Accuracy of "JULIE"

[vpl]

I'm having a new concrete patio installed at home. As part of the work, people from JULIE (the Illinois "Joint Utility Locating Information for Excavators") came out and flagged about a 2'x1' area in the backyard and noted that there were buried cables for the electric, phone and cable companies.

My husband and I are scratching our heads -- as we can see the overhead electric, phone and cable power lines coming across the back yard and into the house. Also given the location of the gas meter and the water meter (and the position of the flags) we're relatively certain those lines aren't anywhere in the vicinity of the flags.

We do know that there is an abandoned drain line (before we had the gutters redone, one of them went into a drain line that then comes out at the bottom of the yard) right about where JULIE marked -- of course, that drain line extends on both sides of the markings up to the house and down to the low point of the yard.

It's mostly an amusement factor, as the marked area is nowhere close to where the patio will go and so doesn't affect anything.

But, as a question, especially for you guys who work in oil & gas in the US -- what's your experience with JULIE or similar outfits? Is this normal? Do you recommend that I do anything to question the markings?

Patricia Lougheed

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[CorBlimeyLimey]

Carefully dig down and see what's there?

 

[MintJulep]

An intern with a metal detector visited your yard.

The detector went "beep!" in that area.

The intern looked at his map for the property, saw that electric, phone and cable lines were in the general vicinity, and marked the spot without ever bothering to look up.

 

[TheBlacksmith]

A friend of mine in Virgina had "Miss Utility" (our version of digsafe) mark his underground power lines before he commenced building a fence. Three feet from the marks, he severed the neutral cable with his post hole drill and the magic smoke came out of everything in the house that was rated for 110 volts. The utility marking company had to replace his damaged items. My feeling is take it with a grain of salt.

 

[zdas04]

I've been calling stuff into the system for a couple of years now (since they have engulfed all of the state programs) and we do it because we have to. When we call them, they call people who have "utilities" in the area we've specified we're disturbing (usually an area much larger than your backyard). The central number calls people who have registered utilities in the area and they come out and mark the lines. In cities, a lot of the public utilities have gotten together to send a minimum wage stoner to mark your lines. For Oil & Gas at least we do drug testing for the line marker guys, but it is still a low priority.

The call shifts liability around a bit, but you still don't want anyone to get hurt so you pay attention to surface indications and NEVER rely 100% on the markings.

Your experiences are pretty similar to ours.

David

 

[Eltron]

I'm with Limey. Maybe you have some buried treasure down there.

Dan

http://www.eltronresearch.com

Dan's Blog

 

[VEBill]

No home is complete without a metal detector. ;-)

 

[stevenal]

The assumption appears to be that underground utilities on the property could only serve said property. That assumption may be incorrect.

If you are concerned about a possible trespass, you might want to look into it further. You might also be told the easement is prescriptive (squatters rights).

 

[MintJulep]

I forgot...

According to New York dig safe there is no water or sewer lines going to my house.

 

[btrueblood]

We'd see errors of over 15' in location calls, but that was when I was still helping my Dad, some 20 years ago or so. Nothing beats the guy with a shovel, carefully scraping a small trench for 6" or so, and then signalling the excavator to take another bite.

Nobody can tell you what's down there, or how deep it is, until they dig it up and see. Fancy equipment with LED's and prinouts just makes it not look like they could as well have used dowsing rods.

 

[waross]

In our area a lot of digging is done with a vacuum truck. That is an industrial sized vacuum cleaner mounted on a maximum GVW truck. They use a water jet to dig and remove the water and soil with the vacuum truck. They are a lot safer than an excavator.

Bill
--------------------
"Why not the best?"
Jimmy Carter

 

[zdas04]

They are a lot safer, they are also a LOT slower and more expensive. I recently did a job that would have cost $15k (with some risk of hitting poorly marked lines). At then end of the job our bill to the vacuum truck company was $95k and the the pipe contractor charged us another $35k because of the time they had a crew sitting on their thumbs waiting for the vac truck to find SOMETHING they could work on.

I don't hate vac-trucks, but the industry has gotten totally insane for the things.

David

 

[jraef]

In my area we have a Call Before You Dig system, and they too call the individual serving utilies, some of which are immediate, some take a week. I have a known sewer easement on one side of my property that caused me to abandon plans to add on to my house (the easement shown on my deed was not correct). But when I called for the trench digging, the sewer dept. didn't mark it at all, just my lateral. Turned out the sewer easement through my yard is a DIFFERENT sewer district than the one that serves me (I'm right on the border I guess). So there are definite flaws in this system.

The Cable company marked the TV cable coming into my house (I haven't had cable in 10 years) and the idiot painted the bright pink line right up my fence for about 2 feet off the ground. He just continued the arc of his arm sweep without regard to obstacles, good thing the dog wasn't in front of him I guess. I called the cable company, but because I was not a customer they said they couldn't talk to me about it. I had to replace 3 fence boards. Not a big deal, but it pissed me off. About two weeks later a goofball from Comcast came to my door wanting to discuss "my recent inquiry into switching to Comcast". I damn near went after him with a fireplace poker...

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[ivymike]

I had trouble with Julie in the past - but not that the resp. companies marked too much stuff - they didn't mark everything and I hit the neighbor's electrics supply with a power augur in a "clear" area. Nobody died, but it was a real pain getting out of paying for that mistake.

Another time they forgot to mark my gas line and I hit it with a hand shovel. Again nobody hurt...mad at myself for not thinking hard enough about what they might have missed on that one.

The take-aways for me were the following:
- call before you dig (necessary to reduce liability - there is a legal presumption that you're at fault for any damages if you don't call)
- completely document all the marked areas after you call and they mark. take photos and mark the lines on a plat of your property
- compare what they've marked to what you know you have on your property (where are your meters? do they have marks coming to/from them? how about your neighbors' meters?)

 

[BigInch]

Mint, You must be up to your neck in it by now.

Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone. - Pablo Picasso