What you need to know about miss Utility

[kdm0811]

Had it been relocated it may have been marked correctly.

There is no doubt that I should have had it remarked. But consider:

If I had had it remarked, and they marked it correctly the second time, I would have been standing there with two marks 30" apart. NOW WHAT WOULD I DO? Ask for a 3rd marking, and hope that it agrees with one of the first two, and then go for "the 2 out of 3"? How about 3 outta 5?

I offered to pay a (reasonable) fine for drilling on a elapsed ticket, but I was told that they do not do that and all of the damage was my fault.

The thing that really burned me up, was when I stated "So you consider me to be every bit as guilty for this damage as someone who fails to call Miss Utility at all"? The response was "Yes". Grrrrrr!!!!

 

[dangier_VA]

I had a house with a 400" gravel driveway. I would grade the driveway a couple of times a year with a box blade to remove the ruts. Two years ago, I was grading the driveway and looked behind me and I had a 100' shiny copper "snake" following me. Yep, I had completely stripped out 100-200" of our tv cable. It had to be buried just under the gravel. I had not removed gravel when grading-just filled the ruts. When I called the cable company, they said no problem, they would fix it-just would not be out until a week from Tuesday (this was on a Saturday). I said "not acceptable", I would temporarily splice it using my own cable stock. The lady I talked to said that I could not splice the cable. I said then come out sooner than a week from Tuesday. No way-I would have to wait. I said "ok" and hung up. That afternoon I spliced the cable and guess what? I had better cable reception than I ever had. The picture had always been a little "off", but I didn't think anything about it. The cable must have been already damaged. The cable company did come out and fix it in the next week or so. In burying the new cable, they cut two of my roof gutter downspout drains (which I found 6 months later). I guess they "fixed" me....... They never did bill me.

 

[SPYDERLK]

There is no doubt that I should have had it remarked. But consider:

If I had had it remarked, and they marked it correctly the second time, I would have been standing there with two marks 30" apart. NOW WHAT WOULD I DO? Ask for a 3rd marking, and hope that it agrees with one of the first two, and then go for "the 2 out of 3"? How about 3 outta 5?

I offered to pay a (reasonable) fine for drilling on a elapsed ticket, but I was told that they do not do that and all of the damage was my fault.

The thing that really burned me up, was when I stated "So you consider me to be every bit as guilty for this damage as someone who fails to call Miss Utility at all"? The response was "Yes". Grrrrrr!!!!

But you won. I would do just as you did, except fairly promptly I would have been insisting they pay me for having to waste time talking to them. Their time rule, on investigation will come down to how long the marks are guaranteed to last. Lasting beyond that time does not invalidate them.
larry

 

[mjncad]

Out here water companies don't participate in the utility locating program. The UNCC tells you which water department you need to call, and when you do they tell you they will show you where the stop valve is out by the street; but if your meter is in the basement, they won't locate the pipe between the street stop valve and the meter.

I guess the water departments being Special District Forms of Small Gummint feel they don't have to cooperate with building owners to minimize the chances of damage.

 

[LBrown59]

Had it been relocated it may have been marked correctly.

They probably would have given the paint a fresh coating it they did anything.

 

[bp fick]

We have "Miss Dig" or some such cute name for the service. Cannot tell you the number of times guys go to set posts and dodge the orange paint by the required 2' and still nick a line. The power company comes out, locates the short with their equipment and dutifully splices the line, the workers shake their heads. The little white truck shows up and the young lady with a wand and orange vest wanders out to see what the matter is.

The power company guys razz her a bit and she drives off. Seeing all this, I ask the foreman, "So, what the heck is the deal?" "This post hole dodged that orange paint by over 2' yet, your machine found the short dead on and finds the real location of the line. What's with that?"

"Their equipment is cheap crap, the don't keep them calibrated and their training is... well, not the best".

"Then what's the point of having to call them?" I ask. All I got was a look.

Just reporting what the guy said. True story.

 

[firemanpat2910]

I have a good version of this story with a happy ending, well a happy middle any how. Short version is, had property logged, and hired excavator to dig out all the stumps, and dozer to smooth and regrade. in the 600 ft span between the pump house and the main house, the water line was broken 7 times. the phone lines criss crossed the water lines each making differnt paths around the previous trees, so no telling how many times it was cut. called Bell South (at&T) the repairman was the same one who several years ago spliced the line from the existing barn/appartment to the new main house. he opened the box on the barn wall, read his notes, walked 10 paces, turned right took 3 more paces. dug a tiny hole, located his splice in a buried junction box. ran a temp wire 700+ feet to house. handed me a 1000 ft section of direct bury wire, told me to dig the new water line where ever i wanted, as deep as i wanted, bury the phone line in the same trench, and call him when finished he will come hook up the two ends. ditch witch was delivered this week will trench in the next month or so. he even said if the wire he gave me wasnt long enough he would drop off a full roll, so there will be no extra splices. now that is great service. short version wasnt short !!

 

[Mark Page]

I guess that cable moved itself away from the paint.
While the city was replacing a defective main water line to my last house they cut a bundle of telephone wires.
Sure as **** I got a bill from the telephone company for $1,245. I sent it off to my lawyer and never heard another thing. Since he's a fishing buddy I didn't get a bill. He did get a new Loomis rod.

 

[kdm0811]

The Virginia supreme court set up a mediation process to keep these cases from clogging up the courts. As I understand it, the process uses lawyers that have been trained and certified in utility damage mediation to hear both sides of an argument and render a decision on claims up to $20K. In my case, I formally asked that we take the case to mediation, but the dingbat for my phone company's damage claim department is somewhere in the mid-west, and she knew nothing about Virginia's laws. I was told that "they would not see me in mediation, they would see me in court".

 

[crazyal]

Here's a funny story, hopefully it'll cheer you up some. We have "dig safe". You call them and they contact the utilities and they come out and mark everything. After living in their house for 10 years my mother decided to replace the culvert at the end of the drive and replace it with a metal one. So the excavator called dig safe.

The power company showed up and quickly found the power line and marked it. There's no cable and they have a well and septic so only the phone line was left. The guy showed up and walked and walked and walked with his equipment. He gave up and went to the neighbors and located their phone line to make sure the equipment was working and came back. After another hour of testing he was out of ideas. So he called another guy to come out and now two guys were looking for the cable. After another hour a third truck shows up and about a 1/2 hour later one of the guy decides to walk to the pole and yells "found it".

Turns out that they must have put the line in during the winter. Since the ground was frozen they laid it on the ground going in the opposite direction from the house and then passed it under the road through a town culvert and then through the woods to the house. Along the way it was spliced in a couple of places, fully exposed. Best they could figure was that they were going to return in the spring and do it right but forgot.