Why I do not trust utility locators.

[digger242j]

Here's the situation...

The house was desigened very close to the alley, Along the alley, exists a utility easement, containing primary electric (23kv), secondary electric, telephone main and service lines, and CATV main and service lines. The powers that be are still argueing about who's in the wrong place, but regardless of that, the utilities are inside the house. They're being moved.

In the first pic (I apologize for the quality of them), you can see the lines, the excavation done to the very edge of the alley pavement (to make room for them to be moved to), and outlined in red, approximately where the house goes. On the far side of the hole, is the electric transformer,

In the second and third pics, you can see the yellow marks made by the gas company's locating person. The main is not a factor, as it's several feet out into the alley. The service lines for the house on the far side of the transformer, as well as those for the houses on the other side of the lot, and the other side of the alley, are all marked. You'll note that the closest marking to the transformer, is on the side away from the excavation.

 

[digger242j]

The problem is this--In order for the electric company to move their wires, the area in front of the transformer needed to be excavated, outlined in white.

Understand, this site has been developed within the last several years, and this is one of the last houses being built in this phase, so the records are neither so old, nor so new, as to be imcomplete.

The utilitiy companies had all their main lines installed before any pavement was put down. This included water service lines, from the main to the curb stop, and gas service lines, from the main to the curbstop. This house, already has a curb box for its gas service line, and it is located just about as far off the edge of the pavement as the ones that are clearly marked.

HOWEVER, the service line for this house, was not marked. :beatsme

The only one that I was in any danger of hitting, and it was not marked.

Fortunately, I knew exactly where it was, because before I did any digging back there, and even before the one call was made, I took the time to find it myself. The top was broken off it, but the yellow tracer wire was sticking up out of the ground. The yellow arrow points to where it is, and had another operator, unfamiliar with the site, not been aware of its presence, it could certainly have been damaged.

In 99% of the cases, we are not familair with the sites until we start digging, which is why they have a locating system in the first place. This is just another case of the one call system being unreliable.