Call before you dig

[zoedog2012]

Yes, the state water water board used one. If you use gps and have a laptop, or take it back to the office to process, it possibly can work. I have never seen one do this. I have seen the real time version and it's show a disturbance the the soil. Is it a pipe, cable or body or a tree root? No one will know.

Back in the 1980's we were installing end posts for a vineyard and hit a major phone line at the intersection of 2 county roads , they had laid the cable through the field at an angle instead of squaring it off. Repairman was very unhappy because he had to dig up the line to repair it. No cost to us. Needless to say he was very lazy.

 

[Too many Kubotas]

Is it a pipe, cable or body or a tree root? No one will know.

That's the drawback with the Pipe Finder.

Yes, there's something down there, but what? An unused PVC pipe, a main electrical cable, or old fence wire?

Of course, if one end of it is known then it's just a matter of following its path.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

That's the drawback with the Pipe Finder.

Yes, there's something down there, but what? An unused PVC pipe, a main electrical cable, or old fence wire?

Of course, if one end of it is known then it's just a matter of following its path.

Until it crosses something else. My favorite locator was a rycom back in the 80s. The old dynatel were liked also. The other day a young fellow handed me a new locator with a color screen and asked how to used it. I gave it back and told him the last one I used had one needle and a buzzer on it. The fact that he asked how to use it, told me he didn't have a clue.

 

[Up to the Axles]

Different color tapes are used for each type of utility. Why don't we do that? Especially for water lines of PVC pipe that cannot be located with a metal detector.

That is SOP for anything I get done. Plus the better tape is foil-backed; the locator puts his transmitter where the foil emerges, and can then locate the whole run with the accompanying receiver.

 

[RayIN]

Back in the 1970's a new rural water company was formed. Someone must've had a lot of foresight (pre-811), because for every water line laid, there was someone with a camera taking pictures of the ditch with the 4" plastic water line laid before covering it up.

This year 811 marked water lines; the phone co. started laying underground fiber optic cable in the orange plastic roll pipe. They laid that alongside the existing water lines along the road, but only 6" deep; the water lines are 24" deep.
That's gonna be interesting when time comes to replace/repair the old plastic water lines.

 

[aircommuter]

I was in the business of installing underground facilities and I have numerous stories about missed and incorrectly located facilities. I have owned my own locater and still use it on my private road because I replaced the undersized culvert and there is one old phone cable installed with a ripper so no backfill material that would warn someone digging by hand. I have a CAT tool consisting of what they call the cat and genny. It’s very accurate even for depth. On my own property I have lots of underground pipes and cables, I use #10 copper for a locating wire.

 

[sixdogs]

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

Years back I had a couple of 300 gallon bulk gasoline tanks I wanted to switch to diesel. No drain plugs and I figured it would stay that way because of the risk of cutting into a bulk gas tank.

A local guy I knew said it was no big deal and had me call a high-end welding and logging equipment repair shop in a local small city. When he said they would drill the hole and weld on a bung for me I was shocked. He said they would blow air into it with a shop vac for three days and then reverse the blower and then reverse again. He said no problem and we do it all the time.

I showed up a week later and the tanks were outside, all drilled, welded and a great job. I paid my bill, gave him a nice tip and still don't know how he did it.

 

[paulsharvey]

I haven't read all the way through this one yet, but... 1st point, when I started working in horizontal/linear construction, we often were only working around 1 phone/fiber, 1 cable, maybe a water, gas and sewer. Now, most road right of ways will have 5 or 6 fiber companies (Uniti, crown castle, lumin, att, Comcast, Vero, MCI, Windstream, Cox, ect). There is one particular, semi rural roadway i work on a lot, we have 2 gas mains (different companies), 13 telecoms, water, sewer, some buried power, and a high profile ATT transmission, that allegedly connects North America to South America.
2nd point, 10-15 years ago, the answer was always, Just go deeper to get under everything. In the past decade we have put gas as deep as 105 feet (36" steel line going to a power plant), and fiber as deep as 45 ft, and many water/forcemain/reclaimed water/gas in the 30-60 ft deep range. We are rapidly running out of "deeper".
3rd point, the UAOs (Utility Agency Owners), don't do sufficient oversight and mapping of what their contractors install, so they don't have good maps to give their 3rd party locators.
4th point; locating has improved, but not by leeps and bounds. GPR helps, but its really got it's limits. Tracer wires get cut and not repaired, ect.
5th point, not everything buried is a "utility", stuff like signals, ITS, street lighting, storm drains, ect are exempt from having to be located

 

[WinterDeere]

Years back I had a couple of 300 gallon bulk gasoline tanks I wanted to switch to diesel. No drain plugs and I figured it would stay that way because of the risk of cutting into a bulk gas tank.

A local guy I knew said it was no big deal and had me call a high-end welding and logging equipment repair shop in a local small city. When he said they would drill the hole and weld on a bung for me I was shocked. He said they would blow air into it with a shop vac for three days and then reverse the blower and then reverse again. He said no problem and we do it all the time.

I showed up a week later and the tanks were outside, all drilled, welded and a great job. I paid my bill, gave him a nice tip and still don't know how he did it.

One of my several hot rods (mid-80's Mustang LX into which I jammed a 7.1 liter motor) didn't have space in the trunk for a proper fuel cell, since there was a NOS bottle and battery already eating up that space. But we were having fuel delivery problems with the OEM sump on the tank, whether it was too small or damaged, so a buddy offered to braze a bung fitting into the bottom of the OEM fuel tank for me.

Believe you me, I have never washed and rinsed anything so well in my life, as I did with that fuel tank prior to drilling it and then letting him put a torch to it.

Digital cameras weren't really a thing yet back then, but I managed to find some old and very small scanned photos, one showing that tank bung.

 

[paulsharvey]

You also have to remember, much of what is in the ground goes back 75+ years. Old AC water, clay sewer, steel, lead air phone, ect, and often that is still in service. I haven't Personally seen any wooden water mains still in use, but coworkers Have shown me pictures of them from within the last 10 years. I Have vacuum excavated on an ancient tar and fabric-rope type material, phone line, running between Henry Flagers original rail bed, and US1. I dont "think" it was in service, but you still have to assume everything in the ground is still live.

 

[WinterDeere]

You also have to remember, much of what is in the ground goes back 75+ years. Old AC water, clay sewer, steel, lead air phone, ect, and often that is still in service. I haven't Personally seen any wooden water mains still in use, but coworkers Have shown me pictures of them from within the last 10 years. I Have vacuum excavated on an ancient tar and fabric-rope type material, phone line, running between Henry Flagers original rail bed, and US1. I dont "think" it was in service, but you still have to assume everything in the ground is still live.

I lived for several years in a tightly-packed Victorian village, all houses built 1870's - 1890's, that was plumbed, gassed, and electrified real early. You couldn't dig anywhere on that little 0.2 acre property without hitting something, and then spending half the day figuring out what it was and where it went. Since all of my digging was by hand, I never bothered with one-call, knowing full well all or most of what I found was far too old to even be on their plans.

I did end up running my downspouts into some very old drains, that left my property and went somewhere unknown. They never backed up, so must have led to a street sewer somewhere down the road. Either that, or some poor neighbor was left wondering why their basement suddenly started filling with water every time it rained.

 

[paulsharvey]

Heck, not utility, but buried, last year, they found a small ship/big boat under a signalized intersection in down town St Augustine

 

[Jstpssng]

Heck, not utility, but buried, last year, they found a small ship/big boat under a signalized intersection in down town St Augustine

You win!

 

[bcp]

All better than the European thing of running into bombs underground.

Bruce

 

[kenmbz]

When we were in Cambodia, lots of warning signs for mines.
Not a place to wander off the trails or without a guide!

 

[paulsharvey]

Also, although it's required by law to still call in a locate on private property, from my experience, the locators have so many tickets, they generally just clear them, as No Conflict when they see a homeowner submitted ticket. Had that happen to me like 3 times, even though I know dang well the buried phone is Right there where I was setting fence posts

 

[WinterDeere]

Also, although it's required by law to still call in a locate on private property, from my experience, the locators have so many tickets, they generally just clear them, as No Conflict when they see a homeowner submitted ticket. Had that happen to me like 3 times, even though I know dang well the buried phone is Right there where I was setting fence posts

This probably varies by locale. I've always had them show up and mark here, and in fact they always ask the date by which I need it marked, and have asked me to push a project back a few days in cases where they were booked up.

I do think their regular contractors have more pull, when it comes to getting a rush job prioritized at the top of their list, but they always seem to make it out on schedule when we call.

 

[paulsharvey]

One day I do need to check the "Sunshine 811 Damage Prevention Guide Book" on if normal agricultural activities are exempt? At the same time, we have all seen the video of the guy using a post driver, going through a medium sized gas main....

11K views · 59 reactions | Pile-driving a fence post into a gas main - with catastrophic results. This excavator was VERY VERY lucky! Think you know where the buried utilities are and that you don't need to contact #811beforeyoudig? Think again. Vi

Pile-driving a fence post into a gas main - with catastrophic results. This excavator was VERY VERY lucky! Think you know where the buried utilities are and that you don't need to contact...

www.facebook.com

I have also seen pictures of the aftermath of some drain tile, in an ag field, when the big trench went through a gas transmission line.

Moms property used to have a gas easement. We knew about it, and knew we couldn't get gas, too big of a line, but didn't know how big. Until Florida Gas Transmission did a rehab job on it; and 26" and 22" line, operating around 800-1200 psi.... She sold the easement portion off with 28 acres when she broke the propertyView attachment 3114761

 

[RaydaKub]

That is just INNERDUCT.... Actual fiber cable is much smaller and pulled in when all the innerduct is connected to appropriate building/fixtures....

We have fiber to our house and I broke it one day. Cost me $60 and the guy fixed it in about an hour. The fiber was less than 1/2 millimeter across and maybe 1 millimeter with the shield for each fiber. He used a special tool to line up the 2 ends to within a 30,000 of an inch, then melted it together. My cable actually has 4 conductors to it, but he only fixed 1; every house here has 4 and they only use one, so no matter. With insulation and steel wire reinforcement, my cable was about 1/2 wide and 3/8 thick. But every house had its own fiber strung in. There is some kind of divider box to split them all out as they enter a neighborhood; these are not repeaters, just a way to separate the fibers apart without bending something too far. I know that just coming down my street, it was a 64-home cable. I think it was a 256-home cable that went all the way downtown to their offices and that's the first data switching that takes place. They wouldn't have all the insulation and reinforcement for each house in that cable, but it could still get to be maybe 2 inches thick. By now, there are probably several of these cables in place.

 

[Fixastuff]

I cut a 1” gas line last week. Locate was 5ft off. When you put in hundred of thousand + of feet per year you find many unlocated utilities.