Frozen water lines

[cat320]

OK I was thinking of something that happend this winter.This local contractor put in a small culdasac with 5 houses on it now he did the new road ,water and all other utilities into the new road.Well he had the road roughed in the water lines in and the engineree changed the grade to be a little lower than what it was.Now he did the change and made it lower but never moved the water lines below the freezing point and to top it off tapped into the lines from the top to make it closer to fished grade. Now is this the work of a weekend worrier or just a very stuppid contractor?How could you forget to lower your water lines?He has already had to fix 2 lines that froze.

[triaxle]

There seem to be many reasons for shortsighted building practices and experience, intelligence, budget, backers, inspectors, engineers, and integrety all interact.

Many private developments are under budgeted and by the end the developers are trying to finish and sell lots. If they are out of money, they may make decisions that would not be made otherwise. This an area where budget and backers can contribute to bad decisions.

Some developers plan to market the entire development and don't expect for problems of this type to occur before the ink is dry on the resale and some would not be aware of the potential for the problem.

It seems that the grading contractor would have caught this but we don't know that the same contractor was involved throughout the project and some conceptual matters become lost over several contractors.

It could be argued that the engineer failed to make adequate suggestions when he ordered a elevation reduction without ordering a subsequent elevation adjustment for the utilities, after all, the utility elevation is an engineering calculation based on the final proposed grade elevation. The inspector could also be questioned to see if adjusting the utility elevation was a reccomended procedure that was unaddressed or an oversight.
It is possible that blame would rest on the inspecting agencies for failure to catch this.

There is likely to be a clear papertrail on this because most engineers and inspectors have learned, " God sides with a clear papertrail."

Regardz

[dayexco]

i've found that engineering firms are getting way too brave with their autocad. it's a wonderful software package, but if an error is made in the first layer of the drawing, there's a very good possibility it will carry through onto the following drawing layers unless they review/check them as they progress. that's maybe what happened with the elevations on the cul de sac...elevation errors were posted on the first drawing, and carried on through to the following ones. a little review on their part saves a lot of this. i've had jobs where precast manholes ordered off engineer's blueprints come way too short or tall because of a drafting error that started on the first drawing and carried on through all of them.

[mflah87]

I've had quite a few jobs we're the engineers completely screwed up. One job at a shopping plaza I was doing 2000 ft of 8" water main through ledge. We got about halfway done and the engineer showed up with "revised plans" they wanted to put a building right over the new water main. So they had us take out all the pipe and re route it. Re routing it added another 1200 feet on. Another one was a new subdivision they decided to cut the grade down 4 feet to give the water main about 1 foot of cover. SOmetimes i wonder how these guys put their pants on in the morning never mind design a million dollar site job.

[atgreene]

I never install a water line any shallower than 6'. Otherwise it gets insulated. A lot of these contractors are just doing what the engineers tell them, but they'll have the hassle of digging when they freeze.

A new subdivision here in town had a ground mounted transformer for underground power heave 2 weeks ago, cutting power to 8 homes. I can't understand why those don't have to have either insulation or room for movement in the lines. The power co guys said it happens all the time around here, almost a daily thing. Pole lifts or pad moves and rips the wires free.