Placing Foundation On Red concrete

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Electriman

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TX
Greetings,

My contractor is pouring the foundation for a vessel, during excavation they saw a red concrete indicating the direct burried cables. We are wondering if we are allowed to put our foundation on top of red concrete.

Thanks,
 
Electriman said:
Greetings,

My contractor is pouring the foundation for a vessel, during excavation they saw a red concrete indicating the direct burried cables. We are wondering if we are allowed to put our foundation on top of red concrete.

Thanks,
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You might want to contact the utility owner. They could be abandoned but you don't want to drive a pile somewhere and find out otherwise. Come to think of it, wasn't there a utility survey before you started your work??
 
gadfly56 said:
You might want to contact the utility owner. They could be abandoned but you don't want to drive a pile somewhere and find out otherwise. Come to think of it, wasn't there a utility survey before you started your work??
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I know that there is cables inside the red concrete. but I am not supposed insert anything inside the red concrete. my question is if i am allowed to cover the red concrete with anything else.
 
Electriman said:
I know that there is cables inside the red concrete. but I am not supposed insert anything inside the red concrete. my question is if i am allowed to cover the red concrete with anything else.
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Let me rewind. When you said "direct buried cables", did you mean cables in a duct bank, or did someone mix up a batch of colored concrete and pour it over some UF (or something similar)?
 
the red coloring it a warning that there are utility service items inside warning you not to drill or hammer through it. Structurally, I doubt if you can place a foundation ALONG it because it was not likely designed for any weight loading. But crossing it at a right angle would, I think, be no different that coring the foundation for a pass-through. It's something the foundation people would need to decide however, I don't think this is an electrician's decision to make, i.e. it's not an electrical issue, it's a structural one.
 
gadfly56 said:
Let me rewind. When you said "direct buried cables", did you mean cables in a duct bank, or did someone mix up a batch of colored concrete and pour it over some UF (or something similar)?
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I dont think it is a duct bank. I think it is just a red concrete pad to protect the cable underneath. How does it make a difference?
 
Electriman said:
I dont think it is a duct bank. I think it is just a red concrete pad to protect the cable underneath. How does it make a difference?
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An engineered duct bank will have some kind of load rating so you can place dead loads like an equipment pad above it (possibly). Andif you need to, you can pull the conductors out and re-pull without digging up the duct bank. If it's just a scribble of concrete on some direct burial cable there could be all kinds of unhappiness in the future. What if the ground below the cable wasn't properly compacted? You put that new load on top and get some settling and get two problems for the price of one; cable that may have been severed by the concrete cap as everything shifted, and an equipment pad now out of plumb. Also, even if you don't cause any damage to the cables, how do they get replaced if they fail in the future? Pull the equipment down and jackhammer the slab? Reroute around the slab for some other cost adder?

I'm with jraef on this. It's got to go up the line to the owner. This isn't a decision the GC should make on his own. I would disagree that it would be OK to simply cross the existing run. Too much unknown.
 
gadfly56 said:
I believe it's worse than you think. I believe there is no duct bank, based on the OP's responses.
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In which case the warning is rephrased as "The person or organization that owns the cable(s) under the red concrete may own an easement for that cable that prohibits you from cutting off their future access to it by building on top of it.
It may be a recorded easement on the property documents filed with the city or county, or it may be a "unrecorded" easement buried in other paperwork somewhere.
If unrecorded, the easement may not be legally binding, but could still cause you a world of trouble in the future.
 
Much of this discussion assumes that the cable in the red concrete is utility owned, thus the comments concerning jurisdiction, etc. - all valid. However, on industrial sites, direct burial of 15 kV armored cable encased in red concrete is pretty common. If it was a site for which I was responsible, and no other reasonable foundation locations were available, I would require that the foundation be structurally designed to straddle the cable location without placing any structural load on the concrete.
 
Fnewman said:
Much of this discussion assumes that the cable in the red concrete is utility owned, thus the comments concerning jurisdiction, etc. - all valid. However, on industrial sites, direct burial of 15 kV armored cable encased in red concrete is pretty common. If it was a site for which I was responsible, and no other reasonable foundation locations were available, I would require that the foundation be structurally designed to straddle the cable location without placing any structural load on the concrete.
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Your solution is certainly a good one as far as it goes, but it doesn't address the access issue, especially if this foundation is going to cover any significant area.
 
True, but very site specific. I always figure that cable encased in concrete is pretty inaccessible, anyway. Any failure is likely going to result in one or two above-ground splices, unless the entire run is replaced.
 
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