Fischer
April 27th, 2007, 01:33 PM
Had a water abatement issue around a 3 story apartment building in a large complex and was to install new footing drains (4" Rigid PVC) and draining them to daylight. Called for the locaters and they came out and dutifully marked off all the lines. Kept my locate number.
Turns out all the perf ABS coils had collapsed, kinked or filled with mud. Ever try and pick up even a 10' cut section, much less smell some of them? There was 400 feet of filled ABS, and that was just this one building. Anyway was doing the last cut near the daylight exit and the track hoe hooked something. Gave a little tug (that was my one and only mistake-I think, the lookout didn't see anything), and then next thing I knew a high pressure gas line was shooting 30" in the air. Saw what is was, shut the machine off and bailed to the first building getting all the tenants out, while my other guys went to two other building to evac them.
Fire Department came, and they didn't know where the main shutoff was, and so it blew for over an hour. Everyone was out of their apartments for about 3 hours (good thing it was summer). No explosions, no one sick, no fried machine, a good ending.
Got a bill from the City of Des Moines Washington, for something like $1800. I gave them my locate number and that took care of that-no charge. Turns out the locate company didn't think they had gas on the property, so they didn't bother looking anywhere else. The line had a wire with it, so they should have easily found it.
Not all that gory, but a lesson learned-don't let the locate company find the entrance services and not go completely around the dig site. The other lesson was perf ABS seems like a sweet deal, but it's ugly. This complex had 13 buildings and the ABS has been replaced on 6 so far.
Turns out all the perf ABS coils had collapsed, kinked or filled with mud. Ever try and pick up even a 10' cut section, much less smell some of them? There was 400 feet of filled ABS, and that was just this one building. Anyway was doing the last cut near the daylight exit and the track hoe hooked something. Gave a little tug (that was my one and only mistake-I think, the lookout didn't see anything), and then next thing I knew a high pressure gas line was shooting 30" in the air. Saw what is was, shut the machine off and bailed to the first building getting all the tenants out, while my other guys went to two other building to evac them.
Fire Department came, and they didn't know where the main shutoff was, and so it blew for over an hour. Everyone was out of their apartments for about 3 hours (good thing it was summer). No explosions, no one sick, no fried machine, a good ending.
Got a bill from the City of Des Moines Washington, for something like $1800. I gave them my locate number and that took care of that-no charge. Turns out the locate company didn't think they had gas on the property, so they didn't bother looking anywhere else. The line had a wire with it, so they should have easily found it.
Not all that gory, but a lesson learned-don't let the locate company find the entrance services and not go completely around the dig site. The other lesson was perf ABS seems like a sweet deal, but it's ugly. This complex had 13 buildings and the ABS has been replaced on 6 so far.