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

[suladas]

That would still be sticky here cause the law states it's on the contractor to verify locate and while they have to respond in three days if they haven't your ticket is not clear till they do and then your fighting the bureaucracy

Certain areas in town have way better response times than others and the city's and the utilities that still do there own located respond better

That said there is a water company out in the west valley that doesnt respond to 811 and 811 specifically tells you to call them direct last time I had that encounter it took 2 weeks to get w after line marked that we were supposed to tap

3 days is actually the norm there? You're lucky. 2-3 weeks is the norm here, sometimes even longer, rarely quicker. And in most cases they are only valid for 2 weeks which makes scheduling a nightmare.

 

[skata]

I am doing a few projects for a guy, mostly rework a tiny pond and bury some old concrete.

you had an excavator on site for this I assume.
Did you call 811 at all for this job?

 

[fastline]

No update as of yet. No one has visited the site. I did confirm, at most, 1 home is connected to the fiber. No other homes in the area and likely not in the future either. I have no number to even call the fiber co. So what I did was leave my number on the pedestal JB very near the break. Way I look at it, if they visit, things will go down anyway. I do have one end mostly uncovered but i just scratched a hole and left wire down there.

This is an extremely quiet area. Only like 2 homes on this road. Not like there is much traffic and my little hole just looks like some left overs. Fiber guys will understand though. I have not decided yet if I will make the call or wait for them to call me.

From all the experiences here, I'd say this is a minor issue compared to a major utility strike. To throw my own, we hit a 36" high pressure main that feeds a large area of a big city. I was not running the machine, I was standing there watching. We were setting new storm sewer and that thing was tested quick. Filled a massive excavation in minutes. We made the news. Fingers were pointing immediately but I was onsite to verify survey offsets and utilities. The offset was wrong. City surveyor screwed up. The stake onsite said it all. We discussed before the dig and per the data we had, we were easily clear. Not really though.

 

[DMiller]

You guys cannot EVEN imagine all the buried sh!t on a power station yard. We had maps and location personnel even brought in Hydro Excavators to locate the pipes that were never mapped. Leads into a major remediate of steel buried pipe, also has a Asbestos laden Coal Tar exterior coating for corrosion so HAZWHOPPER crap too. Hydro boys work four days surrounding the piping, find 47 conduits NOBODY knew were there or why, 21 of them empty, another 12 with wiring but dead and the rest Live and spent three weeks isolating the supply circuits.

First ex send a bucket into earth and !POW! hard arc 480v, then power loss to a SAFETY system transformer, not even 5 inches off the hydro last hole. Entire game changed up AGAIN, and a three week job went into overdrive lasted SIX MONTHS. Circuit was a left over from Construction days and was actually a test line for the transformer that had NEVER been discussed nor identified nor necessary. Needless to say the NRC was less than pleased.

 

[cuttin edge]

S

You guys cannot EVEN imagine all the buried sh!t on a power station yard. We had maps and location personnel even brought in Hydro Excavators to locate the pipes that were never mapped. Leads into a major remediate of steel buried pipe, also has a Asbestos laden Coal Tar exterior coating for corrosion so HAZWHOPPER crap too. Hydro boys work four days surrounding the piping, find 47 conduits NOBODY knew were there or why, 21 of them empty, another 12 with wiring but dead and the rest Live and spent three weeks isolating the supply circuits.

First ex send a bucket into earth and !POW! hard arc 480v, then power loss to a SAFETY system transformer, not even 5 inches off the hydro last hole. Entire game changed up AGAIN, and a three week job went into overdrive lasted SIX MONTHS. Circuit was a left over from Construction days and was actually a test line for the transformer that had NEVER been discussed nor identified nor necessary. Needless to say the NRC was less than pleased.

Sometimes even the obvious doesn't help. As a rule, and this is something I picked up from a a more experienced operator as I was starting out. When I go on site, I look for power lines, poles, LVs, then I ask the questions, and I'm talkin private business, and home owner stuff. Any power to the shed, or garage. We have no natural gas lines, but if I see one of those Genarac generators, I look for the outside propane tank.. Where's your well, septic. If there is no one around, I look for the signs. well heads, tank covers, can I see the fuse box in the garage, sometimes the home owner has no idea. I asked a man, is there power to the garage, yes but I put it down 2 feet. I drop the ripper on my little grader, the shanks might be 10 inches, pull the panel off the wall in the basement of the house. Where is the power for the home. Very few homes here have underground power. Sometimes the water shutoff is in the driveway, I always ask if I can't see it in the lawn. We carry new tops just in case I tear one off, and a wrench just to make sure the pipe is not full of crap, or it isn't bent. We did new drain tile around a huge Catholic church. The guy on the hoe was an I know already, you don't need to tell me guy. He was digging around the foundation, gets right beside that big power LV, you know the ones for a double 200 amp entrance. digs right by, hooks the power, and keeps pulling. Church was full of smoke. the lines were not in conduit under ground, so they had to be exposed to the pole. New code wants each entrance to have its own LV, so 2 runs of conduit, a new LV through a 2 foot basement wall, new triplex, and 2 new panels later.

 

[CM1995]

No update as of yet. No one has visited the site. I did confirm, at most, 1 home is connected to the fiber. No other homes in the area and likely not in the future either. I have no number to even call the fiber co. So what I did was leave my number on the pedestal JB very near the break. Way I look at it, if they visit, things will go down anyway. I do have one end mostly uncovered but i just scratched a hole and left wire down there.

This is an extremely quiet area. Only like 2 homes on this road. Not like there is much traffic and my little hole just looks like some left overs. Fiber guys will understand though. I have not decided yet if I will make the call or wait for them to call me.

It's been a couple of days and no one from the fiber company has showed up? Are you sure the line is live?

 

[Willie B]

In summer I sub contracted for the excavator on a conversion from overhead power to underground. It was me who called 811, my name on the ticket. Not me in the operator's seat. The locator marked the fiber line, but was off by a few inches. One spot we had to dig parallel to the fiber & we found it.

The phone company came & fixed it, no further action ever happened.

 

[fastline]

OK, update. I headed over there today to try to figure things out. I found out the 1 neighbor was connected to it so I went ahead and made the call of shame this morning. Guy was there 2hrs. Mostly just waiting for a piece of fiber to be delivered. Actual work took 30min. I did a little digging and backfill work for them. They left the new piece of fiber on the ground and are having someone return later in the week to knife it in, but it is connected and running. Neighbor was probably only affected for about 4hrs.

They took my contact info but that was it. I think I did everything I could to make the repair go smooth.

I did however notice that one end up the fiber was only 9" deep. Other side was way deep. Is what it is. I guess I will wait to see if I get a bill, and then see how I deal with it.

 

[Willie B]

OK, update. I headed over there today to try to figure things out. I found out the 1 neighbor was connected to it so I went ahead and made the call of shame this morning. Guy was there 2hrs. Mostly just waiting for a piece of fiber to be delivered. Actual work took 30min. I did a little digging and backfill work for them. They left the new piece of fiber on the ground and are having someone return later in the week to knife it in, but it is connected and running. Neighbor was probably only affected for about 4hrs.

They took my contact info but that was it. I think I did everything I could to make the repair go smooth.

I did however notice that one end up the fiber was only 9" deep. Other side was way deep. Is what it is. I guess I will wait to see if I get a bill, and then see how I deal with it.

You aren't in a good place if you failed to call Dig Safe before digging. It is law. There may be no repercussions, or there may.

 

[suladas]

JMO but if one end was only 9" deep if they come with a bill i'd tell them to pound sand and that if you don't want your lines damaged bury them properly. Sure you should have had a locate, but it doesn't take the reasonability away from them to install the lines properly to begin with.

 

[Bumpsteer]

Funniest one l ever had was a water line replacement...gas was 30' away and marked, power is overhead. Service valve exposed and turned off.
Digging away with the Bobcat and backhoe...homeowner supplied beer, his kid running the shovel, life is good.
Hooked something good with the bucket, wtf? Homeowner is laughing his arse off...another wtf? I hit a service valve?? Wtf? its 15' behind me!

Seems at one time there was a leak....at that time village maintained the line all the way to the house. The village idiot decided the easiest fix was to add another service valve and leave the cap 2' deep.

Ed

 

[Willie B]

JMO but if one end was only 9" deep if they come with a bill i'd tell them to pound sand and that if you don't want your lines damaged bury them properly. Sure you should have had a locate, but it doesn't take the reasonability away from them to install the lines properly to begin with.

Utility lines are ALWAYS installed by a contractor. I used to do electrical work for the major phone line contractor. In underground work it was always, "Engineer is around, bury it deep. Engineer goes away, bury it shallow."

The exception is Green Mountain Power. They have employee personnel on site to supervise. Ditches are flat bottomed, correct depth. Sand is placed, then conduit. Sand is raked by hand to support the conduit, then more sand. It is filled to within a foot of grade & foil tape goes on.

After refilling the ditch, the ground is restored to what it was.

These lines don't get dug up, and almost NEVER fail with age. Seems simple, Do it right the first time.

 

[aighead]

Not that it's exactly the same but I used to work on the golf course. One day I was out messing around with the sprinkler system, turning some on or off after maybe sanding greens or something, I don't quite remember. Well, there was one sprinkler head that was misbehaving or something was goofy with it so I took the tool over to I guess pop the top off or clear something from the head or whatever I was doing and when I went to turn it the entire head blew off and suddenly there was a 40 foot high geyser and I'm covered in sand, mud, and water!

 

[Acoals]

Same here.

We hit an unmarked ATT data line to a bank once. Had a current 811 number and all the utilities were marked except for ATT. At that time ATT wasn't USIC to locate and had a new company that was way behind - yet I didn't know that..

The site was an old gas station next to an operating bank. The gas, water, power and other phone/data lines were all marked and we were past the 48 hour mark so we start demo. A couple of days later we come across an unmarked phone line. We think nothing about it and keep going. Thankfully it was the banks phone/data line - not the "call the police instantly" line.

As our crew is taking pictures of the area and lack of marks, ATT shows up with 3 trucks, USIC shows up and then out of the blue another line locating company shows up and starts painting orange on the ground where there were no orange marks before... USIC guy then tells me about ATT's new line locate company hired because they were cheaper than USIC and how far behind they are due to being understaffed..

Fast forward to 6 months later. We get a bill for almost $4K from ATT. Sent them a letter with pictures explaining in detail what happened, how it was their line locating company's problem and we are not paying for their negligence.

Get a couple of more nasty letters from ATT over the next couple of months then they start to lower the "bill". ATT threatens to turn it over to their attorney which I said take your best shot as they are going to spend more than $4K in lawyers fees just to file the paperwork in an Alabama court.

So we get a letter from their attorney demanding payment of $1200 within 10 days of the letter. Lawyer was from Georgia with an office in a 30 year old strip mall, probably bought the "claim" for pennies on the dollar hoping to collect something. The last letter we received from the attorney was for $600 and change to settle, never paid a dime. That was 2 years ago.

I had one like that last year. Pretty much the same playbook. We hit an unmarked Frontier line installing a culvert. I had called a locate, The power utility had marked their lines, USIC had stuck a site clear flag on the lot.
Over the course of almost a year the case went to some kind of arbitrator in Oklahoma, who I showed pictures, ect showing that the line was unmarked. Frontier came back with their own internal report noting that the locate was never performed, but still claiming damages from me due to an expired ticket. In Wisconsin at least, the ticket is good for 10 days, or as long as the company is continually on the job, not being off the site for longer than ten days. Our strike was about 25 days after the ticket date, but we had been on and off the job the whole time. (The Frontier line had never been marked anyway)
I went through all this with the arbiter, showed them the info off 811's website about the 10 day/on site rules. I didn't hear anything for like 3 months, then I get a letter from some attorney in Oklahoma demanding the damages in 10 days or they would sue me. I ignored them, and haven't heard anything since, that was back in maybe February.

 

[ChuckRock]

I had one like that last year. Pretty much the same playbook. We hit an unmarked Frontier line installing a culvert. I had called a locate, The power utility had marked their lines, USIC had stuck a site clear flag on the lot.
Over the course of almost a year the case went to some kind of arbitrator in Oklahoma, who I showed pictures, ect showing that the line was unmarked. Frontier came back with their own internal report noting that the locate was never performed, but still claiming damages from me due to an expired ticket. In Wisconsin at least, the ticket is good for 10 days, or as long as the company is continually on the job, not being off the site for longer than ten days. Our strike was about 25 days after the ticket date, but we had been on and off the job the whole time. (The Frontier line had never been marked anyway)
I went through all this with the arbiter, showed them the info off 811's website about the 10 day/on site rules. I didn't hear anything for like 3 months, then I get a letter from some attorney in Oklahoma demanding the damages in 10 days or they would sue me. I ignored them, and haven't heard anything since, that was back in maybe February.

Talk about lower than low. An attorney that will pull those shenanigans. No wonder I was taught not to trust anyone with clean fingernails.

 

[Tags]

The locate companies are only as good as the guys doing the locating. Had a job putting in a 1000 gallon propane tank at the library in town. 2 electrical services go to the library, one off the main road and one off a side street. One off the main road goes overhead to the weather head on the corner of the building, the one off the side road is where all the action was though, came down a pole in 4" steel pipe then underground to MASSIVE transformer on the side of the building, which of course was where we were digging, and I had seen the transformer and line on the pole. I get emailed "Site clear". Unbelievable. I call USIC send the guy back out, he calls me when he's "there" and says "all clear, line comes off the front pole overhead" I say walk around the side of the building and take a peek....he says he already left the site and I'm good to go. I call USIC again, get a manager/supervisor, says he'll be out first thing in the morning. He shows up first thing and just laughs as he's now marking the buried line, he tells me he goes out everyday several times to relocate stuff, at least for the people that pay attention he says. I asked what about the people that don't pay attention, as he's still laughing a little he replies "USIC must have really good insurance because out employees aren't worth sh!t!"

 

[cuttin edge]

Anything here buried less than 4 feet and over 200amp has to be in concrete. I have seen the caution tape laying a couple inches above the line.

 

[Tony Wells]

Slightly different scenario for me a couple of years ago. Hospital remodel, parking lot rearranged with new drive for the fuel truck for the pair of choppers kept on the pads. GC had busted out the concrete curb on both the to-be connected drives, and graded, laid out their rebar and mesh. I had the job of installing the sensing loops for the gate system. It's a twisted pair of 18g copper. Usually I just drive pieces of rebar at the corners and stretch it around the rectangle required. It's actually pretty fussy to make it work, and I always worry about the monkeys pouring the concrete disturbing it. This pour started about 4 AM. I find out later that their remesh was arcing to one of my rebar stakes. Guys all in the mud and working it. The lead man just kicked it away so it wasn't arcing. Found out later that several of the parking lot lights were not on. Tripped breaker. It seems I had driven my rebar right through a conduit carrying 208V out to a section of lights. I did my bit during the day, so it wasn't hot. Dark came and the lights went hot. Before I did any of the stake work I specifically asked about anything being under what was just a grassed over area beside the parking lot. Nothing on the original drawings, nothing on the GC drawings. Now under the concrete is a pierced 2" conduit in the dirt with a 3/8" rebar through it. There were spare conductors in it, so once they figured out which circuit was shorted, they simply abandoned that pair and went to a backup. I had the hospital head guy over all construction out there, also a friend of mine, as I was doing the job and mentioned to him that I hoped nothing was there. He said if ts wasn't on the drawings, it better not be. Short story, I never heard another word about it. I think the plant services guys were embarrassed and probably got a little chewing out over not knowing or telling the GC there was hot conduit there. At least I didn't do the digout, and it wasn't so deep that it would have got the conduit anyway, but I changed my tactics a little. I used much shorter pieces of rebar now. The ones I used were longer than they needed to be. It was handy, and they had to be below finish grade....so down they went. I think the GC would have had to eat it, and he may have, but I didn't. Just glad none of the guys in the mud got zapped. Could have killed someone.

 

[Willie B]

Pretty common to cut slab with a diamond saw to add support beneath, or add plumbing, electrical or whatever. Countless stories of electrocution when they cut through power lines. It's never included in bid work, so nobody troubles themselves to have a locator service search for it.
I admit, I don't always have a locator aside from Dig Safe. Dig Safe is concerned with utility lines, not entity owned underground. I do my research before cutting or digging. What is the likely route they took to run that underground pipe or conduit.

 

[colson04]

I do my research before cutting or digging. What is the likely route they took to run that underground pipe or conduit.

I hit a buried propane line because someone did not take the obvious route. Tank at south edge of yard and 10 yards east of front of house. Propane secondary regulator is about mid point on east side of house. Direct line stayed 5 yards away from SE corner of house. I was asked to dig up a lilac bush that was too big and too close to the SE corner of house. First time I stomp the shovel in and pull back, instant hissing. I could smell the gas right away and ran to the tank to shut it off. Lilac bush was right over top the line and line was only 4" or so underground. Ran from tank directly to SE corner, and the followed foundation until it turned 90° to come up to secondary regulator. My grandpa wasn't very happy, but he didn't know it was ran that way either.