"call before you dig" super efficiency.

[vash]

it is amazing. i TRIED like hell to use their website,but it wouldnt accept my address. so i called. put on hold for about 15 mins. no biggie. gave them my address and PHOOSH!! my property is all marked out. half the the utilities companies even emailed me an all clear. i called 4:00 pm yesterday, and it's all done today. i had to rush and mark out my planned mayhem with white paint. that was about the worst of it.

all my retired neighbors were waiting for me when i got home to tell me all about it. (on a side note, i think i could have skipped my home alarm..nothing gets by these old folks. nothing.) i think they are all nosy about what i have happening.

now time to make a 60 foot x 2 foot hole..that is about 6" deep..to remove some crazy lady's idea of a good idea involving bamboo.

[A930Rocket]

I wish ours was that fast.

It takes 3-4 days here to get locates done.

[ckissick]

It's a good service. However, I've had PG&E mark a gas line 30 feet away from where it really was. I suspected it was wrong and we pot-holed it. And I've drilled through more than one water line after having it marked in the wrong place. One was a 4-foot diameter pipe that knocked out water to all of Oakley for 24 hours. CCWD told me where to drill so that I'd miss it.

So USA is only as good as those who respond to it. I like to use a private utility locator.

[KevinP73]

Oh!! So you're supposed to call BEFORE you dig !!

A natural gas line was ruptured Wednesday by a backhoe in Woodland Hills, sparking a fire that engulfed the construction vehicle and prompting some precautionary evacuations.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by KevinP73

Oh!! So you're supposed to call BEFORE you dig !!

A natural gas line was ruptured Wednesday by a backhoe in Woodland Hills, sparking a fire that engulfed the construction vehicle and prompting some precautionary evacuations.

Is it just me, or is that the pipeline on the left foreground just across the fence from the business end of what's left of the backhoe?

[patz]

Spent two hours driving back from Chatsworth because of these yahoos......

[look 171]

You called them out to dig a 6" hole? Now I know why the neighbors all want to know what you are doing

Nosy neighbors are sometimes good, but they can also ruin your life at times. When I moved into my house, I was 29, in shorts, tee shirt and a small pick up truck and nothing else but work on that stupid house all day and night trying to get it to livable condition. The neighbor said to me, your kind move in here and stir up the neighborhood by doing much of the unacceptable construction, making noise changing up things. I told her that I was in the porn industry we are fixing up to use for filming. She high tailed outta my little yard.

Well, I can only dream, can I?

[sammyg2]

When I was having my pool installed i told the pool company that the telephone company has an easement on the back of my property about 8 feet from the fence.

They said, no big deal we called digalert.
I said yeah, but there's an easement.
Don't worry about it.

The utilities came out and marked everything, except the telephone company.


The telephone company set up a 24 hour operation in the back yard splicing all those wires and fiber optics back together.

End result was it was their fault for not marking their utility, but half the neighborhood lost phone service and internet for a day or two.

[johnco]

I always call to have the properties checked and marked and so far I've been pretty lucky. I've only hit a few cable, phone, electrical, water, sewer and gas lines. even after digging the required distance from the marks. pretty bad when you hit a gas line, call the city, and they tell you we're glad you hit the line, we didn't know it was there. wasn't on the maps. we'll send someone to look at it.. all the while a 2" line is spewing natural gas in the backyard

[vash]

Originally Posted by look 171

You called them out to dig a 6" hole? Now I know why the neighbors all want to know what you are doing

Nosy neighbors are sometimes good, but they can also ruin your life at times. When I moved into my house, I was 29, in shorts, tee shirt and a small pick up truck and nothing else but work on that stupid house all day and night trying to get it to livable condition. The neighbor said to me, your kind move in here and stir up the neighborhood by doing much of the unacceptable construction, making noise changing up things. I told her that I was in the porn industry we are fixing up to use for filming. She high tailed outta my little yard.

Well, I can only dream, can I?

haha. i talked to the bamboo guy. he said he will plunge a saw into the ground occasionally. carbide blade or something. (i think he said a carbide tipped chainsaw blade) and also a carbide tipped digging bar with a 30lb slide hammer!! figured better safe than sorry..plus i'll need to installed a fence right after the bamboo hedge is gone. the hedge IS the fence at this point. i dont want to get all awkward pissing in the backyard.."oh, hello there!"

[GH85Carrera]

When I put in my sprinkler system I called and had everything marked. They marked where it was but not how deep. I lowered the cutting blade on the trencher and had not even moved and I cut the cable TV cable. I called them and they came out and put in a temporary cable and just strung it on the fence. Once I was done trenching they came out any buried the cable in my trenches. That was my only cut cable or pipe.

[MBAtarga]

From my experience, both phone and cable are very shallow - always less than 6" deep - sometimes much less. Electric, gas - much deeper - 2 feet or more. Water - somewhere in between.

[jcommin]

It's a free service and worth it even if you need to wait. The last thing you want to do is cut wires -

[Baz]

Here in Florida it's called "Sunshine Dig" and I use them occasionally.

All locates are to be done no longer than two days after the day you call it in.

Email updates are available and that's how I have it set up.

I take pics with my digital camera of all the locates before we start work so everything is documented just in case.

[look 171]

down here its usually within 24 to no more then 36 hours. My electrician always calls. She had some pretty bad experiences over the years.