Call before you dig

[Fallon]

I agree the orange is the conduit. Here in Louisiana, we are required to call or submit a 'locate request' online at least 3 business days before digging. Also, the utility companies pay to be a member of 'Louisiana One Call' which is the organization that handles all locate request. I get an email from them telling me what the utility companys have found and marked, or that the area is clear of their lines.
As a contractor, there is no cost to me for anything to be marked. When I was on our rural water board, we would pay our operator for each time he had to go locate our water lines.

Same for Colorado. 3 day lead time. Free. Covers all utilities, power, phone, gas & fiber internet.

A new ISP came into the neighborhood a few years ago. I now see them on 811 requests I submit. They also have a rack behind my barn with a 500 odd strands of fiber plowed 4' deep. They pay rent for the space & power & I get free unlimited Internet. Connected at 10 gigabit as I can't be bothered to shell out a few thousand dollars for 100 gigabit gear.

 

[4570Man]

Years ago I was building a condo project. The project was near completion but one of my contractors needed to do an additional trench. Back in that day,the General Contractor arranged the location.

Gas company came out and marked “all” the underground lines. My sub proceeded to trench and hit a gas line.

Gas company comes out to repair and sez that I will be billed for repair. I pointed out that there were no markings indicating a gas line.

The gas guy goes and gets his as builts and states “there is NO GAS LINE HERE!

I said that ib that case I didn’t hit a gas line.

Never did get a bill. LOL

I did a job a while ago that 811 marked clear no conflict. There was continuous water running out of the parking lot even when it was too dry to logically be ground water. But since 811 claimed no utilities in the area I figured it was ground water. I dug a ditch all the way to the road for a culvert and was scraping bedrock the whole way. Not long after that project a county backhoe was digging up the leak that allegedly wasn’t there. Idk how I didn’t break it. It must’ve been basically under the pavement where I was digging.

 

[John0829]

Years ago I was to dig a for something, I don't remember what now, on a campus, they had supposedly located and marked the area and put "X" on the spot they wanted dug. Third or forth bucket nailed a 400 pair copper cable dead center, right under the "X". Many unhappy people that day but hey YOU MARKED and said dig here.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

On our 700+ mile rebuild, we will have built over 9 different water boards. Only 2 have any idea of where their pipes are. The rest may as well throw a rock and say that's where the water line is. One area has a pipe no one makes any more and no idea where it is and no way to repair it.

 

[BackRoad]

I called 811. Guy shows up and flags all the utilities including a major gas pipeline crossing my property. He said I'm not supposed to tell you this, but that's a 12 inch main line, installed in 1978 (so over 45 years old) that is down about 6 feet "according to my meter". Rules were I could not dig within 25' either side of the pipeline without a representative from the gas company present.

Followed up with the gas company and they agreed to be there Tuesday by 12p to watch. So I rented a very capable Dingo to trench in the 1000' conduit run for the cable service. I had already trenched the 950' balance before he got there, so was familiar and very comfortable with the whole trenching operation at that point.

Amazing how much higher the pucker factor was trenching the last 50' running over the pipeline...though only digging down 2 feet, and in spite of it being brrr suit weather, I was sweating bullet sized drops the whole time while digging over that pipeline!

 

[RayIN]

Here in Wisconsin you are supposed to call diggers hotline before doing ANY digging, even in your garden !
So last summer I needed to dig up my 90 years old basement drain to replace it because it was plugged.
Your supposed to call 2 weeks prior to digging and I did, well the day before the digging was supposed to start diggers hotline folks hadn’t shown up so I called again, they said they would send someone out the next day, well the next day it was raining like crazy but there was a white pickup truck sitting at the end of my driveway for quite awhile, eventually he drives into my yard, I had put white stakes in my lawn to mark where I wanted to dig, so I go out in the rain to talk to him, says he is there to mark my telephone line, so I tell him I know where the telephone line is but it was disconnected nearly 20 years ago when I got a cellphone but go ahead a mark it if that’s what your supposed to do but I need the underground power line marked that what I called about. He tells me he is not authorized to mark power lines and I need to call the power company for that. So I start complaining that I called weeks ago to get the power line marked even though I know pretty well where it’s buried and it shouldn’t be any problem with my basement drain. So he feels sorry for me and marks the power line with some orange paint and some red flags it was exactly where i thought it was and no problem for my basement drain project. The next day another guy shows up to supposedly mark the underground power line but says I will have to pay to have it marked. Well I tell him it’s already marked, he says those red flags are for telephone line. I tell him there definitely ain’t no telephone line there and I ain’t paying him anything. So he leaves and a few days later we dig in the new basement drain, everything turned out well. That diggers hotline crap is another one of those crazy government involved messed up programs.

The nine most dreaded words in the English language are:
"I"m from the government and I'm here to help". Ronald Reagan quote.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

I called 811. Guy shows up and flags all the utilities including a major gas pipeline crossing my property. He said I'm not supposed to tell you this, but that's a 12 inch main line, installed in 1978 (so over 45 years old) that is down about 6 feet "according to my meter". Rules were I could not dig within 25' either side of the pipeline without a representative from the gas company present.

Followed up with the gas company and they agreed to be there Tuesday by 12p to watch. So I rented a very capable Dingo to trench in the 1000' conduit run for the cable service. I had already trenched the 950' balance before he got there, so was familiar and very comfortable with the whole trenching operation at that point.

Amazing how much higher the pucker factor was trenching the last 50' running over the pipeline...though only digging down 2 feet, and in spite of it being brrr suit weather, I was sweating bullet sized drops the whole time while digging over that pipeline!View attachment 2993213View attachment 2993254

Back in the latest 80s, we crossed an oil pipeline. They came and marked it, we started digging and noticed all the oil people were about a half mile up the hill. That's when we stopped the backhoe, and each of us got a shovel. They never said how dangerous it was if we cut it, but with them putting that much distance between us, we figured it must be bad.

 

[airbiscuit]

The nine most dreaded words in the English language are:
"I"m from the government and I'm here to help". Ronald Reagan quote.

As I understand it, Diggers Hotline is paid by the utilities.

 

[Silvic]

I have found that 811 locate is very good and prompt. Free and no hassle. Advice I was given by the locate guy was to take photographs of the dig and locate area with markers and to include any locate lines that were marked and the utilities could not claim you dug without getting it marked. He said the marked lines frequently get destroyed and then they deny that they were ever there.

 

[etpm]

The nine most dreaded words in the English language are:
Hogwash. Reagan said it but it ain't true.

 

[Jstpssng]

Back in the latest 80s, we crossed an oil pipeline. They came and marked it, we started digging and noticed all the oil people were about a half mile up the hill. That's when we stopped the backhoe, and each of us got a shovel. They never said how dangerous it was if we cut it, but with them putting that much distance between us, we figured it must be bad.

Yikes!! My cousin used to weld on active pipelines. It always amazes me that they can do that.

 

[airbiscuit]

So around here (NW Wisconsin) the Electric company buries its cable deep, and where it is supposed to go. The telephone company takes the path of least resistance, and sometimes buries as shallow as 6". A couple of years ago the electric company was burying new underground cable - where it was supposed to go, and deep (doing a nice job of clearing trees that had grown up). I was talking with them, and they said - don't be surprised if your telephone line gets cut. We know there's one out here, but it's not marked by Diggers hotline. We called Brightstar (vulture capitalists who bought out our service area from Centrylink),and they said it's been marked. We called their local tech who they knew, and he came out and marked some cables). The next day they called Bright star again and said we think there are more of your cables ahead, can you send your tech out? They said, no, it's been marked, and don't call our tech again.

Sure enough, our phone goes out. I call Brightstar customer service and report the outage. I explain that there is a cat with a trencher outside burying an electric cable, They called Brightstar to mark their cables and they refused. They asked if any of my phones were off the hook, if my neighbors phones were out, etc. I said there is a cat with a trencher just down the road, and I have a pretty good idea what happened.

They said "do you want to open a repair ticket? You may be responsible for the repair costs." I said no. Brightstar is the one that refused to adequately mark its cables.

They strung an overhead cable for about 1/4 mile. About a month later, a subcontractor comes in and trenched in a new telephone cable. I tell them the whole sad story and how this could have been prevented if Brightstar sent their tech out to mark the cable. They said this was not unusual. They would rather go after the locating company for the damages, than pay any extra $$ for their tech. Vulture Capitalism at it's best.

 

[KennyG]

When I was in high school, a (maybe THE) major east west phone trunk line ran through our county. Underground work was going on and they marked the phone line. When the trencher got about 5 feet from the first flag, small pieces of colored wire began coming up. If I remember the cable had thousands of pairs. They brought in a tent and flood lights and worked day and night for two or three days to repair it.

 

[Dan in CT]

This happened near me in 2008 -

 

[dougtrr2]

It annoys me that they come out, mark and flag everything, but never come back and pick up the flags.

Neighbor kids liked it, I paid them a nickel a flag when the fiber optic project was done, over 100 various flags on my property.

Doug in SW IA

 

[Mattmotors]

Love the picture of the cable hit. I retired from Verizon. Cable Maintenance. Brings back memories. The power company was always hitting our cables.

 

[JeepHead]

Fiber lines won't locate if they're not grounded and more often than not, they aren't grounded by the techs when installed. I am a former AT&T lineman and seen this all too often. Our lines were cut all the time an we would go out and repair them, at no charge to anyone.

 

[JeepHead]

If I submit a locate ticket, the phone company (AT&T) will come out and locate all of their lines. There are at least 2 fiber optic cables running through my property on the highway frontage. All of the fiber cables around here are much larger than what is in your picture. They are at least 2" and are bright orange.

That's the conduit you're seeing, not the fiber line...

 

[John0829]

Love the picture of the cable hit. I retired from Verizon. Cable Maintenance. Brings back memories. The power company was always hitting our cables.

Out biggie was each summer the road department mowing contractors cutting down the pedestals many times deliberately. Replaced many that were out in the open and so visible the seeing impaired could have found them.

And to be honest our buried wire crews (home service) were told by their supervisor not to put the wire more than 6-8" deep "to save wear" on the machines.

 

[CoyPatton]

Here in Wisconsin you are supposed to call diggers hotline before doing ANY digging, even in your garden !
So last summer I needed to dig up my 90 years old basement drain to replace it because it was plugged.
Your supposed to call 2 weeks prior to digging and I did, well the day before the digging was supposed to start diggers hotline folks hadn’t shown up so I called again, they said they would send someone out the next day, well the next day it was raining like crazy but there was a white pickup truck sitting at the end of my driveway for quite awhile, eventually he drives into my yard, I had put white stakes in my lawn to mark where I wanted to dig, so I go out in the rain to talk to him, says he is there to mark my telephone line, so I tell him I know where the telephone line is but it was disconnected nearly 20 years ago when I got a cellphone but go ahead a mark it if that’s what your supposed to do but I need the underground power line marked that what I called about. He tells me he is not authorized to mark power lines and I need to call the power company for that. So I start complaining that I called weeks ago to get the power line marked even though I know pretty well where it’s buried and it shouldn’t be any problem with my basement drain. So he feels sorry for me and marks the power line with some orange paint and some red flags it was exactly where i thought it was and no problem for my basement drain project. The next day another guy shows up to supposedly mark the underground power line but says I will have to pay to have it marked. Well I tell him it’s already marked, he says those red flags are for telephone line. I tell him there definitely ain’t no telephone line there and I ain’t paying him anything. So he leaves and a few days later we dig in the new basement drain, everything turned out well. That diggers hotline crap is another one of those crazy government involved messed up programs.

Aren’t all of those crazy government programs messed up?