Driving ground rods

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starsandstripes

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SE Michigan
I always ask the customer to call Miss Dig before I drive ground rods when doing an elecrical service. The gas company usually marks to the meter, but sometimes the water dept stops at the curb. Any suggestions for equipment that can find a water line 5 to 10 feet down?
 
starsandstripes said:
I always ask the customer to call Miss Dig before I drive ground rods when doing an elecrical service. The gas company usually marks to the meter, but sometimes the water dept stops at the curb. Any suggestions for equipment that can find a water line 5 to 10 feet down?
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Where do you live, water lines down that far? Never seen that.
 
I look for the valve in the street for the water supply and compare it to where it comes out in the basement to the meter and try my best to figure out its path. My old boss hit one once..it wasnt pretty
 
chris kennedy said:
So I'm guessing thats the norm up there. Here you better be carefull planting tomato seedlings.
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The further north you go, the deeper the water lines are buried. Stands to reason.

I use the method Oakley suggests. Site the curb stop, and site the water line's entry into the home. Draw a line between them in your mind, and that's how the water line runs. Same with gas, same with sewer. Cable tv runs any which way. They often trench around trees and flowerbeds and such.
 
starsandstripes said:
I'm up north in Michigan, but since a ground rod is eight feet I want to be able to find the line if it is that deep.
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I see my local water department still uses the old 3M Dynatel stuff to locate their pipes. Ridgid has some stuff on display at my one supply house that will do pipes or wires that deep.
 
Oakey said:
My old boss hit one once..it wasnt pretty
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Maybe not, but if he upsized the conductor to the rod, he took care of bonding the pipe at the same time. :grin:
 
Oakey said:
I look for the valve in the street for the water supply and compare it to where it comes out in the basement to the meter and try my best to figure out its path. My old boss hit one once..it wasnt pretty
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We have a line mark service that marks all utilities, most states have these laws where utility must provide line mark services. we have all our rod locations marked by the line mark service.

Don't be so sure you know where the line is or how it runs from a curb box. mears of experience has shown this in not a good indication, and in most cases the actual rum may be way off the sited path.

One gas line was as much as 15 ft off the sited line and we found a water line as much as 30 feet off the sited run. let the pros do it call for line mark services.

The fines for hitting a utility line in my state, are severe, and some start in the thousands.
 
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