Dug Up Phone Line.... What next?

Soundguy · Apr 22, 2004

( On arrive he gets out of vehicle walks around 15 min. Could not find line tells contractor he would not dig. )

The GC I work for does lots of excavation and UND/Util work.

The No-cuts people we work with are regionally stable.. so we almost always get the 2 same guys.. depending on what side of the county we are in.. one guy.. or the other on the back side of the county. One of them is 'swift'.. knows his job.. gets there.. gets it done.. doesn't make mistakes.. the other is uh.. how to be nice here.. an IDIOT.. doesn't locate them half the time.. marks wrong area.. or misses half the utilities he's searching for. Last two jobs we did with him, our mixer machine wrapped up about 35 foot of fiber trunk line..... I don't know who got the bill for that one..( not us.. ) but I imagine it musta been pricey

Soundguy

Soundguy · Apr 22, 2004

( The buried wires are mine as were the overhead wires. When overhead wires between the NIMO pole and your house are taken down by a falling tree limb, guess who arranges to have an electician reinstall the overhead wires? It isn't NIMO )

Burried line ownership must be different area to area. In florida I live in a deed restricted horse community.. no overhead utilities.. All houses have buried lines to the meter side of the house.

Tele, TV and power all pop up out of the trench / chase pipe at my homes exterior wall, where the access and meter boxes are.

I have, in the last 4 years, had a problem with each at one time or another.. The tele people are very clear, that everything on the customer access side of the green box is mine.. and everything from their office to their side of the green box is theirs. In one instance.. one of the pairs died in my line ( I have 2 lines ).. they dropped another line on the ground as a temp.. then burried it a week later... said sorry/have a nice day.. shook my hand and off they went.. their nickle. Cable tv indicated the same.. everything before the main split on the side of the house was his.. the multi line splitter and all internal cable was mine.

I forget the exact problem the electric man told me.. but it was something where my line came out of the chase pipe, before it went up the power distribution pole... As with the other two.. it was their nickle for the repair.. not mine.

Soundguy

paparammer · Apr 22, 2004

Things must vary even within states. I'm also in upstate NY (east of Albany) but instead of NiMo, we have NYSEG (NY State Electric & Gas). When a big old dead pine went down and pulled the overhead wires off the house, NYSEG is the one who did the repair - no cost or involvement from us, other than having to call them.

hfd376 · Apr 22, 2004

I used to locate underground utilities here in Virginia before going to work for a broadband (cable, telephone, internet) company. Yes, different regulations per state. The best way to determine where the utility's responsibility ends would be your state's corporation commision.

Here in Virginia, for example, the power co. owns up to your meter base. Anything on your side of the meter is your responsibility. For telephone, its the NID on the side of your house. Your side of the NID and its you're property and repsonsibility. For cable tv its the same thing.

Here in Virginia it is law that you must call Miss Utility, an entity made up of utility companies, 2 weeks prior to excavation. They in turn, contact people to locate their plant in the area of the dig.

The law states that there can only be hand digging within 2 feet of the painted and flagged marks. It also provides for fines and allows billing of the person causing the damage. All of this can be waived tho The SCC should be able to tell you who is liable and to what liability.

Doug

rambler · Apr 23, 2004

Isn't anyone else on an REA coop? That's what I have, nice folks locally. Here in Minnesota we have a single 1-800 number to call before digging. If you do & hit something not marked, it's not your fault. If you don't call & hit something, you could be out a lot of bucks, depends on each individual situation. But you have at least one foot in hot water if you didn't call first....

Anyhow, the REA owns the lines up to the meter, you own after the meter. But that are real good about maintenence, if trees are a danger to your overhead wires, they will top them for you if you talk nice & wait for their slow time. They say better to do it for you than to have you do it yourself & really foul things up.

--->Paul

Junkman · Apr 28, 2004

I happened to come across this site today that give the pertinent law for all the utilities for the entire USA... I just gave it a quick look over and there may be more information there also... http://ubsinfo.com/one_call.html

LBrown59 · Dec 20, 2004

CALL 911

MikePA · Dec 20, 2004

CALL 911 
Perhaps the 911 center in your area is different (although I doubt it) but digging up a phone line is not an emergency and calling 911 for it is not appropriate. My wife used to work as a 911 dispatcher and 911 is only for police, fire or medical emergencies.

jwstewar · Dec 20, 2004

I think he was kidding - I think he was playing on the fact that the phone service is out - what do you do? Call 911. Can't call if the phone is out.

MikePA · Dec 20, 2004

I think he was kidding 
Ah...now I understand. An Instant Face, /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif , would have indicated that. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif