Our Telephone Line Saga

[LBrown59]

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Varmintmist,
Actually the NEC® has no jurisdiction on the line coming from the telephone utility. )</font>

Even it it did the enforcement would be against the phone company not drm .

 

[Mavrik02]

Just built my house in western PA. I was responsible for digging the trench (I dug it 24" to 36" deep) and laying in the conduit (1.5" or 2" pipe) with the pull rope. My contractor did all of that and 90'd the pipe right up the base of the telephone pole and the base of the house. The telephone co. showed up and pulled two lines, hooked them up to their box on my house and left. I drilled through the foundation, figured out how to connect my Cat-5e wire to their box and presto...phone service.

Cable...I could tell stories about cable... /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Anyway, not everything here makes sense. Who had responsibility for running the original line? It sounds like drm did because he paid for it. If he did have responsibility who did he contract with, the phone company or the contractor? If he contracted with the phone company and they sub contracted it out to the contractor then drm has a legitimate beef with the phone company for doing the original work and now asking for something different (Is it typical for a phone company to offer this service?). If drm paid the contractor directly then he may have the responsibility to work out the issues with the contractor (it would be good if the original agreement and specs were in writing somewhere). Of coure this sounds screwy enough that there could be some local buddy/buddy business going on between the contractor and the phone company foreman.

Well...it's late July now so drm probably already got this issue resolved and doesn't need our "help" anymore /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Varmintmist]

( Varmintmist,
Actually the NEC® has no jurisdiction on the line coming from the telephone utility. )

Right and wrong, there is the spec for buried utilities in the book, and I am pretty sure they have the depth of the various cables in the trench.
The NEC has control of placement of anything that will carry electricity that is near a electrical wire, underground or up in the air.

That said it will not be a definite answer because it isnt a joint use trench, but it is somthing to go on.

Here ya go
http://www.pacode.com/secure/data/052/chapter63/s63.23.html
(§ 63.23. Construction and maintenance safety standards for facilities.
Overhead and underground public utility equipment or facilities and crossings of the wires or cables of every public utility over or under the facilities of other public utilities, cooperative associations or electric utilities—including parallel or random installation of underground electric supply and communication conductors or cable—shall be constructed and maintained in accordance with safe and reasonable standards as set forth in the National Electrical Safety Code, 1981 edition.
)
Non joint use trenches are probably at the phone co spec sooooo....

...................

</font><font color="blue" class="small">( Even it it did the enforcement would be against the phone company not drm . )</font> There was no disscussion about enforcement, just trying to get specs to help him out. I stated in the first post that he already paid for the service and it should be done right.

 

[LBrown59]

<font color="blue"> If drm paid the contractor directly then he may have the responsibility to work out the issues with the contractor
this sounds screwy enough that there could be some local buddy/buddy business going on between the contractor and the phone company foreman.
Mavrik02 </font>
<font color="#666666"> ========== </font>

About 7 years ago I hired a contractor to dig a 150 foot ditch for a gas line.
Gas co. dictated 24'' deep.
Well, the guy hit big rocks about 12'' down for about 30 feet of the ditch and couldn't dig any deeper with the BH so he just made the ditch 12'' deep for the 30 feet over the rock and dug the remaining 120 feet down to the required 24 '' and left.
Later I got a bill for 260 dollars from him.

The gas company inspected the trench and naturally would not approve installing the line in it where it was only 12'' deep over the 30 feet of rock.
That resulted in me having to pay a rental company about 275 bucks to rent a compressor jack hammer and air hose from a rental company and several hours of hard labor for me and my brother cutting through all that rock getting the ditch down to the required 24''

The contractor kelp demanding the 260 dollars - I resolved that issue by never giving it to him.
Based on
1*I contracted with him to dig a ditch suitable to install a gas line in. it wasn't suitable as the Gas Co. rejected it.
Contractor breached the contract due to non performance.
2*The contractor is the some contractor that contracts with the gas company to dig ditches and install all their gas lines. This being the case he know full well what was required for the ditch I needed and was fully aware that what he provided wouldn't make the grade.

He finally just dropped the issue and I never heard from again.
Never took me to court or threatened to.
Once he saw that I knew the score that was the end of it.
It's pretty hard to enforce a contract you didn't perform on.

DRMs situation may be a bit similar to what happened to me.

 

[AntrimMan]

Witholding all of the funds is just wrong.
You should pay for what was done. Maybe not the entire amount agreed to but at least for what was done. You are thinking that the sum is so small that the excavator will never take action.
Research your deed to see if a lean has been placed by the contractor.
Martin

 

[Mavrik02]

Most excavators that have written contracts (or provide written estimates) will have a "rock" clause (or something similar) in them to cover exactly what happened in your case. Even the ones I've worked with that don't have the written clause mention the possible contingencies up front (i.e. "If we hit solid rock we will have to do x, y, z and it will cost more).

I don't know how the discussion went with the contractor but my guess would be that if he did sue in the local civil court you would have ended up paying some portion of his original bid. The contractor has probably "been there/done that" several times already and figured it wasn't worth the effort.

 

[Inspector507]

Ok.......But the NEC® and the NESC® are two different publications. In Ohio the NESC® is not enforceable by the local municipalities unless specifically adopted. Also what you quoted was the Pennsylvania Code which has specifically adopted it for use by utilities. The PUCO, in Ohio, mandates that the utilities use the National Electrical Safety Code® as well. But there is not an enforcement arm of that commission that would pursue any violation of it either.

 

[Alan L.]

Luckily what I found out last week when I cut my phone line in two places is that it was about 12" deep. Thats better than 8" I guess.

What I think is unethical is that you call the phone company (Verizon), they send a guy out and he splices the cable. Before he starts working on it I ask how much its gonna be. His response that he does not know, he just fixes what they tell him to fix and he turns it in. So I don't have the opportunity to make a decision on the repair based on a quote. I am supposed to just pay whatever they say. I guess I will find out when I get the bill. The guy was here aobut 45 minutes and used two gel splices.

 

[Varmintmist]

Inspector,
He is in PA, so I figured PA code was ok. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
Like I said, it has nothing to do with enforcement, but you can get a guideline there. The PUC is where he needs to go if he thinks that he is not getting the service from the public utility that he is paying for.

Alan,
It is mostly billed time and material. So you can be billed for 2 gel caps, however many splices, and since he used 2 he used some cable to piece it out, plus his time. He may not even know what the cost of the splice is and will just turn in the work as billable with a T&M list.
In my experiance, not with Verison, homeowners rarely get billed for service drops. It costs almost as much to do the billing. UNLESS you were a PITA, then you would be sure to get a bill /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif If you backfilled the hole, and I had to dig it out, you would get a bill. If you had a hoe sitting there and left 2 little stubs sticking out of the sides of the trench and I got to dig them out, you would get a bill. Stuff like that.
If you had the ends cleared, and it sounds like you did I wouldnt have billed you. I may not have told you I wasn't going to bill you so you thought about it next time, but I wouldnt have billed you. Waste of time.