JPSouth
Well-Known Member
Thought I would pass along an experience I had 2 weeks ago for a heads up. Was hired to dig in an 1200 square foot addition to an existing home built about 1995. The job was stalled a couple days so the utility company could run a new electric service as the old 3-wire 4/0 passed underneath a corner of the proposed construction - code and common sense says that isn't allowed. They wound up digging in an all new conduited line from the box to a new service box.
It was of course quite apparent where the new line was, and supposedly the old line was de-energized, effectively abandoning it. As per insurance, etc., I went ahead and called in a new locate because CYA, everything except the electric was on the other side of the house. When I showed up to start the job, the old paint line was marked as energized and there were no locate flags or paint on the new line whatsoever. WTH. Called the utility's hot line and asked what was up and if they'd buried/connected the new line but not energized it (meter was running so I knew one of the leads was hot, and I didn't think to bring my inductive voltage tester). They said someone would be out toot sweet to assess what was going on. He showed up along with a rep from the sub whose employee had done the locate.
A pretty stormy exchange of words went on between the two for a good 15 minutes, and it finally wound up that the employee had simply just re-painted the locate she'd done prior to the new line being run. Her story was she'd run out of batteries on the locate device and "knew" where things were at, anyway, so just went ahead and re-marked, apparently missing the brand new trench line heading onto a new meter on the house. Properly chastised and thoroughly cowed, the locate company dude slunk to his car and sped off. The utility boss looked at the line I exposed and said, "Hell, I wouldn't have dared cut that - you were right to call." It was, in fact, de-energized, but I had no desire to turn into a Christmas tree on a hunch. He went ahead and cut it, so I was off the hook.
At any rate, he also told me that lately they were having a real problem with subcontractor locate companies doing sub-par work, and were seeing an increasing amount of breaches on electrical and gas service lines. In fact, the wires wound up being about 6 feet to the left of where the employee had run the paint line. To be fair, it wasn't entirely her fault as for whatever reason, when they originally buried the line they made a big question mark out of 8' of excess before turning the corner into the old service box - I found it where it made the curve.
A month and a half ago, I snapped a 6-pair phone line 65' away from the locate line. Same job I exposed a gas line buried just beneath a sidewalk I was tearing out - it was live and over 75' away from where the locate line was. It was not a private install - utility company's logo and tracer wire was on it. The phone company allowed it was theirs and said it would be a week before they could get out there (remote area). The homeowner gave me a ride to town so I could get UG/weatherproof stuff to fix it and had him up and running before I left for the day. The homeowner called the utility company out to properly bury the gas line; they were fairly astounded that it got missed by the locate.
I figure everyone's careful here, and may have run into this before. Thought it was noteworthy as the utility rep stated that their repair crews were getting much busier than they wanted.
It was of course quite apparent where the new line was, and supposedly the old line was de-energized, effectively abandoning it. As per insurance, etc., I went ahead and called in a new locate because CYA, everything except the electric was on the other side of the house. When I showed up to start the job, the old paint line was marked as energized and there were no locate flags or paint on the new line whatsoever. WTH. Called the utility's hot line and asked what was up and if they'd buried/connected the new line but not energized it (meter was running so I knew one of the leads was hot, and I didn't think to bring my inductive voltage tester). They said someone would be out toot sweet to assess what was going on. He showed up along with a rep from the sub whose employee had done the locate.
A pretty stormy exchange of words went on between the two for a good 15 minutes, and it finally wound up that the employee had simply just re-painted the locate she'd done prior to the new line being run. Her story was she'd run out of batteries on the locate device and "knew" where things were at, anyway, so just went ahead and re-marked, apparently missing the brand new trench line heading onto a new meter on the house. Properly chastised and thoroughly cowed, the locate company dude slunk to his car and sped off. The utility boss looked at the line I exposed and said, "Hell, I wouldn't have dared cut that - you were right to call." It was, in fact, de-energized, but I had no desire to turn into a Christmas tree on a hunch. He went ahead and cut it, so I was off the hook.
At any rate, he also told me that lately they were having a real problem with subcontractor locate companies doing sub-par work, and were seeing an increasing amount of breaches on electrical and gas service lines. In fact, the wires wound up being about 6 feet to the left of where the employee had run the paint line. To be fair, it wasn't entirely her fault as for whatever reason, when they originally buried the line they made a big question mark out of 8' of excess before turning the corner into the old service box - I found it where it made the curve.
A month and a half ago, I snapped a 6-pair phone line 65' away from the locate line. Same job I exposed a gas line buried just beneath a sidewalk I was tearing out - it was live and over 75' away from where the locate line was. It was not a private install - utility company's logo and tracer wire was on it. The phone company allowed it was theirs and said it would be a week before they could get out there (remote area). The homeowner gave me a ride to town so I could get UG/weatherproof stuff to fix it and had him up and running before I left for the day. The homeowner called the utility company out to properly bury the gas line; they were fairly astounded that it got missed by the locate.
I figure everyone's careful here, and may have run into this before. Thought it was noteworthy as the utility rep stated that their repair crews were getting much busier than they wanted.