Dumb luck.

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ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
Talking to one of the area lineman today and he described a local problem yesterday. The area he lives in lost power. They tracked it to a local General Contractor who was setting posts at his own home. Drilled right through all three phases of a buried primary. Not even any marks on the auger according to lineman.

You won't be so lucky...call first.

Sometimes you just wish they would publish what those repair charges will be...plus the fine.
 
I use to work with a guy that drove a ground rod about four feet through the primary to the transformer about 50 feet away. He said he didn't know what he did until his Hilti stoped working and went inside and the lights were out.
Lou
 
Ah, reminds me of the time that (3) 200HP pump motors were fried at a wwtp.

Ah, reminds me of the time that (3) 200HP pump motors were fried at a wwtp.

About 20 years ago a sewerage treatment plant was single phased and fried (3) 200hp motors. It was a new addition with MCCs that had systems voltage monitors which the intent of protecting the motors against such an event.

Excavators called digger?s hotline that identified the area to be excavated as being safe. However, digger's hotline did not have the updated line burial information and gave the OK. The excavator hit the line and single phase the plant
I attended a meeting at the city hall with my distributor rep, the city comptroller, and representatives from the POCO, and contractor to divide up the costs. The excavator was not responsible so they were not involved.
Before the meeting I visited the plant and took a look at the MCCs noting that the monitors were still set in their as shipped settings. I also had a sample of the monitor to show those at the meeting the available settings. I advised them that the systems voltage monitors which were intended to protect the motors from loss of phase were never set properly.
The comptroller elected to accept some of the blame on the part of the engineering firm, the POCO accepted some of the blame which was unusual as well as the contractor. The then looked at me to accept some of the blame which I denied stating that my product did not fail as were provided a product that would have prevented the damage should the engineering firm and contractor simply adjusted the system voltage monitor. If they did it would have save at least $16K.
 
Do you have to call when driving a ground rod or it is when you dig only.

the way it sounds even a ground rod installation needs to call digalert.

wow it is scary the damage one can do.
 
Don't know about other parts of the country by here in Indiana if you dig, pierce, or do anything that would or could damage utility infrastructure you can be held liable fore the damages and or be hit with a fine for up to $10,000 and or one year in jail or both if you do not have a locate done before digging or dig after the locate has expired (48 hours here)

From experience I also suggest to take photos of all locates as they might save your butt in court if you do hit something, in at least three times it saved mine.

The first time I was using my back hoe to dig in a sewer line for the plumber as a favor, we had locates done and they came out and painted on the neighbors drives with big arrows "NO UTILITIES" with the arrows pointing toward the property we had to dig in, around here it is common to have not only the primaries but the secondaries and gas all in the same trench, not even including the cable and telephone trunk line which was about 6" off center of the electric.

Well the back hoe did what it was great at, it located them, including a 600 pair telephone trunk, 7.2kv primary and the secondaries to the neighbors house, well we had photos and when we refused to pay both the POCO and Verzion (telco) we were sued, but what they didn't know was we had photos, and I counter sued for the hole in the side of my bucket that happened when I hit the secondaries and primaries, lucky the gas main was about 2' and I had just scraped it in the same pass when I hit the rest, well when I was called up to the bench to tell my side to the judge I showed the court the photos of the locate that was done and the paperwork for when we ordered it, then entered my counter suit the POCOs lawyer jaw just dropped when he saw the photos, and the judge just dropped the POCO's case and ruled the locate company responsible for my bucket (the locate company was own by the POCO then), the neighbors also sued and received a driveway cleaning to remove the paint off their drives, I got a check for $2100.00 for a new bucket (never replaced it) but did get a narrow trench bucket with part of the money.

The cost of the damages they were trying to make us pay was $6800.00 from the POCO, and $1200.00 from the telco, this didn't even include the possible fines or jail time I was facing if I was found guilty of the damages if I didn't have the photos of the locates to which the locate company denied us ever calling in (remember they were owned by the utility) they were also hit with a contempt of court for liying about it.

another one which I had posted photos here on involved a ground rod that hit a gas main that was mis-marked in the locate, they had known that I took photos and never tried to charge us.

So your best defense is to always take photos and document when you call for locates and when you dig.
Just calling for locates may not always be enough.

well photos save our butt and got me money in return
 
edward said:
Do you have to call when driving a ground rod or it is when you dig only.

the way it sounds even a ground rod installation needs to call digalert.

wow it is scary the damage one can do.
Click to expand...

The way it was explained to us was, "If you are sliding into first base, you better have called for a locate." The way the law is written you need a locate before you can poke a flag into the ground to indicate your intended route.
 
I was over the Germany in the US Army in the 70's. They were going to build a temporary tent city. The location was above some buried HV cables. The Army called the Power Company. The Power Company send a representative who drove a stake in the locations that avoided the cables. The first pole hole drilled by the Army line truck severed a main cable. The next week the Power Company was back out, locating all the cable monuments (Germany is littered with millions of underground utility markers) and painting them red.:lol:
 
I have seen big law suits over this stuff. utility company installing optical cable in a commerical park. locate company comes out, makes a mistake. An auger guy takes out a primary to a commerical park. 10 businesses in the commerical park sue the utilility company, the utility company sues the auger guy, the auger guy sues the locate company, and it's a legal mess. But 10 companies were out of business for a week. loss of payroll, loss of sales, etc, etc.

multi million dollar law suit, legal battle for 2 years. Some insurance company pays it all. But the FREE locate company is responsible for all the damages.
 
hurk27 said:
Don't know about other parts of the country by here in Indiana if you dig, pierce, or do anything that would or could damage utility infrastructure you can be held liable fore the damages and or be hit with a fine for up to $10,000 and or one year in jail or bothif you do not have a locate done before digging or dig after the locate has expired (48 hours here)
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I have found that part of the requirement to be a little much if there was nothing in the proposed excavation area or if any markings are still present. Do they think anything existing is going to move after 48 hours unless the reason for excavation is to move it? Common sense is not allowed though. I once hooked my locator on a phone line to determine the depth of the cable - ended up tracing it to a spot crossing my proposed excavation path that the phone co did not have located. Did find an abandoned cable in the path that they did mark:slaphead:
 
spark master said:
But the FREE locate company is responsible for all the damages.
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Free depending on who you are refering to. Free to the caller, costs the members.
Locate company here wants around $25K a year to do our locating for us. Our service guys do it now.
 
Don't use somebody else's locate either, we had a job where the plumber was running lines along the same path as us, they got the locate in their name, they missed the unmarked gas line, but we didn't. Once the utility found out we didn't have a separate locate, we ended up paying for the repairs. If we had also called in a locate, they would have had to eat it.
 
hillbilly1 said:
Don't use somebody else's locate either, we had a job where the plumber was running lines along the same path as us, they got the locate in their name, they missed the unmarked gas line, but we didn't. Once the utility found out we didn't have a separate locate, we ended up paying for the repairs. If we had also called in a locate, they would have had to eat it.
Click to expand...

Company responsible for excavating is responsible for calling locate request no matter who is going to work in the trench. If electrician and plumber want to occupy same trench then whoever is responsible for excavation is the party responsible to get locate requests. If ABC dirt company digs a basement he requests locate for digging basement, that doesn't mean the plumber and electrician need locate requests to put wiring or plumbing in the basement, unless they are going to do additional excavation to install their stuff.
 
kwired said:
Company responsible for excavating is responsible for calling locate request no matter who is going to work in the trench. If electrician and plumber want to occupy same trench then whoever is responsible for excavation is the party responsible to get locate requests. If ABC dirt company digs a basement he requests locate for digging basement, that doesn't mean the plumber and electrician need locate requests to put wiring or plumbing in the basement, unless they are going to do additional excavation to install their stuff.
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That is why I'm giving everybody a heads up on this, even though we were going a parrallel path a couple of feet away, we were not in the same trench. We mistakenly depended on the locator service to have it right. Most contractors would assume they were covered since a valid locate was already done.
 
edward said:
Do you have to call when driving a ground rod or it is when you dig only.

the way it sounds even a ground rod installation needs to call digalert.

wow it is scary the damage one can do.
Click to expand...

I was told by the Before You Dig guys that I am required to do a locate even for ground rods, so I do.

Back in the old days we used to try and guess where the gas line and sewer line were. I never hit one so I must have guessed well.
 
dhalleron said:
I was told by the Before You Dig guys that I am required to do a locate even for ground rods, so I do.

Back in the old days we used to try and guess where the gas line and sewer line were. I never hit one so I must have guessed well.
Click to expand...

It usually takes some time to discover that a rod was driven through a sewer line, gas, water, communications or electric is usually pretty much known right away.
 
kwired said:
It usually takes some time to discover that a rod was driven through a sewer line, gas, water, communications or electric is usually pretty much known right away.
Click to expand...

plastic sewer lines are like the plastic gas lines, when the rod makes contact it tends to jump back up when just using a driver or sledge, but using a hammer drill you will never know it.:eek:hmy:
 
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