Before you dig a garden, build a fence, plant a tree or install a flagpole – be safe and contact Ontario One Call at least two weeks in advance of your digging to request a FREE underground electrical locate on your property. The information you get back from Ontario One Call can help prevent costly repairs to underground cables and pipes, but most importantly, it could save a life!
Additional Time to Complete Underground Locate Requests
We take pride in completing underground utility locates as quickly as possible. During spring and summer, we receive many new requests for utility locates. Please give us a few weeks’ notice to schedule and complete your underground locate.
Customer-Owned Equipment
GrandBridge Energy owns and maintains the electrical equipment up to a point known as the demarcation point. The property owner is responsible for maintaining and repairing equipment beyond the demarcation point, including the mast and meter base attached to the property and trimming vegetation around private customer-owned powerlines.
The image below indicates the demarcation point of our utility-maintained and customer-owned equipment.
Maintenance of Customer-Owned Equipment
In addition to the mast and meter base, if a customer has a private overhead powerline on their property that they own, the customer is legally responsible for maintaining the electrical equipment on the property – such as poles and overhead wires – in a safe manner and in compliance with the Ontario Electrical Safety Code. This includes safely maintaining tree growth and vegetation around overhead powerlines to avoid potential electrical hazards and unplanned outages.
Explore commonly asked questions and answers about trimming vegetation around customer-owned pole lines.
To learn more about demarcation points, please view our Conditions of Service. If you’re unsure how to determine ownership of the powerlines and related equipment, please Contact Us for more information.
Farm Safety
Farms can have overhead and underground powerlines crossing the farm property. Even coming close to powerlines with farm equipment, ladders and tree limbs can cause the electricity to jump between the wire and the material that conducts electricity.
Stray Voltage
Varying amounts of low-level voltage often exist between the earth and electrically grounded farm equipment, such as metal stabling, feeders, or milk pipelines. The voltage that causes this small current is known as “animal contact voltage,” “stray voltage,” or “tingle voltage.” Usually, these voltage levels present no harm. However, at high enough levels, stray voltage may impact the health and behaviour of livestock.
The Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) has published an informative guide for farmers outlining how to identify and mitigate stray voltage at your property.
Additional Questions?
If you think you have a stray voltage problem affecting your livestock or have any questions or concerns about the electrical service on your property, please contact our Customer Care Team.
Tree Trimming and Planting
You are responsible for keeping trees trimmed on your property. This will go a long way in avoiding power outages due to trees contacting powerlines. Make sure you keep a safe distance away from overhead powerlines.
Before starting any tree trimming, planting, or digging around your property, we recommend you take important steps to stay safe around dangerous powerlines.
Tree branches can hit or fall on powerlines and become energized, posing a danger to anyone who is nearby. We routinely trim trees in public spaces and along low-voltage power lines connecting to customer buildings to help keep tree branches a safe distance from power lines. Have concerns about trees and powerlines? Let us know by submitting an online Request a Site Visit / Report a Concern form.
- Look up and locate overhead powerlines by keeping your body/equipment at least 10 feet or three metres away from powerlines.
- Contact Ontario One Call before you dig to locate underground powerlines.
- Plant trees, shrubs and landscaping away from powerlines or access meters. Think ahead to how big plantings will grow as time passes. Follow municipal guidelines for planting.
You are responsible for trimming trees on your private property; a qualified contractor should do this. Any planting and tree trimming work needs to meet Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) standards.
Explore commonly asked questions and answers about trimming vegetation around customer-owned pole lines. More on ESA’s Guide for Planting Under or Around Powerlines and Electrical Equipment and Tree Trimming Around Powerlines.
Temporary Disconnect
If you are trimming trees, building a deck, upgrading your service, or performing maintenance on your customer-owned electrical equipment, please call us in advance to have your electricity temporarily disconnected so you can work safely.
We ask that you call us 72 hours in advance so we can schedule a crew to come out to your location.
Schedule a Temporary Disconnect
This service is free of charge during normal business hours. To arrange for your disconnect/reconnect, please email or call our Customer Care Team: 519-621-3530 or 1-877-871-2215
For more information on temporary service disconnections, please refer to sections “1.7.2 Safety” and “2.2 Disconnection” in our Conditions of Service.
Transformers
A transformer is a device that changes high-voltage electricity to lower-voltage electricity that is supplied to homes or residential buildings.
A transformer can be mounted on a utility pole or ground level in green boxes – also known as pad-mount transformers.
Pad-mounted transformers contain high-voltage electrical equipment. Avoid contacting or tampering with a pad-mounted ground-level transformer for your protection. Also, never allow children to play on or near these transformers.
Pole-mount transformers should be treated in the same manner as an overhead powerline. Always maintain a safe distance of at least three metres (10 feet) from any pole-mount transformer.
If a pad-mount transformer is on your property, please maintain a clear path in front of the pad-locked unit.
Any obstruction like fences, shrubs, trees, or sheds can:
- Create safety risks for our crews trying to access the transformer.
- Delay service restoration during power outages.
- Cause problems during routine maintenance of equipment.