Is there a type of metal detector you guys recommend for locating utilities? As much fun as it is to blindly hand dig looking for the service drop to a house ...It’d be nice to have the right tool for the job!
You can get detectors specifically for locating utilities (they aren't cheap) but generally it's a free service to have the utility company come out and mark them for you. Usually has a name like Dial before you dig with a 1-800 number. They advertise it all the time here. If you dig without calling them and hit a line you are charged for the repairs.
Yes, I still make the call 811 to have services located... but I’ve found that unless I’m onsite those guys just throw a flag in the ground and keep moving. .. and working out in the country they won’t mark some backwoods pump line that homeowner buried at random depth 30 years ago
I'd see if you could rent a utility locator. They can cost well over $1000.
Where I'm at it seems as though they won't mark water lines? I know where all the power stuff comes in but the water shutoff is about 40 feet from everything else and potentially cuts diagonally across the yard. It'd be nice to know where it really is.
If you can't get it located my suggestion is to dig it up carefully by hand after it comes out of the meter or shut off, see what material it is. If it is galvanized, it won't be wandering all over like a piece of poly or copper. Once you expose it carefully follow along it with your backhoe and then jump down and hand shovel it off for a few feet and pretty soon you'll know how it runs. It serves a couple of purposes. You see what condition it's in, how deep it is at that place, and what the material is. Some materials are more forgiving for close encounters of the backhoe kind. Galvey with threaded joints not so much. Copper and poly in fairly soft materials if you are one with the force, you will notice them before you harm them.
I'm sorry, did you say "hand digging?" Ah hahahaha! No, really, that's a good suggestion and a good plan. I don't know if it'll ever happen but that probably is a better idea than finding it with the backhoe. So far I haven't been one with the force and have dug up several things I shouldn't have and a water line would be, by far, the most inconvenient!
I've been digging around live utilities my entire career, and that's what I think it is, becoming one with the force. You see the dirt move a little bit, something's not quite right, you get down shovel and there's a pipe! If the ground is really bony you're screwed. You pinch that copper or polyline against a rock and now you got to fix it.
The utility locates are a joke, I only get them to be covered as far as paperwork. They provide me no assurance where anything is. Buying a locator isn't cheap. I've found in most cases the services i'm digging for i'm hooking up to so if they can hit with the hoe just dig a bit further back. I've found a few gas lines over the years that weren't suppose to be there but it's amazing how strong the plastic is if you're careful.
It’s called cover your butt .
Yeah I won't do anything without calling locate. My buddy was telling me they'd moved out onto the interstate highway and we're going to start digging without a locate. ***? State patrol notified? Check Giant traffic control team? Check Low boys and machinery prepared? Check Locate? Locate? Bueller? Needless to say, that poop show got canceled.
X6 on calling 811 before you put a shovel in the ground just for the liability reasons. The quality of the 811 one call locate depends on the guy marking in the field - like anything else depends on who is doing it. For our own locates I bought one of these last year - https://pipehorn.com/product/pipehorn-800hl/ Paid around $1600 for it. The company headquarters and manufacturing is here in Central Alabama and they sell direct so I bought from the source. They have the original Pipehorn on the wall in the reception area. The Pipehorn works great for metallic lines and other lines with tracer wires. Plastic pipe is a tough one to locate, careful potholing is the best route if the line has no tracer wire. After years of field locating plastic pipes in the ground with no tracer wire buried with it we don't put a piece of plastic pipe in the ground with a tracer wire. 500' of wire runs $60 a roll, if nothing else we're helping out the next future schmuck that has to dig around what we installed.
I work with plumbers so we have a camera with locator on it that comes in pretty handy. You can also clip a tone device to the wire if you can find it, and the same wand that came with the camera system works to find tracer wires that are energized.
That pipehorn locator looks legit... small price to pay compared with repairs to damaged utilities!
Go to eBay and search "radiodetection". It's the same equipment the locate companies use. You can sometimes find older cheap units.
I can't believe nobody has suggested 'witching sticks or wires' whichever you prefer.... LOL
Dowsing rods. I have a set that were my grandpa’s made from heavy gauge copper wire
It sounds like you have all that you need?
Keep your eyes open for a change in the materials you're digging too. Utilities are often backfilled with sand or pea stone and can indicate you're close to it.
you can see trench lines often because the dirt that is in layers is now all mixed up, and has a different color too.
My dad can witch really well and it's come in handy for times when you know there is a line there but the locate missed it. It's incredible how accurate it is. I can't do it, it must be the lead paint or something that it works for old timers.
I don't want to take from OP and the topic or insult but I dug deep in this topic years ago and found several studies, even huge cash rewards for people that could prove it. In one case, witchers were told there were waterlines on a property and they were observed taking visual cues such as dips in grade that might indicate a trench, grass difference, you know, all things we do! Reality is EVERYONE set flags, but there was not one waterline in the entire field! If you want one to be there, your stick will have an itch....
I totally disagree, it's not just in peoples head it totally works and were talking places where there is no sign of where the line may be like a backyard with grass that hasn't been dug up in 20-30 years and finding where a power line runs to the garage or something. And you can walk any direction and they will cross in the exact same spot. It's not foolproof, things being buried in the ground would have the potential to catch it too. I've tried it every single time and not once does it ever work for me.
Well I am always open to an influx of new science but current physics has debunked it entirely, all the way down to putting sensors on people. But I am not trying to insult. If you dad has a thing, that is great.
I don’t have opinion either way but I’ve got the rods somewhere in the garage... maybe it’s time to test them out
The 25 yo well at our family farm was witched by the driller. 2 dead holes was getting expensive and everyone was pissed. The driller walked into my shop, saw my hand driven well and ***? Grabbed the hose and a bucket to time the flow. This was followed by a long rant full of 4 letter words about how good my well flowed. He went behind the shop with the rod, marked the spot and 60' later, all the water one needs. Ed
For some people the divining rods work.
$1600.00 was a very good investment CM1995. I was on a job and the company I was working for had a subcontractor on the same job. They were digging in an area that supposedly had no utilities. Sadly they didn't call JULIE. It is the same as 811 in Illinois. They hit a natural gas line big time. It didn't catch fire and nobody was hurt. NICOR hit them and the contractor I was working with a lawsuit. $74,000.00 for the line repair and lost gas. The sub paid it.
Crazy. Though there is no excuse for not calling 811. It's free and they'll mark utilities within 48 hrs.
What's scary is having utilities marked and hitting steel pipes drilling post holes for a fence. Apparently it's not uncommon when doing larger jobs to throw scraps of pipe and other leftovers into holes and just bury them when grading. Have found concrete from the trucks after cleaning too.
Had a scare years back. How was digging and hooked a primary underground wire... you know the thick black plastic ones. Operator immediately stopped, and shut down the machine with the tooth on the wire. Called the utility with choice words about their locate service. Turns out to be an abandoned primary. On this note, hired a locator service for in-plant utilities. (Got on top of tower to take pictures for myself and posterity. Today, would use a drone.) Point is: Later, hired same guy to come to my farm and locate a plastic water line so I could connect to it. He ran a electrician's tape into it for a signal. Was worth the $80 per hour. You don't have to depend on utility locate. There are independent guys for hire.
Not sure where you're at, but it's generally required to bury a wire along plastic water lines. Then if need be, you can attach a locator to the wire.
On private property nothing's required. That was a slick trick running an electricians pull tape through there. I can do that with the locator with the pipe camera too. I've done that to find some conduit that we put in for future where the references got wiped out.
Even calling 811 isn't a gurantee. I have a gas well on my property that never had the gathering line marked. Called after the 3 days waiting and told them to get ahold of someone. I have a clear ticket and the machine is running. I ended up giving 811 the company name and permit number from the well tag. Finally got someone out there that afternoon, I wasn't going to be crossing their line but I knew I was going to be getting close and I was not going to repair it. I deal with utilities alot at work and I am amazed at how poorly organized some seem to be and how little they seem to care about their facilities. We do our best to try and avoid or relocate them if they are in the road.
I got tired of digging up my plumbing and buried conduit and bought a cable locator https://www.metaldetector.com/schonstedt-loki-pipe-cable-locator-utilities-kit-padded-carry-case Not cheap ($1.5k) but it works great, very accurate. Even the depth indicator is fairly accurate. For plumbing locating I bought a small sonde (transmitter) that I attach to a snake and push into pvc pipe. The Schonstedt receiver easily picks up the sonde signal. Good purchase even if I use once a year. If I ever determine I won't need it again I'll sell.
A 1-2' section of copper ground wire works in a pinch - bent in an L shape in order to hang on your index finger.. . It just takes one ground wire resting on your finger and walk slowly - the rod will turn when there is a line underneath it. It'll find any type of pipe in the ground from copper, plastic to concrete. Don't ask me how that works but it does. I've actually seen 811 line locators pull one out when there are known plastic wires in the ground without tracer wires. An old plumber taught me how to use a ground wire 30 years ago to locate buried lines while running residential sewer and water services.
Is that a typo? Plastic wires? You guys know that nearly any wire in a trench can be used to locate right? Like I could bury speaker wire and tone it to find it with a $100 line locator? We never bury any trench without wire in it, even if no one requests it. Has paid off in the past when someone either wants to find it or wants us to dig later. Also, if there is any electric wires, those can be opened and used to tone. Done it many times for water wells.
all right guys I have a 240 volt line running about 90' to a field outlet box .0ne leg of it has dropped so only 120 left will the ground wire mentioned by cm locate that line accurately enough to uncover it.
Yup....
There are ways to locate the break in the line.
I would trench in a new one. Fixing 90' of what is probably direct bury cable is folly. It got damaged by improper bedding, or too shallow and in traffic. My community group B well dropped on leg to ~70 volts, the rest was leaking into the earth. It was put in before my time, and they just tossed direct bury in really stony dirt under a driveway with loaded log trucks and things like that running over it. I replaced and put it in conduit under the road section.
Here’s what I kept on my sewer truck, worked pretty well,retail version
Digging around utilities always challenging,each excavation different always Julie locates.Always good being able to notice changes in the ground,not to much curling bucket,more pulling of dipper easy trying to feel.I worked for mechanical contractor for thirty years digging for plumbers ,fitters and the service dept.Really sucked in the Chicagoland area in the winter with a couple feet of frost and a frost tooth trying to do jobs man I don’t miss that! Lol.
When I'm using my mini-ex to dig where I think there's buried stuff I use the grading bucket - bucket teeth have gotten me into trouble many times.
I've not had very good luck with the accuracy of 811 calls either, I bought a Ridgid locate setup a few years ago and have never regretted the expense; if nothing else, I get pretty precise depth which the 811 service flatly will not give me. Fiberoptic is the one I fear, mostly because there's a lot of rocky ground around my area, and if the techs don't feel like they want to beat up their trencher they'll go down maybe 2" on residential installs, (incorrectly) reasoning that the sod will protect it. Also uncovered a main fiber line a few years ago, 9' away from where the flag string was. And spent a good share of a 90° summer afternoon potholing 300' of flags for a gas line that didn't exist. The utility guy and I had a sincere chat when he was out the next day. I learned a thing when I was helping on a residential lot prep 3 years ago. Contractor was doing a lot of the work himself, that day was installing underground sprinkling system. The locate was done, he was trenching 6" deep as it was really rocky. I had done some grading in front and was about to head back to where he was working to spread topsoil and grade for sod. He had barely started trenching and dug up a residential fiber line..it was literally almost on the surface. He called in the repair, they were present for not quite an hour (and ate lunch while they were there), and he got billed for $1600 because he had only potholed beside the building hookup panel to verify the line and direction it went. Code is 18" deep for residential bury of fiber. No point in arguing, as he had not exposed the line along it's length. But it helps explain redneckracin's point about how little they seem to care..if they can send two guys out and effectively make $1600 for a half hours' work and a few bucks in splice materials, that's gotta be a pretty good source of income. Do that a few times a day every day of the week, you're turning some serious coin.
When I had to have phone cable buried (residential, commercial, whatever) I usually specified hand dig to required depth (this was a contractor we used.) Didn't need any excess work drama. A few years ago I was helping my nephew (actually he was watching me) install a fairly large irrigation system for his yard. We were using a rented trencher and we hand dug near the house - and there it was, phone cable about 6" under the sod. Put the shovel right through it, the Mrs wasn't happy but they all used cell phones so I didn't bother to repair it.
Yea John,live bury phone cables mostly on residential were always fun mostly hand dig really shallow. We did a lot of hospital work telecommunication fiber optic etc Com Ed Gas etc sometime representatives from each keeping an eye on how dug around everything. I think now most of that work now is required to be done by hand.
A good friend went to work for a new employer in Long Beach, CA. first day on the job, 15 minutes in he was to form a sidewalk at a church. The gas locate was clearly laid out where it crossed under the sidewalk. First stake in about 8 ft from the gas line markers. Yup, you guessed it. He drove a steel form stake thru a plastic gas line. Line was only down 10 inches. Luckily, no fire and a easy one for the gas company to shut down and fix. The gas company guy said, "Looks like we missed it by a bit." Its still only 10" down as far as we know.
yeah that's just not right. Phone lines and Cable TV, sure. Not gas and power.
I had a water department guy out about a week ago to locate a main... he pulled one those. Swung over the main, painted it done deal. Cool Tool!
I had a boss ask one time if I needed a mark out . I told him no I have a pipe locator on the machine .he looked at me with a surprised look ,where he asked . On the end of the dipper,it’s got teeth on it .
811 in the United States is the number you are legally required to call before digging. I'm in VT where murder is legal, except if you use a gun, then it's a gun law violation. What are these cry baby liberals in the judicial system gonna do about digging up a power line? Here 811 or Dig Safe, notifies local utilities, so they can mark their infrastructure. They do NOT mark lines they don't own. I'm a rural electrician. I get calls from ALWAYS subcontractors from out of state, working for utilities, plowing in communication cable. They hit existing lines, break them. They make all sorts of promises of payment if I fix these lines, but NEVER pay. I had two different subcontractors working for Comcast each broke the same underground feeder a week apart. One contractor in Maryland, another in Massachusetts, both have ignored the bill for repair.
CIA Cash in advance
Small claims court ??
Bill Comcast ,I believe they are responsible for their subs depending on how long it’s been.
I've been through the Small Claims process. They almost always rule in my favor. I ultimately collect almost nothing. I've had limited success with liens. Almost always liens lead to payment. Trouble is I'm not working for the property owner. It isn't like I can gather up the boys to visit a subcontractor in Maryland.
The laws vary so much so I can't speak to where you live, but here if the land owner contracted the contractor who hired you, then you have the right to lien the property, and if you go to sue you can also sue the landowner. The other thing i've learned to put in my contract is, all legal fees incurred collecting money are on top, as well as 2% interest per month. I don't know if it will hold up in court if it ever happens, but I also am putting in my contract whoever signs for it is personally liable for the debt in the event the company doesn't pay. If you can hit peoples credit, that goes a long ways in many cases. It's frustrating as hell to not get paid and chase money, i've learned so much about the legal system in the last few years. Finally got paid from a job from over 2 years ago guy got paid from landowner and walked away, he thought he got away with it until I found a company who owed him money and garnished it. It's something the government really needs to crack down on. These guys who start up tons of companies every single year to scam people out of money. If a few people got together with starting up companies and were crooked enough, they could do an entire project for free, all it would cost them is a bit of legal fees. My brother is currently trying to collect on a $100k bill, through the process found out the guy owes over $1million to various trades, guy is pulling out all the money from building a few houses and starting a commercial project to fund another company of his. I don't get how these people think they will still be able to walk after awhile?
Using the legal sysytem to stiff contractors is nothing new. Back in 1976, my first county road department bridge project - we let a $7500 contract to remove a house and and old (small) sewer plant. Our contractor could not provide a performance bond. He finally fessed up. He couldn't get one, he had filed for and went bankrupt. He was starting over bidding small contracts. He had a couple contracts $100,000+ each (this was back in the 70's) for construction of mobile home parks to build mobile home parks, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, water and the streets. Back then and probably still today there were laws covering the construction of these parks. Laws were enacted due to fraudulent activities involving construction of these parks on the east side of the state These same developers came to our side of the state and started building mobile parks. Well the laws state the contractors are required to have a general contractors license. My contractor didn't have a GC license so the judge said "too bad. too sad" when he filed suit for payment. He told me he couldn't take the hit for cost of building the parks so he had to file for bankruptcy. My work around was I told him I'd hold pavement until he was 100 percent complete. So that's what we did. I couldn't wait for the 2nd low bid to get on site. since weight limits are going to go on. So it turns out his crawler crane to demo the sewer plant was about 8 blocks away in the small city my project was located. So the weight limits go on while we were waiting for the bond he couldn't get. He can't get an overweight permit to move the crane on a truck - trailer. So we talked to the city. How about letting him cat it down the street on a Saturday morning (it had flat pads)? So he had an "escort" for the tip of the boom and "catted" the 8 blocks to my job site So everything worked out while we "waited". He moved in and removed the sewer plant during with weight limits before the bridge contractor moved in.
I've used a Ridgid Seektech box to trace conductive pipes and tracer wires. I've heard good stuff about radiodetection equipment, but it's high dollar new.
Same laws here in AL. Any commercial project over $50K requires a GC license if working for owner or sub license if working for a GC. A savvy but not so honest owner or GC can get free work done if they know the laws...but it's also up to the contractor to be properly licensed and know the laws as well. Residential too, If one builds a house for another and doesn't have a homebuilders license the "customer" gets a free house, remodel or addition. The residential threshold is projects worth $10K.