Find Posts By Topic

City Light Plans Silicone Cable Injection In Parts of Service Territory

Seattle City Light will start another project this October to enhance the reliability and extend the life of aging underground electrical cables in parts of Shoreline, Lake Forest Park and Seattle by injecting them with silicone.

City Light’s contractor, Novinium, will test and where possible, inject underground cables with silicone to fill cracks in the cable insulation to prevent outages. This work will extend the life of the cable for an additional 25 years and improve electrical reliability. If cables are not suited for injection, they will be replaced at a later time.

Please refer to the construction notification fliers for approximate construction areas:

This project is expected to start in early-to-mid October 2015 and extend for approximately six weeks. Work hours are scheduled for Monday to Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. During construction, customers should expect some traffic and parking impacts in the immediate area. Crews will be careful to try and maintain access to driveways.

Several maintenance outages are required for this work. Affected customers will be notified the Thursday before the following week’s outage. The outage date and time will be specified on the notification.

Past cable injection projects in neighborhoods such as Sandpoint, Queen Anne and Delridge have succeeded in extending the lifespan of aging cables and improving reliability at a lower cost than replacement. A 2011 cost comparison showed that the average cost of cable injection was $25, compared to $248 for cable replacement.

Customers can contact the following Electrical Service Representatives for more information:

For more information, please visit our construction website: http://www.seattle.gov/light/atwork/release.asp?RN=340