Cut The Neighbors Telephone Wire

[pajoube]

I trenched my yard for underground sprinkler system the other day and cut the neighbors telephone wire that lives behind me. I did not call for underground wire location for the following reasons.
The underground trench was 12 feet inside my property line and only 6 inches deep. The utility easement is on the property line. As this neighbor is behind me and the telephone central box is located behind me I felt there was no reason to suspect a phone wire buried in such a horseshoe configuration.
I did have the area flag located by the power company a few months back so I did know where that was buried.
Am I liable for the cost of new wire to be put down?
PJ

 

[Junkman]

I don't believe that you would be responsible, unless they have an easement on your property to install service to other homes. If there is no easement, then there is no reason to believe that there is anything on your property, because without an easement, it doesn't belong there, nor would you have any reason to believe that it is necessary to call.....

 

[thcri]

When we built our house three years ago our electrician hit a telephone line that took out just about everybody in our development. He was trenching and buring the main electtrical line to our house. Gopher One was called a few days prior and marked everything before he dug and they did not find that telephone line. Long story short, if he did not call Gopher One he would have had to pay to fix the line even though it was not my line on my property. And the line could only be fixed by Qwest. Since he called Gopher One, then Gopher one was responsible. Qwest came out about 4 hours later and billed Gopher One.

Now this is what happend to us it may vary again from state to state.

murph

 

[GaryM]

I agree with Junkman that you "shouldn't" be responsible. Hope it turns out that way.

I cut a phone line once with a lawn mower. But it was the one running from the box to my house. Turned out it wasn't buried at all, just laying in the grass. Phone company fixed it no charge.

 

[Egon]

Look on the bright side. The neighbour can't phone in and complain.

Cut mine once [ flagged in wrong location ] spliced it back so I could call it in. Seeing as phone worked just sealed it up watertigh and forgot about it. That's about 10 years ago.

Don't know how the local regulations will work???javascript:void(0)javascript:void(0)
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Egon /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[GerardC]

<font color="blue"> [ flagged in wrong location ] </font>

Ain't that the truth. When they flagged mine they told me they should be within a foot or so of the "line(s)", 18" to be safe. The flags were over two feet off! Never hit anything; though we came close. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[wroughtn_harv]

The sad thing is the utilities wrote the laws for the politicians. So those with buried utiliites have got just about every avenue covered.

I have to deal with these folks, water, gas, telco, cable, power, and varmints all the time. That locate number I live by. And even then if they mislocate you can still get nailed.

Most of the major contractors not only call the locators but they have in house locators to confirm and they pot hole (dig holes to verify the utility is where it's marked).

Now if the telco guy is a straight shooter and you don't act like a jerk he might word his report where you were not doing anything wrong.

But if he's having a bad day and you come across as part of the reason why he can just as easily write the report where you deserve jail time on top of paying for the repair.

What you've done here is step into something that if it doesn't bite you it will at least make you stink for a week or so.

The only thing to do if you're going to dig more than three inches deep is get a locate. It's free, pain in the butt, but free.

With it you have a prayer. Without it you don't.

 

[63DH8]

I cut through my phone cable a while back with my subsoiler. When the phone dude came, I told him what I did and B.S.ed with him for a while. Two cups of coffee later, he left without billing me. He said the cable wasn't buried deep enough. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif I had the subsoiler buried to the hilt, tearing up my yard! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[Hootie]

While planting a tree (using the PHD on the 'Bota) I cut my own telephone wire. Same story, a little sugar went a long way. Talked for a while with the guy, offered him some coffee, he fixed the problem, no bill.

 

[billbill1]

I was plowing the garden (it has always been in the same location) and plowed through the phone line to my own house. I asked the phone guy how deep the line should be burried and he told me 12-18". No way the plow could have went this deep but the wife changed phone companies to something cheaper and they don't have a repair crew. SBC came out and ran a new wire and told me I would be responsible for the price of the repair. After a couple of months, still no bill-still could be though.