We called them *twice* to locate the utility lines for a pool we were having installed. On both occasions they found the power to the house a good distance away from the construction area. As soon as we started digging the pool, though, we found the house power line actually ran directly through the center of the pool location. We were lucky no one was injured or killed. And we live in Indiana too Christie. :)
You did just fine with the video Christie. The best line /pipe detector that works without fail is the one in your yard that has Case or Deere stickers on the side, it will be accurate at finding them every time L.O.L Maybe you guys should try divining rods over the areas that guy marked then if you get the right readings there go for a walk out back. Not everybody can do it though. My dad and I can but my mom can't unless one of us touches here shoulders while she holds the rods !. I did my buddy's cattle corral 2 winters ago and found all the buried water lines, I found a couple culverts under a road where the ends were under 5 ft of snow, and where a phone cable was buried in the driveway for my old boss to, he figured it would never work, I just didn't want to dig all the snow he wanted moved to find the pipe ends for spring thaw ! . If you aren't sure find a couple Tube video's or a guy local that can do it. Thanks for the video's Merry Christmas. Take care guys .
Wow, I learn a lot! I also think that man represented his company and his profession extremely well especially being unexpectedly thrown in front of a camera for TH-cam. You can certainly see he has done this just a few times😉 thanks for sharing and your certainly much easier to look at than Tim ...(Sorry Tim...lol)
I work for a fiber optic company in Colorado. I am so happy to see this video. To many don't call for locates before doing work and cause damages. Thank you so much for making this video!
Great information in this one. He seemed like a really nice guy to let you follow him around while he did his job and explained what he does and what the limitations are. I once used a pair of large copper wires bent in an "L" shape to locate my leach field. I have no idea how it works, but it really does. But he's right, you can't tell what's in the ground, just that there's something going through there.
Curt White increased electromagnetic currents. I use them quite often to locate utility lines. With electricity it produces a magnetic field and moving water thru a pipe does the same just not a strong. With underground standing water or leach lines or even underground aquifers the earths electromagnetic field is magnified ever so slightly. Like using a magnifier lenses to focus the suns light to a fine point. The water helps focus the earths magnetic field just enough to produce a field to affect conductive materials and they want to align with those fields produced and the copper or steel rods and will move to align up to the fields. Oh and elf magic. That’s how it was explained to me and I thought it made sense.
@@MARKE911 love the elf magic bit, that's good stuff. I am an engineer and I've had other engineers tell me it's a load of crap, but I know better. I can't explain it as well as you did, other than the elf magic piece, but I know it's a thing.
Tractor Time With Christie is the way to go. Great video Christie. After working for a utility, locating is not something you want to do with out the equipment and training in its use.
I have a question Ken, since you said you have worked in the utilities. I have a friend that lives out in the county and not the city, he recently bought a trailer and he’s having the trailer moved to his property where his other trailer is located. He wrote me wanting my husband to come help shovel up holes for waterlines. My husband said he didn’t want to do it, because he said he’s never done something like this, and neither has my friend that wants him to come out to help. He said that it can be dangerous, because you can hit other stuff while digging waterlines. I feel that my friend is upset with us since my husband said he didn’t want to risk doing it. My friend said it can’t be hard that all it is, is digging up holes, but me and my husband done research and everything we found said it’s dangerous to dig up anything and that it has to be at least 5/6 feet deep and he can’t do that with just a shovel. My husband just doesn’t want to put himself in any danger or chance messing anything up. I told my friend that there’s a chance of hitting utility wires and other stuff in the ground that it can be very dangerous especially to people that don’t know what they’re doing and he said that there isn’t anything like that on his property, but I don’t think he knows how much work goes into digging waterlines, he said it needs to be done by Wednesday or they won’t be able to turn his stuff on for his new trailer. I told him that it says for him to call 811 before starting to dig anything, he said it was the utility Dept that told him to dig it himself, but I don’t want my friend getting hurt. This really does have me concerned for him
@@southerngal9087 you are correct in calling 811 to get a utility locate done. Hitting a water or phone line won’t kill you but hitting a gas or power line will. Digging that deep he must be using some kind of trencher or hoe so if he’s not experienced with using them he could hit a line by being too aggressive. Make the call and get locates done before any digging in the ground.
Excellent video! Thank you for passing along this very important information. Not only will Miss Utility help prevent you from hitting buried power lines and utilities, it will also prevent communications lines from suffering Backhoe Fade.
This is great. If I’m digging and I see marks, I verify their marks to make sure the utilities are there before I start my job. I see a few contractors that would just go to their depth and come up to two feet of a utility mark, not find the utility, then say “oh it must be deeper than our depth, we’ll just keep going then.” They’ll proceed and find that utility the hard way.
Just a suggestion...if you are digging close to the flags you might get a shovel out and “feel” with the shovel perpendicular to your marks. If you don’t feel anything dig it out the depth of your shovel with the backhoe. Repeat until you find what was marked or you don’t need to go any deeper. Just remember that utility probably is not directly under your marks...Nice job!
Little known facts and I am glad he was willing to let you film the process and get some explanations. I too have run into this on occassion where some lines are located but others are skipped. Here in Texas Dig Tess 8-1-1 coordinates with all the companies and the line locators usually find all utility owned equipment including "Power, Water, Sewer, Gas, Phone, Cable TV, and other Telecom such as Fiber." The biggest issue with some is when they do not install a locator wire or tracer wire such as with Fiber or Water/Sewer. I have also discovered personally when I did an 8-1-1 call then didn't do the work for several months that my phone line was dug up. ATT tried to bill me for not doing the 8-1-1. I challenged and won, because the rules say minimum 48 hours before you dig, there was nothing in the rules about the report expiring.
Also, you can purchase used equipment on eBay for as low as $30 for an older unit and the average for a older generation single frequency is under $1000.
Great video Christy !! You are a natural !!! Thank you for taking us along on this interesting hunt !! Also a favorite scripture that you shared !! God bless you and MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!!! Eddy.
It has always amazed me how we can send a bomb to within 6 inches of a target 1200 miles away and we can't get within 6 inches of power cable buried 3 feet in the ground. Good job Christie.
When you're sending a bomb, you only need to destroy. When your digging too close to a power cable, you can kill power for quite a few people. Two very different objectives. Two very different margins of error.
around here, they have something called dig safe. They will find anything near the proposed digging area, but they do not locate everything all over the property... saves time and money that way for them, and whoever actually pays, but it's free to most users of the service. They will find electrical, water inlets, and such. They cannot always find sewer pipes and septic... why I don't know. There are smaller less expensive devices that allow you to trace lines the same way that equipment does, so long as you have access to at least one end of the line. It's basically a transmitter that goes on one end, and then a receiver that picks up the signal. I don't know that they work as well as the fancy units, but they do work. Also allows you to trace pipes, indoors or out, but how deep the thing will go... I don't know. These tools are still nearly a thousand dollars tho, so unless you're going to need them often, and in your circumstance working for others you might, it wouldn't pay most people to buy them.
As a Public Water Utility Employee we pay for Arkansas One Call (ARKUPS) to locate our utility we have approximately 2500 miles of water mains within our water system that provides 1/2 million customers and businesses. When the locating company can not locate water mains and services due to the mains not being conductive or having a locating Wire ran along with the mains they turn them back over to us. One of my jobs was locating these utilities. It’s very difficult to locate PVC and Asbestos Concrete Pipe (ACP) water mains. We use several tools even more specialized to locate these materials as well as Polyethylene (PE) or PEX or HDPE basically plastic lines. We have a ground penetrating radar that literally x-rays the ground and shows us what is under up to 15 feet in depth it cost almost 1 million dollars just for this device and a very extensive class to be certified as it contains radio active material and it has to be handled properly. Lots of rules and procedures just to take this out of its locked Sarcophagus. But by far the cheapest and my go to device for locating utilities that produce an electromagnetic field would be the “witching rod or Dowsing Rods or Divining Rods) yes they are still around and they are professionally made. I was so Skeptical that these would work but after 10 years of practice I finally have it down. I would guess I could locate water pipes and lines within a 3 ft location most of the time with these. I can definitely locate electrical lines easily as they product a stronger electromagnetic field. I would take one of the flags the locator threw into the ground remove the flag bend the wire into about 90° about 4 inches and use that. Sorry for the long post.
Well there’s some information I did NOT know! I just assumed they located ALL service! I’ve never had to did in my yard YET so I would have probably messed something up! Thanks for sharing Christi
The reason I have separate drops is for bookkeeping to keep farm & personal separate. In fact I have separate meters for every farm but the bill all come to one address.
Mighty Moe Excavating, that’s when you ask him to come back after hours and have him locate the lines on his private time. Lol I have seen that so many times.
Tim being at work, holy cow. My next door neighbor had everything marked and the backhoe operator still hit the gas line. Haaaa haaaa. Nice video. Eaglegards 🦅...
You've got the LP line, power line to the outbuilding, a sewer system, possibly with pumps and power, a phone line, and a well with pipe and water. Don't forget any of them. I'm disappointed that the power company only locates up to the meter.
I had our property marked before we start on our fence posts, unfortunately a couple of our local utility companies are not in the 811 system, we had to call individual basis. Flags everywhere...flags for days!
On todays episode of Tractor Time with The BOSS! Thanks Christy for an important lesson, I hope to see more Tractor Time with The BOSS videos.......sorry Tim
Usually, code for houses, means having one circuit breaker per room. Not so in a double wide. I have 2 bedrooms and a bath on 1 breaker. After having a mouse go between the walls and chewing insulation off the wires and creating a short, i was stumped to where it happened. Instead of tearing all the walls open, due to the fact that manufactured homes dont follow code, i bought a line tracer. Its a smaller version of what they use to find your buried service. Its simple, connect a signal injector into the individual circuts, and go find the tones with a "sniffer". Have a Merrry Christmas guys. May God bless you and be safe.
Calling is required in Maine to avoid liability. It’s also free and happens in under a week to make it hassle free. It includes anything buried in the are of interest. The utility use employees with restrictions on duty to staff it
rydplrs greene lol holy cow... they got that many folks on restrictions? Remind me not to work for a Utility Company In Maine. Sounds like the employees there get injured a lot there? Just kidding. That makes sense kinda sorta. I would want my most confident employees locating the utilities assets.
accusource electronics/engineer supply is good place to pick up some equipment for stuff like that can also use it to detect water lines just shove a wire up the pipe and hook the device to the end of it and track it same as a electric line
Power and gas will locate to the meter. Phone and cable will typical only locate the trunk lines as they consider the service drops to be owned by the customer. Water and sewer typically considers the line from the building to the curb to be private and do not locate that. Each company is different but you have to be careful and pay attention to what they actually located. I oversee plant operations at my company and my crew is directed to locate everything. If we put it in the ground it gets marked. On the flip side, if someone cuts our fiber, and it was correctly marked, they can easily expect a $5,000 bill for the repair.
hunter13605 easily $5,000 is right. Double that number and then Double it again two more times . Had a coworker break a MCI Fiber that was out of date on onecall the final bill after arbitration was $44,000 they replaced from handhole to handhole (~200 ft) never in my life I have seen so many contractors come in. It was like entire United States Military attacking a gas station all at once. They made their point clear. I think I heard that their original bill was well over $250,000. They said they charge their potential data loss by the minute.
I locate underground services using a bent welding rod. I can locate underground power, telephone cable, plumbing pipes and sewer lines. I learned to do it by the septic tank guy who worked on my drainage field. Simply bend an 18 inch filler rod in a 90 degree leaving about 6 inches to hold onto and twelve inches as the sensing wand. I put the rod into a cheap BIC ink pen that I remove the ink and end cap. The hollow plastic straw allows the rod to move freely. Now just hold the rod and walk perpendicular to the suspected underground service. I amazed the hell out of the phone company guy when I located their buried cable running across my property. It’s not a precise as the meter guys equipment, but It can be used to identify obstacles before you dig with Casey.
Well at least someone comes to visit. In British Columbia, Canada, you get an email with photocopied pdf forms that are grainy and hand drawn from the eighties.
I used to locate the utilities for usic. The company has a terrible turnover rate. Our supervisors were a**hats and the company doesn’t care about employees worth a flip. When I quit they lost a contract in my area and we were struggling to get 8 hours, on top of that they shove production down your throat, give you jobs that take half a day on top of being late. Then punish you for not getting everything done. But he is right. The locate companies are contracted by utility companies to mark THEIR lines. Anything past the meter belongs to you not the utility company. If they don’t have to pay to fix it they won’t pay us to locate it.
Very informative. With all the prior "we called 811" videos I ASSUMED! they found all buried utilities. Sounds like they barely scratch the surface, especially if you also have buried gas lines. It would be quite a mess if you don't know where everything is and unless you were around when it was all put in, how could you?
Well, they would find it all in MOST cases. Natural Gas would go all the way to the house...which would be marked. Only electrical from the meter to outbuildings.
@@TractorTimewithTim It sounded like the guy Christy was talking to looked ONLY for electric from the road to the house. How would the natural gas line be marked? I doubt people leave little flags in their lawn forever and the flags do disintegrate over time.
If we had natural gas, they would have sent someone out. ....each utility marks their own. One call to 811 invokes all of the marking....done by each separate utility. Make sense?
If it’s plastic pipe, tile or clay I doubt they could locate it unless there is a trace wire. Any wire or other metal left behind by others could lead to false sense of what is what and where. After seeing then end, I have to ask. So, does that device locate non metallic things too?
Have you looked into backup power systems from tractor pto or propane or natural gas generator generac has the propane natural gas ones in whole home coverage or partial home coverage if you go tractor pto route a bigger tractor would be required
They only locate their equipment, if you pay, they will locate your equipment. Even then, it's not an exact science. They followed an old copper gas line and marked it as my cable feed. I found later that my cable feed was 40ft to the west after I went through the old gas line. The power for my building is separate from the house, it's a commercial account, same for natural gas. The power company as a result marked the conduit up the new pole and meter box as, Customer Owned. So if I want to locate the primary to the building, I have to pay.
William Riley. Good point, most Utility locate companies and the utility company have a 16 to 18 inch Variance to either side of the paint mark. Some places I’m sure the size may be different. When I locate my water mains we have a 18”. You must locate the water line to your depth of dig within the the 36” total if you cannot find the utility within that area and then break the utility outside of that variance the homeowner or contractor is not responsible for the damages and the utility company will repair the damage at no charge. Side note if I paint a line on the ground the paint mark is only 2” wide. The water main will be much larger. The water main might be 3”,4”6”,8” 12” 16” 24” in size so then you have an even larger hole to hand dig. Because then the 18” line starts from the Edge of the main. So 24” wide main + 18” x 2 means you have to dig 5 foot wide hole to depth of excavation before being out of determination. It gets tricky. But most of the times if a contractor is digging on a main that large we will be on site to make sure they don’t cause an Interruption of service. Same goes for “high profile” utilities that provide service to many customers. Gas service 6” or larger fiber optic cables that are high data cables or even electrical lines that support entire communities. Again this is specific to where I live and may not be the same there. Some locate companies are not legally binding and even if you hit the utility line and it’s outside of the marks the contractor can still be responsible for the damages and repairs.
Our electrical power line was uprooted by a septic company installing our new drain field!! They uprooted it because the electric was not marked BUT they were given a clear ticket for digging!! Who’s at fault!!!!!! We’ve been struggling to get to the bottom of the blame to get this paid for and fixed.. who’s the blame!!!!?????
@@TractorTimewithTim … I HAVE AN UP-ROOTED POWER LINE THATS GOING STRAIGHT INTO MY BRAND NEW DRAIN FIELD!! Please watch my video that I just uploaded today! Did they really try to scare me over??
You have to hire somebody to locate power from the meter to other locations, like from house to meter pole if meter not on house, or lines to other outbuildings. Gas line between tank and house. Water meter to house, city sewer line to house, etc. Basically anything that was added by the homeowner or the person that build the house/building is owner responsibility to be located.
I called 811 three times to mark my underground power line from transformer to my meter. Each time they said they couldn't mark it to my meter. 811 is worthless
Just take one of his flags and bend it in a L shape and walk around your yard holding it loosely in your hand. When you cross over anything electrical it will turn.
I work for a Water Utility company and we have locating devices that cost upwards of a million dollars and I always use a “witching rod” first. I been doing this for 10 years and for the last 9 years I thought it was elfin magic. I was sent to a class and it was explained in detail. Yes there is actually a professional class and they sell commercially made rods that use a combination of metals to locate underground utilities. In simple Movement of any liquid or gas creates a electromagnetic field that can be detected by metals with little resistance to horizontal movement. High voltage electricity well it does the same but with a larger field of magnetic flux. If you travel at exactly 88MPH while holding the witching rod you can go back to the future due to the flux capacitor if it hits 1.21 gigawatts. Lol
I wondered about that too. The "private" lines as he called them are still tied into the electric company's meter base so that made no sense to me. Seems like laziness.
WRONG. Not lazy. Just because it’s a rule in your city, town or state doesn’t mean that it’s the same everywhere. Here where I live it’s the exact same he explained. The locator is paid by the Utility company. They will only locate the Utilities responsibility. I work for a Water Utility company and once the line becomes the homeowners property they won’t locate it. If the locator marked up the private lines incorrectly and a homeowner or contractor broke that particular line (water, sewer, gas etc) you would want them to pay to have it fixed. That’s why there are “private locate companies” and they are expensive. #1 the locating devices are very expensive. Certain locating devices can cost almost $1 million dollars to purchase. #2 Having Insurance to protect you is very expensive. Again rules are regulations are different all over the Country.
Mark Eckelkamp I understand your point. Thank you for the input and explanation. My dad is 45 years on the job at an EMC so I'll also ask him about this as well. If he agrees with you then I'll revise my previous comment.
Mark Eckelkamp I asked dad about this and he said that they’re supposed to mark everything coming out of the meter base including outbuildings and anything else such a swimming pool pump, security light pole etc. They’re even supposed to pinpoint gas, water, cable and phone lines. I’ll just throw the disclaimer out that I guess this varies from state to state.
Joebanker tell them to come set up business in Arkansas. We have 2 different locate companies. “Arkups” that locates our Water mains, electrical( Entergy and First Electric” gas- Center Point Energy. & a few telecommunication (Windstream, and cable companies) The 2nd locate company -KGP. Only locates for AT&T. That would be great to see all private utilities marked up. Sounds like that area has Safety figured out. Thanks for replying back.
We called them *twice* to locate the utility lines for a pool we were having installed. On both occasions they found the power to the house a good distance away from the construction area. As soon as we started digging the pool, though, we found the house power line actually ran directly through the center of the pool location. We were lucky no one was injured or killed. And we live in Indiana too Christie. :)
Good job Christy! Thanks for the 411 on 811. I don't know what Tim pays you but you deserve a raise.
Right on. The 411 on the 811, so hopefully they don't need 911!!!
He is, by far, the most pleasant 811 guy I've ever seen. Usually they're all grumpy and just annoyed looking guys.
You did just fine with the video Christie. The best line /pipe detector that works without fail is the one in your yard that has Case or Deere stickers on the side, it will be accurate at finding them every time L.O.L Maybe you guys should try divining rods over the areas that guy marked then if you get the right readings there go for a walk out back. Not everybody can do it though. My dad and I can but my mom can't unless one of us touches here shoulders while she holds the rods !.
I did my buddy's cattle corral 2 winters ago and found all the buried water lines, I found a couple culverts under a road where the ends were under 5 ft of snow, and where a phone cable was buried in the driveway for my old boss to, he figured it would never work, I just didn't want to dig all the snow he wanted moved to find the pipe ends for spring thaw ! . If you aren't sure find a couple Tube video's or a guy local that can do it. Thanks for the video's Merry Christmas. Take care guys .
Great video Christy and thanks to the guy for explaining everything!
Wow, I learn a lot! I also think that man represented his company and his profession extremely well especially being unexpectedly thrown in front of a camera for TH-cam. You can certainly see he has done this just a few times😉 thanks for sharing and your certainly much easier to look at than Tim ...(Sorry Tim...lol)
Crazy Craig well said
I work for a fiber optic company in Colorado. I am so happy to see this video. To many don't call for locates before doing work and cause damages. Thank you so much for making this video!
Welcome to our channel!
Great information in this one. He seemed like a really nice guy to let you follow him around while he did his job and explained what he does and what the limitations are.
I once used a pair of large copper wires bent in an "L" shape to locate my leach field. I have no idea how it works, but it really does. But he's right, you can't tell what's in the ground, just that there's something going through there.
Curt White increased electromagnetic currents. I use them quite often to locate utility lines. With electricity it produces a magnetic field and moving water thru a pipe does the same just not a strong. With underground standing water or leach lines or even underground aquifers the earths electromagnetic field is magnified ever so slightly. Like using a magnifier lenses to focus the suns light to a fine point. The water helps focus the earths magnetic field just enough to produce a field to affect conductive materials and they want to align with those fields produced and the copper or steel rods and will move to align up to the fields. Oh and elf magic. That’s how it was explained to me and I thought it made sense.
@@MARKE911 love the elf magic bit, that's good stuff. I am an engineer and I've had other engineers tell me it's a load of crap, but I know better. I can't explain it as well as you did, other than the elf magic piece, but I know it's a thing.
Tractor Time With Christie is the way to go. Great video Christie. After working for a utility, locating is not something you want to do with out the equipment and training in its use.
I have a question Ken, since you said you have worked in the utilities. I have a friend that lives out in the county and not the city, he recently bought a trailer and he’s having the trailer moved to his property where his other trailer is located. He wrote me wanting my husband to come help shovel up holes for waterlines. My husband said he didn’t want to do it, because he said he’s never done something like this, and neither has my friend that wants him to come out to help. He said that it can be dangerous, because you can hit other stuff while digging waterlines. I feel that my friend is upset with us since my husband said he didn’t want to risk doing it. My friend said it can’t be hard that all it is, is digging up holes, but me and my husband done research and everything we found said it’s dangerous to dig up anything and that it has to be at least 5/6 feet deep and he can’t do that with just a shovel. My husband just doesn’t want to put himself in any danger or chance messing anything up. I told my friend that there’s a chance of hitting utility wires and other stuff in the ground that it can be very dangerous especially to people that don’t know what they’re doing and he said that there isn’t anything like that on his property, but I don’t think he knows how much work goes into digging waterlines, he said it needs to be done by Wednesday or they won’t be able to turn his stuff on for his new trailer. I told him that it says for him to call 811 before starting to dig anything, he said it was the utility Dept that told him to dig it himself, but I don’t want my friend getting hurt. This really does have me concerned for him
@@southerngal9087 you are correct in calling 811 to get a utility locate done. Hitting a water or phone line won’t kill you but hitting a gas or power line will. Digging that deep he must be using some kind of trencher or hoe so if he’s not experienced with using them he could hit a line by being too aggressive. Make the call and get locates done before any digging in the ground.
I enjoy watching the progress at the new place!!
I hope this guys employer finds this. He did an amazing job!
Excellent video! Thank you for passing along this very important information. Not only will Miss Utility help prevent you from hitting buried power lines and utilities, it will also prevent communications lines from suffering Backhoe Fade.
This is great. If I’m digging and I see marks, I verify their marks to make sure the utilities are there before I start my job. I see a few contractors that would just go to their depth and come up to two feet of a utility mark, not find the utility, then say “oh it must be deeper than our depth, we’ll just keep going then.” They’ll proceed and find that utility the hard way.
Just a suggestion...if you are digging close to the flags you might get a shovel out and “feel” with the shovel perpendicular to your marks. If you don’t feel anything dig it out the depth of your shovel with the backhoe. Repeat until you find what was marked or you don’t need to go any deeper. Just remember that utility probably is not directly under your marks...Nice job!
Little known facts and I am glad he was willing to let you film the process and get some explanations. I too have run into this on occassion where some lines are located but others are skipped. Here in Texas Dig Tess 8-1-1 coordinates with all the companies and the line locators usually find all utility owned equipment including "Power, Water, Sewer, Gas, Phone, Cable TV, and other Telecom such as Fiber." The biggest issue with some is when they do not install a locator wire or tracer wire such as with Fiber or Water/Sewer. I have also discovered personally when I did an 8-1-1 call then didn't do the work for several months that my phone line was dug up. ATT tried to bill me for not doing the 8-1-1. I challenged and won, because the rules say minimum 48 hours before you dig, there was nothing in the rules about the report expiring.
Also, you can purchase used equipment on eBay for as low as $30 for an older unit and the average for a older generation single frequency is under $1000.
Great video Christy !! You are a natural !!! Thank you for taking us along on this interesting hunt !! Also a favorite scripture that you shared !! God bless you and MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!!! Eddy.
Very informative video! That guy is a flag ninja!!
Exactly! When I saw the video, I told Christy and Katriel that I could watch that guy throw flags for hours!
@@TractorTimewithTim i am your biggest fan
Great job Christy, we know you are the brains of TTWT. Camera person and director. Merry Christmas guys!
Don't forget, also finance comittee :)
It has always amazed me how we can send a bomb to within 6 inches of a target 1200 miles away and we can't get within 6 inches of power cable buried 3 feet in the ground. Good job Christie.
When you're sending a bomb, you only need to destroy.
When your digging too close to a power cable, you can kill power for quite a few people. Two very different objectives. Two very different margins of error.
around here, they have something called dig safe. They will find anything near the proposed digging area, but they do not locate everything all over the property... saves time and money that way for them, and whoever actually pays, but it's free to most users of the service. They will find electrical, water inlets, and such. They cannot always find sewer pipes and septic... why I don't know.
There are smaller less expensive devices that allow you to trace lines the same way that equipment does, so long as you have access to at least one end of the line. It's basically a transmitter that goes on one end, and then a receiver that picks up the signal. I don't know that they work as well as the fancy units, but they do work. Also allows you to trace pipes, indoors or out, but how deep the thing will go... I don't know. These tools are still nearly a thousand dollars tho, so unless you're going to need them often, and in your circumstance working for others you might, it wouldn't pay most people to buy them.
As a Public Water Utility Employee we pay for Arkansas One Call (ARKUPS) to locate our utility we have approximately 2500 miles of water mains within our water system that provides 1/2 million customers and businesses. When the locating company can not locate water mains and services due to the mains not being conductive or having a locating Wire ran along with the mains they turn them back over to us. One of my jobs was locating these utilities. It’s very difficult to locate PVC and Asbestos Concrete Pipe (ACP) water mains. We use several tools even more specialized to locate these materials as well as Polyethylene (PE) or PEX or HDPE basically plastic lines. We have a ground penetrating radar that literally x-rays the ground and shows us what is under up to 15 feet in depth it cost almost 1 million dollars just for this device and a very extensive class to be certified as it contains radio active material and it has to be handled properly. Lots of rules and procedures just to take this out of its locked Sarcophagus. But by far the cheapest and my go to device for locating utilities that produce an electromagnetic field would be the “witching rod or Dowsing Rods or Divining Rods) yes they are still around and they are professionally made. I was so Skeptical that these would work but after 10 years of practice I finally have it down. I would guess I could locate water pipes and lines within a 3 ft location most of the time with these. I can definitely locate electrical lines easily as they product a stronger electromagnetic field. I would take one of the flags the locator threw into the ground remove the flag bend the wire into about 90° about 4 inches and use that. Sorry for the long post.
enjoy your videos. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you and your family
Tractor Time Without TIm
Ok that was funny. ;)
Merry Christmas Christie and Tim. God bless you'll
Well there’s some information I did NOT know! I just assumed they located ALL service! I’ve never had to did in my yard YET so I would have probably messed something up! Thanks for sharing Christi
The reason I have separate drops is for bookkeeping to keep farm & personal separate. In fact I have separate meters for every farm but the bill all come to one address.
Great video Christy I really enjoyed this video 🇺🇲💯
Good information to have thanks tractor time with Christy!!!
Should have slipped him a hundred bucks to locate the hydro out to the barn! Thanks for sharing
Mighty Moe Excavating, that’s when you ask him to come back after hours and have him locate the lines on his private time. Lol I have seen that so many times.
@@MARKE911 Where have you seen that? In pornos?
Dave C nope can’t say I’ve seen in there.
@@MARKE911 Oh I see! Lol, I guess I misinterpreted your wording 😆
Thanks for info Chrysty . God Bless
hi christie, merry christmas to you tim and your daughter. god bless
Tim being at work, holy cow. My next door neighbor had everything marked and the backhoe operator still hit the gas line. Haaaa haaaa. Nice video. Eaglegards 🦅...
Nice looking house! Love a brick home!
You've got the LP line, power line to the outbuilding, a sewer system, possibly with pumps and power, a phone line, and a well with pipe and water. Don't forget any of them. I'm disappointed that the power company only locates up to the meter.
B Laquisha why would the power company or locate sub assume additional liability locating lines they are not responsible or contracted for?
In town all utilities would be located. Power, water, sewer, gas, phone, cable.
for what you guys do, finding a used locator would be great to have.
He did a professional job. Good locator here.
I had our property marked before we start on our fence posts, unfortunately a couple of our local utility companies are not in the 811 system, we had to call individual basis. Flags everywhere...flags for days!
You did a great job !! I have a question what does time do at work ?
Good video kristie ,and a nice place and house you have 👍👍
Great video!
On todays episode of Tractor Time with The BOSS! Thanks Christy for an important lesson, I hope to see more Tractor Time with The BOSS videos.......sorry Tim
interesting...this is how my cable died many times. good job Christy:)
Usually, code for houses, means having one circuit breaker per room. Not so in a double wide. I have 2 bedrooms and a bath on 1 breaker. After having a mouse go between the walls and chewing insulation off the wires and creating a short, i was stumped to where it happened. Instead of tearing all the walls open, due to the fact that manufactured homes dont follow code, i bought a line tracer. Its a smaller version of what they use to find your buried service. Its simple, connect a signal injector into the individual circuts, and go find the tones with a "sniffer".
Have a Merrry Christmas guys. May God bless you and be safe.
Christy you did a good job. Thanks for video's
I always wondered too. Good and informative video. Thanks!
Keep it going, tractor time with Christy. TTWC
Tractor time with Christie merry Christmas to you and TimAnd Katrina
I think Ya gave Tim a real run for his money. Very fun and informative video maybe this segment should be named Tractor Time With Christie. LOL
Calling is required in Maine to avoid liability. It’s also free and happens in under a week to make it hassle free. It includes anything buried in the are of interest. The utility use employees with restrictions on duty to staff it
rydplrs greene lol holy cow... they got that many folks on restrictions? Remind me not to work for a Utility Company In Maine. Sounds like the employees there get injured a lot there? Just kidding. That makes sense kinda sorta. I would want my most confident employees locating the utilities assets.
Mark Eckelkamp it doesn’t seem to be a bad plan. All utilities collectively staff it, and one person marks all utilities.
accusource electronics/engineer supply is good place to pick up some equipment for stuff like that can also use it to detect water lines just shove a wire up the pipe and hook the device to the end of it and track it same as a electric line
Power and gas will locate to the meter. Phone and cable will typical only locate the trunk lines as they consider the service drops to be owned by the customer. Water and sewer typically considers the line from the building to the curb to be private and do not locate that. Each company is different but you have to be careful and pay attention to what they actually located. I oversee plant operations at my company and my crew is directed to locate everything. If we put it in the ground it gets marked. On the flip side, if someone cuts our fiber, and it was correctly marked, they can easily expect a $5,000 bill for the repair.
hunter13605 easily $5,000 is right. Double that number and then Double it again two more times . Had a coworker break a MCI Fiber that was out of date on onecall the final bill after arbitration was $44,000 they replaced from handhole to handhole (~200 ft) never in my life I have seen so many contractors come in. It was like entire United States Military attacking a gas station all at once. They made their point clear. I think I heard that their original bill was well over $250,000. They said they charge their potential data loss by the minute.
Merry Christmas marks family
I locate underground services using a bent welding rod. I can locate underground power, telephone cable, plumbing pipes and sewer lines. I learned to do it by the septic tank guy who worked on my drainage field. Simply bend an 18 inch filler rod in a 90 degree leaving about 6 inches to hold onto and twelve inches as the sensing wand. I put the rod into a cheap BIC ink pen that I remove the ink and end cap. The hollow plastic straw allows the rod to move freely. Now just hold the rod and walk perpendicular to the suspected underground service. I amazed the hell out of the phone company guy when I located their buried cable running across my property. It’s not a precise as the meter guys equipment, but It can be used to identify obstacles before you dig with Casey.
Well at least someone comes to visit. In British Columbia, Canada, you get an email with photocopied pdf forms that are grainy and hand drawn from the eighties.
I used to locate the utilities for usic. The company has a terrible turnover rate. Our supervisors were a**hats and the company doesn’t care about employees worth a flip. When I quit they lost a contract in my area and we were struggling to get 8 hours, on top of that they shove production down your throat, give you jobs that take half a day on top of being late. Then punish you for not getting everything done. But he is right. The locate companies are contracted by utility companies to mark THEIR lines. Anything past the meter belongs to you not the utility company. If they don’t have to pay to fix it they won’t pay us to locate it.
Very informative. With all the prior "we called 811" videos I ASSUMED! they found all buried utilities. Sounds like they barely scratch the surface, especially if you also have buried gas lines. It would be quite a mess if you don't know where everything is and unless you were around when it was all put in, how could you?
Well, they would find it all in MOST cases. Natural Gas would go all the way to the house...which would be marked. Only electrical from the meter to outbuildings.
@@TractorTimewithTim It sounded like the guy Christy was talking to looked ONLY for electric from the road to the house. How would the natural gas line be marked? I doubt people leave little flags in their lawn forever and the flags do disintegrate over time.
If we had natural gas, they would have sent someone out. ....each utility marks their own. One call to 811 invokes all of the marking....done by each separate utility. Make sense?
@@TractorTimewithTim Yep! Thanks for the clarification.
I like how his shoes are red on the end!
If it’s plastic pipe, tile or clay I doubt they could locate it unless there is a trace wire. Any wire or other metal left behind by others could lead to false sense of what is what and where.
After seeing then end, I have to ask.
So, does that device locate non metallic things too?
Good Job!
Good video.
Hi Kristy . . . Would the guy that was doing the power locating the power . . . Would he do some moonlighting to locate your private power?
Have you looked into backup power systems from tractor pto or propane or natural gas generator generac has the propane natural gas ones in whole home coverage or partial home coverage if you go tractor pto route a bigger tractor would be required
Good vid...that guy was very professional...I would've gave him a gift card for coffee and donuts...Merry Christmas
Cool video good information !
They only locate their equipment, if you pay, they will locate your equipment. Even then, it's not an exact science. They followed an old copper gas line and marked it as my cable feed. I found later that my cable feed was 40ft to the west after I went through the old gas line. The power for my building is separate from the house, it's a commercial account, same for natural gas. The power company as a result marked the conduit up the new pole and meter box as, Customer Owned. So if I want to locate the primary to the building, I have to pay.
811 in my area locates all utilities.
wow excellent video and information thanks "tractor time with Christy"
Don't play darts with that guy.
Sounds good to me!!
This episode should be named Tractor Time With Christy. :)
For sure Christy better title!! Lol merry christmas
Call before you dig with Christy.
Too bad no hidden treasure chest buried would have paid for the new system Merry Christmas (liked his orange boots)
Make sure you're ask if their determination is legally binding...!!!
William Riley. Good point, most Utility locate companies and the utility company have a 16 to 18 inch Variance to either side of the paint mark. Some places I’m sure the size may be different. When I locate my water mains we have a 18”. You must locate the water line to your depth of dig within the the 36” total if you cannot find the utility within that area and then break the utility outside of that variance the homeowner or contractor is not responsible for the damages and the utility company will repair the damage at no charge. Side note if I paint a line on the ground the paint mark is only 2” wide. The water main will be much larger. The water main might be 3”,4”6”,8” 12” 16” 24” in size so then you have an even larger hole to hand dig. Because then the 18” line starts from the Edge of the main. So 24” wide main + 18” x 2 means you have to dig 5 foot wide hole to depth of excavation before being out of determination. It gets tricky. But most of the times if a contractor is digging on a main that large we will be on site to make sure they don’t cause an Interruption of service. Same goes for “high profile” utilities that provide service to many customers. Gas service 6” or larger fiber optic cables that are high data cables or even electrical lines that support entire communities. Again this is specific to where I live and may not be the same there. Some locate companies are not legally binding and even if you hit the utility line and it’s outside of the marks the contractor can still be responsible for the damages and repairs.
Was 811 free just wondering
Yes. Always free
Tractor Time With Christy............I didn't even miss Joe.....Fred.........Ben..........see hes forgotten already !
Like #202, hey this was nice not seeing the old man and letting the finance department do it the right way, lol, just kidding but it was great, Later
i have been calling 811 for DAYS and all I get is silence followed by a fast-busy signal.
My dad would find it with two copper wires in his hands.
Our electrical power line was uprooted by a septic company installing our new drain field!! They uprooted it because the electric was not marked BUT they were given a clear ticket for digging!! Who’s at fault!!!!!! We’ve been struggling to get to the bottom of the blame to get this paid for and fixed.. who’s the blame!!!!?????
Not good. I suspect it will be covered by the septic company's insurance.
@@TractorTimewithTim … I HAVE AN
UP-ROOTED POWER LINE THATS GOING STRAIGHT INTO MY BRAND NEW DRAIN FIELD!! Please watch my video that I just uploaded today! Did they really try to scare me over??
So do you have to hire someone else to locate gas and water lines?
have to hire someone else to locate PRIVATE lines. ...on our side of the meter (and/or gas tank).
Thanks. Great channel!
You have to hire somebody to locate power from the meter to other locations, like from house to meter pole if meter not on house, or lines to other outbuildings. Gas line between tank and house. Water meter to house, city sewer line to house, etc. Basically anything that was added by the homeowner or the person that build the house/building is owner responsibility to be located.
Thanks again
First of all he is using a gas only locator that doesn't locate accurately and bleeds off on other utilities more often than not
nice pice of property
IT IS THE LAW BEFORE YOU DIG.CALL 811
You can tell the dude doesn’t want to talk
I called 811 three times to mark my underground power line from transformer to my meter. Each time they said they couldn't mark it to my meter. 811 is worthless
Perhaps ask differently. Just tell them where you are going to dig. Ask them to mark it. It is their job.
Just take one of his flags and bend it in a L shape and walk around your yard holding it loosely in your hand. When you cross over anything electrical it will turn.
Evan Hales you should try it, it follows more than just underground electrical.
Dousing. You can find water lines that way too. It works but is kinda voodoo. I always feel like I need to say a few extra prayers after trying it. :)
I work for a Water Utility company and we have locating devices that cost upwards of a million dollars and I always use a “witching rod” first. I been doing this for 10 years and for the last 9 years I thought it was elfin magic. I was sent to a class and it was explained in detail. Yes there is actually a professional class and they sell commercially made rods that use a combination of metals to locate underground utilities. In simple Movement of any liquid or gas creates a electromagnetic field that can be detected by metals with little resistance to horizontal movement. High voltage electricity well it does the same but with a larger field of magnetic flux. If you travel at exactly 88MPH while holding the witching rod you can go back to the future due to the flux capacitor if it hits 1.21 gigawatts. Lol
Tim who?
811
???
they are not Casy's, they are Case as in briefcase or guitar case
Really?
@@TractorTimewithTim Yep really. th-cam.com/video/SSbnXqo96j8/w-d-xo.html
Hmm. Well I’ll be. Never realized Case was pronounced Case. ...and not Casey!
Learn something every day!
I called 811one time and it was a waste of my time they came out and marked all the obvious
HERE IN VIRGINIA 811 FINDS EVERYTHING THATS S IN THE GROUND THIS GUY WAS JUST LAZY CALL THEM BACK
I wondered about that too. The "private" lines as he called them are still tied into the electric company's meter base so that made no sense to me. Seems like laziness.
WRONG. Not lazy. Just because it’s a rule in your city, town or state doesn’t mean that it’s the same everywhere. Here where I live it’s the exact same he explained. The locator is paid by the Utility company. They will only locate the Utilities responsibility. I work for a Water Utility company and once the line becomes the homeowners property they won’t locate it. If the locator marked up the private lines incorrectly and a homeowner or contractor broke that particular line (water, sewer, gas etc) you would want them to pay to have it fixed. That’s why there are “private locate companies” and they are expensive. #1 the locating devices are very expensive. Certain locating devices can cost almost $1 million dollars to purchase. #2 Having Insurance to protect you is very expensive. Again rules are regulations are different all over the Country.
Mark Eckelkamp I understand your point. Thank you for the input and explanation. My dad is 45 years on the job at an EMC so I'll also ask him about this as well. If he agrees with you then I'll revise my previous comment.
Mark Eckelkamp I asked dad about this and he said that they’re supposed to mark everything coming out of the meter base including outbuildings and anything else such a swimming pool pump, security light pole etc. They’re even supposed to pinpoint gas, water, cable and phone lines. I’ll just throw the disclaimer out that I guess this varies from state to state.
Joebanker tell them to come set up business in Arkansas. We have 2 different locate companies. “Arkups” that locates our Water mains, electrical( Entergy and First Electric”
gas- Center Point Energy. & a few telecommunication (Windstream, and cable companies)
The 2nd locate company -KGP. Only locates for AT&T.
That would be great to see all private utilities marked up. Sounds like that area has Safety figured out. Thanks for replying back.