shallow utilities/call before you dig

[dayexco]

every year, the phone/gas/cable tv companies here sponsor a "call before you dig" meeting. we're given a meal, a few pens, calendars, coffee cups, and shown a few films on jobsite accidents relating to excavating contractors severing those utilities. the point is to stress upon us to "call before we dig", to take measures not to disturb, damage their pipes, wires.
although i'm a big believer in jobsite safety, and for not damaging anybody else's wires, cables, pipes ( we don't cut cables, we spend lots of time exposing digging around them), i find it rather ironic that the same utility companies that sponsor this event don't practice what they preach. they may call before they dig to find out if they'll hit something else, but no future planning or thought goes into the process. do they contact the deeper utilities to see if they're putting that shallow utility on top of an existing or planned deeper one? are they creating a problem down the road? for an extra 20' of wire on their part, can they locate that cable, pipe in another location to stay out of everybody's road?

last week we were installing a 10" sanitary sewer main 13' deep in a development. in the alley we approached, we encountered a cable tv wire, 3' away, a competitor's cable tv wire, 3 ' away a telephone cable, 3' away a 4" gas main, 3' away a primary power cable...try getting a trench box under that, an excavator bucket in between them, compaction equipment around or underneath them...a real headache. proper planning on their part would have put all the wires in one duct bank or trench, and the gas line 3' away from that, making only 2 items to jump, work around.

it's really getting to be a headache in my neck of the woods with this problem. any of you encountering the same?

[ForsytheBros.]

Amen to that Dayexco.

We are a young engineering/construction company in Texas. Texas law requires two working days notice prior to excavation greater than 16" deep. In our short tenure we've found more than our share of unmarked, mislocated, etc. utilities. Seems like every project that we work on (in a municipality) turns out to be the best set of record updates for all service providers! We recently are on a job where the city misinformed us about a 12" gravity water line and our new 10" wastewater force main ended up having to cross under the line on a very flat skew. We basically had to lay one joint of pipe per day and backfill. We had to take timbers and load binders to shore up the water line while we mined underneath it.....

Please continue with the utility stories. Nice to see how others are dealing with things. Are you guys filing for change orders on such situations?

thanks

[tylermckee]

Same thing here, everyone throws anything whereever they please. After all, who cares? once they are gone and out of there it isnt their problem if you have to put in an 18" storm main underneath it. a little while ago i had to set a manhole with gas on 2 sides, power phone cable and water on one side, and water and sewer on the other side. had about an 8' square to set a 5' manhole. the storm manhole ended up sitting about 2" away from the sewer main :rolleyes: so much for the 10' of seperation.

[ForsytheBros.]

Tyler-
Not much room for trench shoring on that one. Did you get days or $$$ as a result of this? Municipal job? Shown on plans originally?

thanks

[dayexco]

Tyler-
Not much room for trench shoring on that one. Did you get days or $$$ as a result of this? Municipal job? Shown on plans originally?

thanks

if you've read the spec books that you're bidding off of...i'll bet you a can of schlitz beer, that there are about 5 items within those specs that the owner of the project has thrown into them for a CYA. this is not verbatim, but one i've read many times and sticks on the top of my head..." the contractor shall familiarize himself with the site"

[ForsytheBros.]

dayexco-

I certainly wouldn't argue with the contract clauses. However, there's a tendency on municipal jobs to get subsurface utility engineering(or record info) work done to estimate locations of utilities. My previous life was as a roadway design engineer for TxDOT, so we were on the front lines with contractors regarding highway projects, and we certainly had clauses like that. Seems like any time a contractor ran into something that wasn't posted on the plans, we ended up paying for it. I think there's the distinction. Almost better as a designer to put no existing utility info on plans or make darn sure that you get everything. Obviously none of us has x-ray vision, so i suppose a lot has to do with how well the owner/engineer is willing to work with a contractor regarding "partnering".....Thoughts?
thanks

ps edit- This might beg the next question: What type of work are most of the contractors posting involved in? Private owner or municipal/state? Low bid or "best value"? Unless the contractor has a really good feel for the "treasures" to be found underground, it's difficult (for us anyway) to estimate those extra repairs to unknown/unmarked utilities. How do you guys deal with that?
again thanks

[tylermckee]

Tyler-
Not much room for trench shoring on that one. Did you get days or $$$ as a result of this? Municipal job? Shown on plans originally?

thanks

Had to run new storm main from a development we are starting, down to the outlet at the ocean. Sneaking it around, under, and over all the existing utilities. Manhole was set right where the engineer had it staked, which was in the plans that were approved by the city. It wasnt really the 'right' thing to do but was the lesser of two evils as far as continuing the pipe. We also found a 6" steel water main that was installed in the 1940's that was 3"(inches) deep. We asked the water department if they wanted to do anything about it, they told us to get in line.