Digging near electric..& near dead!

[hench861]

we just had the same thing happen at work a dozer was digging a new parking area all lines were clearly marked but the original elec contractor did not bury the main power line deep enough,luckily the dozer guy had enough sense to know what it was and stop,this line is 33600 volts in conduit and encased in a concrete vault,they only buried it 18 in deep

 

[TedLaRue]

The first time I had ever used a backhoe I wanted to dig a trench parallel to an existing gas line. I had dug by hand and found both ends of this short 30' long line. One might think they would bury it in a straight line between those points. I dug about 10' and found that it was laid in an arc which swerved 3' to one side of the straight line. Perhaps they did that because the line was 2" PE pipe which came on a pretty tight roll and maybe they couldn't easily straighten it out.

Anyhow, the line was abandoned and of no use to me, so no harm was done, but it surprised me when I saw pieces of orange plastic in the dirt.

 

[Savagepike]

I've seen many of our underground lines get cut, latest one on monday was a 34.5kv 3-phase line. Many people don't realize that merely grazing a jacketed line basicly starts the clock ticking to a failure. Water seepage, even soil ph can lead to quick (<1yr) failure. Always call before you dig, it's free. Because whatever is built over that failing line will end up being demolished to replace the faulty line. Huge headache for both the landowner and the utility. Not to mention it could possibly be deadly.

 

[madpogue]

Many people don't realize that merely grazing a jacketed line basicly starts the clock ticking to a failure. Water seepage, even soil ph can lead to quick (<1yr) failure.

I suppose this is even worse than an outright cut, since it would probably go unnoticed at the time, and when the line eventually fails, no one's thinking it could be from a dig someone did months ago, and this would confound finding the exact location of the failure.

 

[Slamfire]

Actually, there are fault locators that can tell within a foot where the line goes to ground.

 

[Savagepike]

I suppose this is even worse than an outright cut, since it would probably go unnoticed at the time, and when the line eventually fails, no one's thinking it could be from a dig someone did months ago, and this would confound finding the exact location of the failure.

Even more so when someone's installed a nice custom stone patio over the fault. Now it's either relocate the line or break up the patio, big $$$ either way.

 

[mjncad]

Even more so when someone's installed a nice custom stone patio over the fault. Now it's either relocate the line or break up the patio, big $$$ either way.

That's why I like using conduit, especially under high dollar items like patios and driveways. Of course if the conduit gets crushed or damaged in some way, then all bets are off.

 

[hench861]

the lines at our plant are in a concrete rectangular vault and then the conduit goes inside that,that is what the dozer guy hit

 

[mjncad]

the lines at our plant are in a concrete rectangular vault and then the conduit goes inside that,that is what the dozer guy hit

Your dozer guy hit a duct bank. I'll bet that was a rude and expensive awakening for him.

 

[hench861]

we just had the same thing happen at work a dozer was digging a new parking area all lines were clearly marked but the original elec contractor did not bury the main power line deep enough,luckily the dozer guy had enough sense to know what it was and stop,this line is 33600 volts in conduit and encased in a concrete vault,they only buried it 18 in deep

no it was a near miss thing fortunately