My helping a neighbor experience

[GregbkH]

A woman who is a patron of our bar and grill was in need of someone to plow out a spot in her back yard so her parents could park their fifth wheel trailer when they got home yesterday. The woman, who lives with her parents, is a very nice person and had not asked me to do this as she knew that I had been very busy running the bar in my wife's absence. Well I had a little time and offered to do the job for her. She only lives a block away so I got out my plow truck and let it warm up.

Our last snow fall was about 12-15 inches of snow but it was real light due to the cold weather. It would be real easy to push for my 2016 ram 3500 dump truck with a 9 1/2 foot v-plow and 3000 pounds of sand in the bed. After the truck was warmed up, I told her she was going with me to show me where exactly she wanted it plowed and away we went.

When I thought I was done she asked if I could make one more pass along the edge. Sure, no problem I told her. At the end of the pass when I stopped pushing, I heard a loud humming sound. What in the *&^% is that? I asked. She says, oh look! a wire! I lift the blade and back up a bit and sure enough there's a triplex wire (power feed) running up a wooden pole where the wires had been cut off at the top. Now this wire is dancing around arcing and sparking and catches on fire and starts up the pole. She exclaims in a loud voice...... LETS GET OUT OF HERE!. Being that I'm an electrician I tell her to calm down. You know how well that works on a highly excited woman. From a safe distance I watch this smoking, flaming and hissing wire dance like a wounded snake until it finally burns itself open and all is quiet again....... even the woman..... for a few seconds anyway.

She swears she didn't know about the wire but after calling her father he knew about it. I called the electric company and they came out right away and de-energized the feed. It wasn't being used for anything anyway. When I asked why the heck was a live feed just laying on the ground, nobody knew. Can you imagine if someone ran that over with a lawnmower or some kids were fooling around with it?

Even though I've worked with electricity for a long time this incident elevated my heart rate a bit and I'm glad nobody was hurt and no damage was caused.

 

[SJay]

Those things always happen (one more pass, one more turn with the wrench, one more swing with the hammer, one more .......). Glad it worked out for you.:thumbsup:

 

[Jchonline]

Glad it worked out.

 

[Ortimber]

This incident might have saved someone from a real disaster in the future. Glad you found the wire and not someone else.

 

[EddieWalker]

Good story with a happy ending. I've found that people get used to things that are wrong and eventually forget about them. They call me to fix something and when I find the source of the problem, they all of a sudden remember it being like that for years. Water leaks are the most common thing that seem to get ignored for me, but live wires that nobody knows why they are there are also very common.

 

[Thomas]

Dang good thing no used a snow blower to remove the snow.

 

[Streetcar]

While rebuilding a parking lot, we hit a direct electrical feed with backhoe. Lots of Sparks
Electric company put wire nuts and tape to abandon in the old days

 

[bunyip]

I dug up a phone cable after getting a map from the Telco showing where it was, they were only about 100' out, as their map was wrong they got to fix it.

 

[4570Man]

I was helping a neighbor with a fairly major landscaping project. In the process we discovered the culvert under the county road was completely rusted out. We decided to call them to have them fix it. We already had the utility companies mark the utilities and the county brought out their backhoe. They hit the gas line about 10” feet from where they had it marked.

 

[Alan W.]

I was helping a neighbor with a fairly major landscaping project. In the process we discovered the culvert under the county road was completely rusted out. We decided to call them to have them fix it. We already had the utility companies mark the utilities and the county brought out their backhoe. They hit the gas line about 10 feet from where they had it marked.

Ive seen contractors get held liable for digging off anothers locate when they hit something. Always called my own in if they didn't remark it was on them.

 

[kthompson]

Greg, you will never know who or what you saved. Few years back a trash truck took out over head power line at Daycare and the truck driver said I have to go and took off. He left a live wire laying on the ground beside where parents were dropping off the children, no concern. I got large plastic trash can and dropped it in there and then called power company. Sure was glad to be there which was not normal for me.

 

[Streetcar]

Ive seen contractors get held liable for digging off anothers locate when they hit something. Always called my own in if they didn't remark it was on them.

In Ohio, everyone must call in their excavation. You must have call in ticket or else you are liable

 

[Wagtail]

I dug up a phone cable after getting a map from the Telco showing where it was, they were only about 100' out, as their map was wrong they got to fix it.

Before I dug up the ground for the pad to my 5-bay shed I did the 'righty' and called the Dial-Before-You-Dig service... (the house is an owner/builder and the bloke didn't mark the landline or underground power). The map that Telstra sent had direct lines from the corner of my property going to myself and 3 of my neighbours, one of which went under my house.

I knew that it was wrong and called them directly. They said that they'd send a surveyor out, but if the map was correct then I'd be responsible for the cost. They did send a contractor out, with an EMF detector, and he confirmed that the landline went up my driveway and that my neighbour's 'lines' either went up theirs or were non-existent... the existing map had been a "guesstimation" from when the original property was subdivided but before any houses were built.

He also (free of charge) showed me exactly where the power line was coming in from. It pays to have a nice conversation with, or at least offer a beverage to, the contractor/worker while they're working.

 

[Stimw]

My property has underground wiring from the pole to the house about 60'.
I needed to trench power to my new shop with my backhoe, about 75' past utility wires.
A friend had an expensive locator ($1000. +-) that I borrowed.
It had a transmitter that you placed loop around known wires and a wand/receiver that you used to locate wires.
Instructions even told how to tell the depth of wires!
I dug location by hand and hoe-ed the rest of the trench!
Another tip- when trenching for utilities take a pic of trench so later you know where it was.
Of course if you are like me you won't be able to find the pic!

 

[Industrial Toys]

Some people pay good money to have some excitement in their lives, like that. How many volts?