Frustrated!

[muleman]

Digging some holes with my backhoe at the animal shelter for a sign and some gates. First post went fine but the second one I chopped a phone line before I was even down 2 ft. Phone guy came out and said it is an unused line. Refused to locate the main line without a UFPO and a 3 day wait. They had just marked it for the town to do a new culvert pipe and they missed by a bunch. Town chopped it right in half. This markout was right along the shoulder of the paved road. Where I was digging was in woods 15-20 ft. back from the road. So now I have to wait til next week to finish a simple job. Damn line I hit goes right under some trees that are at least 30 ft. tall. I had already took one out and cut it up with the chain saw and dug out the stump and moved it out of the way.Why do I have to follow minimum depth and ribbon requirements and the utilities don't?

 

[Cowboy]

Please dont tell me you never tried divining/L rods to locate buryed wires or lines ? Sure beats the hell out of waiting around or trusting someone else.

 

[JEV]

We have some divine people around here. Maybe they can help out.

 

[Trakternut]

We have some divine people around here. Maybe they can help out.

<Looking for his halo and wings>

You could have called it in as an emergency locate. Around here, that gives the utilities two hours to mark their stuff. They're not happy, but, if you don't make a habit of doing them as emergencies, they get over it.

 

[muleman]

That would work for fixing a water or gas leak but not for sign and gate posts. Just have to wait till next Thursday and can dig anything up then. They have fiber along the road somewhere.

 

[Trakternut]

That would work for fixing a water or gas leak but not for sign and gate posts. Just have to wait till next Thursday and can dig anything up then. They have fiber along the road somewhere.

I surely hope you're not the lucky bastard what finds it.

I, once, called in emergency locates to drive anchors into the ground for a power panel. Caught some crap from my supervisor for doing it as an emergency, but, I don't care. I got the job done. Lucky thing too! Where I was going to put 'em was on top of fiberoptic cable that served the neighborhood.

 

[muleman]

I cut fiber,local phone and cable tv all in one swipe years ago. They had missed the locate by 6ft. and all I was doing was scratching around a manhole to raise it up with a 4 inch ring. Nothing was legal installed as far as depth or ribbon. Primary electric was only 18 inches away. That was in a new street waiting to be paved.

 

[Trakternut]

At least, the cost of repairs came out of someone else's pocket, eh?

 

[fogtender]

About twenty years ago we had a 12' snowfall and the driveway was a valley of snow. I started up my D-8 dozer I had at the time with a 14' U-blade and pushed the snow back to where I could plow again with my smaller D-2 Dozer I had.

Well seems my phone system went out, called the phone company and it took them two days to get out there and another two feet of snow later. Seems the phone box wasn't where it was suppose to be... After a few hours they located a small hole where the box use to be... Just a two inch conduit sheared off as were the wires. After they got a new box on it, all the boxes had 12' yellow poles marking them for the entire area...

They never figures out who sheared it off either, too much snow and no tracks... Backblading makes it like pavement!

Good thing they didn't come down the drive another Quarter mile at the time!

 

[muleman]

At least, the cost of repairs came out of someone else's pocket, eh?

Nobody ever said a word to me or my boss. I took some polaroids of a shovel touching the markouts and my bucket edge. They had marked an old run of wires before they expanded the development into a wetlands area. The wetlands just seemed to disappear after enough fill ground was dumped. I often wondered how bad the walls cracked in those fancy new houses. I would run across some of that ground in an old JCB hoe and it rippled like waves on water.