Underground Wire cut

[Coastal Lawn Maintenance]

miss utility hires the dumbest people. well for starters they don't tell u how deep the line is buried bellow the surface. second they don't mark all the lines. and when your dealing with Verizon phone line it is just about an inch to 2 inches bellow ground i have cut there line 7 times this year.

[AzLawnMan]

Originally Posted by ffeo85

I recently purchased a Bed Edger. On my second trip out, after communicating with the homeowner where underground wires were located. I cut a underground wire located more shallow than homeowner thought and in a different location. What is the best/economic device to locate wire to hopefully avoid future incidents?

For one, on any major dig we get it Blu-Staked for free. We are removing a 30ft palm and I had it marked and what do you know, an electrical line ran right underneath the palm. Anyways whenever I am messing with the dirt and there may be some low-voltage lines there I have a wire tracer that I use to give me a location of where wires may run. Now it doesnt give me the depth, but if I know where the wires may run, I can tell my guys to be carfull before going crazy. You can rent a wire-tracer from a sprinkler store pretty cheap. I connect it to sprinkler wire, malibu lights, etc and it works well for us. Oh and in my invoice I have the customer sign before we do the dig, it says, "Not responsible for any damage to any lines cut or damaged, accident or inadvertant. Not resposible for PVC, gas or electricle lines" and so on, basically I am not responsible for anything that I break under ground. I then have the customer sign and date, then intial every page.

[shooterm]

Be very careful in private communities the locators wont mark private power like for street light. Invis fence and irrigation is very annoying due to pretty much no standard bury depth. Also be advised with private installed wire when they use a ditch witch they wont follow a straight line. Either the operator is stoned or they have a underpowered machine so they will go where they please. What most people will do is pot hole if unclear of line locations. Pothole spots a line would travel through on your work area. In all you'll hit these lines at times and should find a way to cover yourself for above contracts. There is no excuse for hitting Gas or Fiber though. You hit these your in for alot of trouble.

[Kiril]

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