The day runs 10 to 16 hours, starts before sunrise, and looks completely different on a distribution crew, a transmission crew, or a storm callout. Here is the hour-by-hour on all three, before you commit four years of apprenticeship to it.
Distribution crews work from buckets and poles and handle the bread-and-butter: pole replacements, transformer changeouts, service drops, fault response, and tree-related rebuilds. Most utility crews run two or three hands plus a foreman.
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5:30 a.m. | Wake up, coffee, pack lunch and water |
| 6:15 a.m. | Arrive at yard. Check truck: fluids, hydraulics, dielectric test sticker, FR clothing, hooks, hot sticks |
| 6:30 a.m. | Tailboard with foreman. Print review, switching order, MAD review, job briefing signed |
| 7:00 a.m. | Roll to first job. Drive 15 to 60 minutes |
| 7:30 a.m. | Set up. Cones, signs, ground the truck, identify primary and secondary, isolate and ground if working dead |
| 8:00 a.m. | Job 1: pole change-out, transformer swap, or fault repair |
| 11:30 a.m. | Lunch on the truck. Most crews eat where they stop |
| 12:00 p.m. | Job 2: service work, secondary, or tie-in |
| 2:30 p.m. | Pack up, restock truck, head to yard |
| 3:30 p.m. | Yard. Park truck, fuel up, paperwork, time entry |
| 4:00 p.m. | Off the clock on a 4-10. Home by 4:30 |
Standard crew work pays straight time at JL scale, $40 to $65 per hour depending on local. Past 8 hours kicks to time-and-a-half on most utility contracts. Sundays and holidays run double time.
A car-pole accident at 2:00 p.m. moves the whole crew to the wreck for 4 to 8 hours of overtime. A squirrel-faulted transformer adds a stop. Customer-melt service calls in summer push crews into the dark. Plan for 8, work 10 to 12.
Bigger structures, bigger right-of-ways, more travel, more rigging. The work is structural as much as electrical: setting steel, stringing conductor with pullers and tensioners, changing insulators, sock-line work, helicopter assists. Crews run 6 to 15 plus foremen and operators.
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 4:30 a.m. | Up, coffee, hotel breakfast if it is open |
| 5:30 a.m. | Truck pickup at hotel parking lot. Foreman drives the line truck |
| 6:00 a.m. | Staging area. Tailboard. Structure prints, conductor sag charts, OSHA 1926 Subpart V briefing |
| 6:30 a.m. | Caravan to ROW. Sometimes 60 to 90 minutes off pavement |
| 7:30 a.m. | Set up pullers and tensioners, fly sock line with drone or helicopter, ground rolling stock |
| 8:30 a.m. | Stringing or insulator work. Sometimes hot stick or bare-hand work on energized 230kV or 345kV |
| 12:00 p.m. | Lunch on the ROW |
| 12:30 p.m. | Continue stringing, sagging, or steel work |
| 4:30 p.m. | Pack tools, secure conductor, walk down structures |
| 5:30 p.m. | Caravan back to yard or hotel |
| 6:30 p.m. | Hotel. Dinner with the crew or solo. In bed by 9:30 |
Transmission travel pays JL scale plus per diem, $90 to $200 per day, plus mileage on most agreements. Six-tens or seven-twelves are standard. Weekly gross of $4,500 to $7,500 is typical on a steady ticket. Tax-free per diem is the difference between $2,000 take-home weeks and $3,500 ones. The full breakdown is in the traveling lineman pay and per diem guide.
Storm pay is why guys put up with the rest of it. When a hurricane, ice storm, or derecho hits, utilities call in mutual aid through EEI's RMAG agreements and contractors roll their own crews. You can be in your driveway Monday morning and on a poletop in Louisiana by Tuesday night.
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5:00 a.m. | Up. Coffee. Eat whatever the staging area provides |
| 5:30 a.m. | Tailboard at staging: school lot, fairgrounds, mall. Job assignments handed out |
| 6:00 a.m. | Roll to assigned circuit. Often 30 to 90 minutes from staging |
| 6:30 a.m. | Patrol the circuit. Note broken poles, downed primary, blown transformers, services on the ground |
| 7:00 a.m. | Set poles, frame, dress, transfer, energize back-feeds, restore customers |
| 12:00 p.m. | Lunch on the truck. Sometimes a Salvation Army or Red Cross truck rolls through |
| 5:00 p.m. | Keep working. No quit time. You go until 16 hours or the foreman calls it |
| 9:00 p.m. | Pack up. Drive back to staging or hotel |
| 10:00 p.m. | Eat. Shower if the hotel has hot water that night. Bed |
Rules vary by utility, but the typical structure is a 16-hour cap per day and an 8-hour minimum rest. Hours past 40 in a week run time-and-a-half or double time. Per diem is $100 to $200 per day plus lodging direct-billed by the host utility. A two-week callout has put apprentices over $10,000 gross and JLs over $18,000. See what linemen actually make chasing storms.
| Job Type | Schedule | Pay Structure | Travel |
|---|---|---|---|
| IOU distribution JL | 4-10s or 5-8s | Straight time, OT past 8 | None to local |
| Co-op distribution JL | 5-8s, on-call rotation | Straight, OT, callout pay | Local |
| Contractor distribution | 5-10s or 6-10s | Straight + OT, per diem if traveling | Regional |
| Transmission travel | 6-10s or 7-12s | Straight + OT + per diem | National |
| Underground (urban) | 5-8s | Straight + OT, callout | Local |
| Storm | 16-on, 8-off | OT/DT + per diem + lodging | National |
Storm season runs May through November on the Atlantic and Gulf, then December through March for ice storms and Pacific atmospheric rivers. Transmission work is steady year-round but peaks April through October. More detail in lineman schedules explained.
Class 2 minimum, CAT 2, 8 cal/cm² ATPV. FR shirt and pants, leather boots rated for electrical hazard, Class E hard hat, safety glasses.
Voltage-rated rubber gloves with leather protectors, sized to class: Class 2 for 17kV max use, Class 4 for 36kV max use. Plus cover-up: line hoses, hoods, blankets.
Hooks and gaffs, body belt or fall-arrest harness, positioning straps, bucket harness for aerial. Compare setups in the climbing gaffs, hooks, and belts guide.
Telescoping, shotgun, and link sticks. Grounding sets sized to available fault current, typically 1/0 or 4/0 copper. Voltage detector, phasing sticks, lineman pliers, knife, crimper, side cutters, tape, marker. Full breakdown in the essential lineman tools list.
A new apprentice spends $800 to $2,000 out of pocket on personal gear in the first year. Most utilities and union locals provide FR clothing and the heavy-cost rubber goods.
Career-changers from HVAC, oil and gas, and electrical work usually find the schedule familiar but the physical load heavier. Check the lineman physical requirements before you commit. Hands past 50 cross to underground, foreman, troubleshooter, or instructor roles to save their bodies for retirement.
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