maw bell

bky · Mar 17, 2002

well i did it i was grading the road today and i was in my own little world whlie i was grading and next thing i know the nabor came pulling up and ask if i knew that i had hit his phone line ?
so i went and looked sure enopugh it was broke. well my qustion is should i have to pay the phone comPay for them to fix it seeing as it was about 2 inches in the ground where I hit it? In my opinion I shouldn?t have to since it was under a gravel drive and it wasn?t deep enough?
Well I splice it back together cause the phone co. wasn?t gonad get there till Tuesday to fix it. Can you believe that I tore it up Sunday and they can?t get there till Tuesday to fix it?

RobS · Mar 17, 2002

I've hit mine several times and they've fixed it for free each time. All the lines around these subdivisions are 2" or less underground. Usually it's tucked right under the fresh sod when they build a new house. Same with cable /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

MossRoad · Mar 17, 2002

There is a call before you dig number here that if you call they will come out in X number of days to mark all utilities. They give you a case number. If you then hit something like the phone line that was not marked properly, you are off the hook (pun intended) /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

Egon · Mar 17, 2002

I did the same thing about 10 years ago. Spliced it myself so I could phone in and then decided that as it was working why bother.

Egon

bky · Mar 17, 2002

ive hit mine and splice it and didnt call but this one in in the drive that serves 7 houses

Richard · Mar 18, 2002

1. Father in law/Brother in law did similar...phone company actualy got out right away to fix. AFter the fixing, these two were still at it on the dozer or tractor..(I wasn't there)..and just as phone dude was leaving, ripped it up again!! Phone dude wasn't even out of the driveway yet /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

2. VERY angry with this one..just last week, came home from being gone couple days..phone dead. Call phone company they'll be out on Tuesday to fix. Fine. Tuesday MORNING, driving down street that boarders land..notice one of those 4 inch square terminal boxes smashed. Yup, seems some yahoo in his wisdom, took his car or truck OVER the box and smashed it to smithereens. I picked up mess and our wires were on the ground/shorted. I picked them up, layed across branch to get out of the dew and TA DA..phone worked. I raced to office to tell the phone co, that the problem isn't "AT" my house, it's at this location.

I get home that night...phone works..but the smashed junction box down road untouched /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif I call phone company ask what's up?? "Everything checked out fine, ticket is CLOSED". ARGH....I tell them the REAL problem again...and they say they'll be out on Wednesday to fix...

Wednesday...box still smashed..I call phone company...Driver came out to house and all was ok.....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

"WRITE THIS DOWN....DO NOT COME TO HOUSE"...blah blah..got rather pointed with them...

Friday I get home and while driving down road..father and uncle in laws pass by..we stop & chat...bad news...Uncle in Laws dog has been killed. Seems the phone company came out to see what was wrong..came out to the house AGAIN..found nothing wrong..upon leaving..(in his defense, the dog DID love to "challange" vehicles) ran over the dog and killed it... Oh yeah..the junction box down the road lying there smashed to smithereens? UNTOUCHED.

(anyone know any disgruntled Post Office employees I may hire?) /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif /w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif (just kidding..and no offense to any current/former/future postal workers)

The dog? Bandit. Black lab..loyal as the dickens to Tom. Was a stick dog. No matter where going..he HAD to have a stick in his mouth. The stick could be size of a pencil, or could be literally a 10 foot branch..though as he got older, he carried fewer branches and preferred more traditional sized morsels... I told Tom I'd bury him...fired up Brutus, placed Bandit in the bucket..took him to the TOP of the hill, overlooking the 250 acres and panormaic view of the lake..found nice spot..dug nice deep room for him....and prior to finalizing the proceedure...I put a stick next to him.

Today..Monday? junction box still smashed.

I love my phone company. (Bellsouth) /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif /w3tcompact/icons/mad.gif

bgott · Mar 19, 2002

We have Southwestern Bell. They hire the stupidest SOBs they can find. I went round and round with them over burying a line under the driveway of a trailer park I was in the process of building.They didn't want to string the line for the end trailer from the power poles. I was to the point of shouting "What part of I'm not finished with the driveway don't you understand?" in the face of the installer and she still strung it across the driveway, laying on the ground. They sent a crew out to bury it a couple of weeks after it was installed, it had been cut just about every day up to then. I finally got a supervisor out there and the excuse the installer had used was that the pole at the end of the street hadn't been installed. Gee, that pole had been there for a month and a half. My next go around with them is going to be a tree I need taken down that has grown up around a main line. I might just wait until the next big storm and then push the tree down with the tractor.

jhburke · Mar 19, 2002

When our cable company was AT&T, they strung their cable line so low that when the power company came in with their line truck they tore the line down and broke the pole off. The cable co came out to fix the line. No pole so they tied the line off in a tree across the lane. Now when we had a high wind the line would break. I called the company and asked whe it had become the high tech procedure to use trees as power poles. He sent someone out to check. They decided to bury the line. When they did my neighbor suddenly had his sewer backing up into the house. He finally had to rent a sewer camera to find the blockage. Yep they had drilled thru his sewer line. They disclaimed any responsibility. Lawsuit time.

MDNick · Mar 19, 2002

All this talk got me to thinking about my satellite dish cable and septic system. I will need to get my tank pumped this spring, and my guess is the cable goes directly over the top of the septic tank. Wonderful. But am glad the discussion came up. Splicing that RG-6 (???) in a burial installation is probably not a good idea.

Thanks guys.