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My stress is off the chain..... I hit a fiber optic!!!

JLarson

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 23, 2020
Messages
656
Location
AZ
Occupation
Owner- civil and heavy repair/fab company
We put it in the quotes and invoices that damages to owner utilities aren't covered. Private locates, GPR, X-ray where requested/required is extra.
 

77Ford

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2021
Messages
90
Location
Missouri
My brother asked me to dig a line to provide power to a little tool shed. I told him to get locate done and he told me he built that house and knew where everything was. He was renting a machine and I told him i'd dig it but the first thing I hit, I was leaving. I didn't get 2 feet and popped a cable line , took out the whole neighborhood. I was eating dinner at my house when they showed up to fix it.......they ended up just chewing him out and moving on. I finished digging it 2 days later after he got a locate....
 

CM1995

Administrator
Joined
Jan 21, 2007
Messages
13,246
Location
Alabama
Occupation
Running what I brung and taking what I win
Update: I am not going into details being on the web, but I am off the hook. The fiber company straight hooked me up. I assisted with a little digging but I really did catch a break on this one.

Good deal.

I've found out over the many years in this business in these types of situations that your attitude and how you treat the people fixing your screw up can have a pivotal role in how much it's going to cost you.
 

Flat Thunder Channel

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 24, 2020
Messages
378
Location
Ohio
It's a good reminder to always call the 811 number. I severed an AT&T multi conductor traditional style cable roughly a year ago. I knew it was in the vacinity of my work area, but they never showed to mark it. I cut it in so many places I started pulling large lengths of it out of the ground. I wanted to keep it out of my fill dirt. End of the work day, zero worries since I called and it was never marked.... 'not my problem'.

Glad you got it fixed without too much hassle!
 

suladas

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2016
Messages
1,731
Location
Canada
Glad to hear it worked out well.

I've lost count of how many times i've found a cable line pulling up a old driveway, a few times it was attached to the concrete even, most other times it's only a few inches down. Even if you get a first call they never mark them. Not worth fighting them over, I just patch them back together myself.
 

Raildudes dad

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 29, 2007
Messages
411
Location
Grand Rapids MI
I tried patching a copper aerial ATT cable once about 50 years ago :) My road contractor was baling out a muck hole with a drag-line.Tossing it to the side. The pile was getting high and one of his buckets of muck took out 4 wire to 4 houses at the edge of the pile. Clever guy I was, I borrowed a ladder from the contractor and reattached the wires. I didn't guess very well, I didn't get one correct LOL. They could call out ok but the incoming calls went to one of their neighbors. :(
 

JPSouth

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 15, 2016
Messages
125
Location
SW Montana
811 and napkin sketches for as-built plans took a year or two off my life last year; we had a parking lot addition and coffee hut pad to build, install utility run. Had the locate done, and shortly after we started broke a fiber line. Several businesses affected, we were about 12'-15' from the paint line and flags and the fiber was within 6" of the surface . Fiber guy showed up and just shook his head, we were obviously off the hook but his phone was busy with p.o.ed customers. He got his patch crew in (they fixed and then buried it at 6" again..I was dumbfounded), I told him I wanted one of their in-house locate guys out here before I moved another teaspoon of material. Surprisingly, he agreed and someone showed up about two hours later, did a thorough job. But the two locates did not agree except vaguely for two locations on in the area, which was a mixed-breed small biz development done over the past 30 years or so. Fiber and electric was the only two, water was at 8', building heat was external propane tanks near the walls so obvious where the lines were, and we weren't digging there, anyway. My trench line ran right thru where there was a close proximity to the two locates, I borrowed my buddy's employee and told him I'd pay him a little cash on top of his wages if he'd sharpen his eyes and help me scratch in a big pothole to find the line. River run cobble and sand, and that afternoon was the only one it rained almost all summer. We found the first located line 18" below grade and about 2' off the paint line. Exposed it for travel direction, but I couldn't shake the idea that something wasn't right in spite of the two locates running roughly in the same direction. Told my helper that if he was game, we'd put in some backwork and get down aways to see what there was to see. After two hours of roughing the material with the bucket teeth a couple inches and then digging with small hand picks, I saw a piece of caution tape appear, and it wound up being a foot above a conduited fiber line..a big one. I went home that evening after my knees started working again..if I'd have started my trench after finding the smaller line, I'd probably have bit right through the big one. Assessing responsibility would have been difficult as both locates were essentially correct, but no clue there was a big one almost 3' below the first, which wound up being a residential feeder. The big one was a mystery line heading away from the development.

And that wasn't the end of the drama on that job, as the owner of an adjacent building came roaring up while we were digging the utility entrance in and said he had a septic system right there. And I'm like, "In the middle of a historic-use parking lot?!!" He had a hand-drawn map which showed a lateral field right there. The county's plan did not appear to show what his map did. After some fiddling, we found the d-box and a mix of jointed lines. Long story short, I bit through a lateral partway down the trench, found the other two by poking around a 7' spacing, his scratch paper was essentially correct but the county's was not. We just flex-tied new line in and rebuilt the gravel field easily enough. Two of the laterals were completely dry, they'd never had enough effluent to even color the surrounding soils. I can't imagine parking lot traffic hadn't driven the frost deep enough to render the field essentially useless at least part of the year, or maybe had cracked the lines and any effluent running beyond the d-box just went thru the crack(s) and headed for China.
 

aighead

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2019
Messages
2,541
Location
Dayton, OH
I'd think, for as expensive as the fiber is to fix/replace, they'd put in some pipe and way deeper.

It's pretty amazing how much crap is running right under our feet and no one has a clue where it is. Seems like an opportunity for some different tech to give a better view.
 

suladas

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2016
Messages
1,731
Location
Canada
I'm sure it doesn't apply to all the lines, but at least in new residential areas here the fiber lines are all under the sidewalk. It makes total sense, that way zero chance of anyone hitting them. However in the older areas where they directional drilled them in they are so close to the surface, found them a few times just removing a driveway only a few inches down. With the technology now you'd think they'd make them at least 18" down.
 

Tones

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 15, 2009
Messages
3,059
Location
Ubique
Occupation
Ex land clearing contractor, part-time retired
I was involved with laying optic cable years ago and from memory it was laid to an ISO standard, 1.2 metres for cable without conduet, 800mm in conduet with marker tape 150mm above for both. The last 12 months of it I worked on over 2000 km, rural and urban installation. Do those standards still apply?
 

Birken Vogt

Charter Member
Joined
Nov 30, 2003
Messages
5,305
Location
Grass Valley, Ca
I think they are talking about service drops here where it just feeds one house at a time. Those are done by "installers" and not cable crew and so will be done the most expeditious (cheap) way possible.

I suppose when fiber comes to this neighborhood it will be my own responsibility to bury it deep if I want it deep.
 

suladas

Senior Member
Joined
Jun 30, 2016
Messages
1,731
Location
Canada
I was involved with laying optic cable years ago and from memory it was laid to an ISO standard, 1.2 metres for cable without conduet, 800mm in conduet with marker tape 150mm above for both. The last 12 months of it I worked on over 2000 km, rural and urban installation. Do those standards still apply?

Never seen any that deep. I'm sure the really major one's are but any i've dealt with in residential areas aren't more then 12" down most are less.
 

Willie B

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 2, 2016
Messages
4,038
Location
Mount Tabor VT
Occupation
Electrician
LMS Line Construction is out of business. They did build phone lines along the highway, both underground & hung from power poles. They had a SOP;
Phone company personnel are there to see, it got buried at specified depth.
Phone company people not there, 3" is plenty.
Town road crews would damage these newly installed phone lines going inches deep, & the phone company seemed to take it in stride.
It was always confusing to me why the phone company hired this company for every install for a 25 year period.
 

CM1995

Administrator
Joined
Jan 21, 2007
Messages
13,246
Location
Alabama
Occupation
Running what I brung and taking what I win
I think they are talking about service drops here where it just feeds one house at a time. Those are done by "installers" and not cable crew and so will be done the most expeditious (cheap) way possible.

I suppose when fiber comes to this neighborhood it will be my own responsibility to bury it deep if I want it deep.

Back when I built houses more than once I saw the sub-contracted telephone and cable installation crew pull the sod back, string the line and lay the sod back.:rolleyes:
 

aighead

Senior Member
Joined
Apr 25, 2019
Messages
2,541
Location
Dayton, OH
Sounds like some bureaucracy to keep having work at some point... My wife has a gov't job, I know what's up.
 

CM1995

Administrator
Joined
Jan 21, 2007
Messages
13,246
Location
Alabama
Occupation
Running what I brung and taking what I win
It's more like the cheapest bid isn't always the cheapest cost.
 
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