Glad I got a stake out

[6768rogues]

I had natural gas service installed in my house and shop about 17 years ago, so of course I knew where the gas line was located. I am digging for a new drain line for my gutters, so I called for a stake out. It turns out that the gas line is about 5 feet west of where I thought it was and it has a Y connector to split to the house and shop upstream of my drain line. Consequently, I am crossing two, not one gas lines.
Without the stake out, I would have dug the wrong place by hand, assumed I missed the gas line, and started with the backhoe. If I found a gas line, I would have assumed it was the one in question and would not have expected the second line.
Lesson learned: Encourage others to get a stake out before digging. It takes a few days, but there is no charge and can prevent a lot of heartburn.

[Kevin54]

We used to have a service called OOPS. It was the "call before you dig" outfit. I was putting a new sewer in. They came and marked it out. They couldn't have been any farther off. My house set on a hill. Where they marked, we were going to be able to come straight out of the house 90 degrees, then turn 90 degrees and go straight down the driveway. So the day the dig started it was below zero. We dug about 9 feet down to get to basement level, got to the driveway, then had to go about 30' to get to the street. Five feet into it, we hit the main water line and gas line both. Here are a few of us, standing around watching the "hoe operator" having a cigarette, and all of a sudden water rushes and gas line comes up and is broke in half. My FIL grabbed some plumbers putty, jambed it in the gas line, I called the City to have the water shut off. The City couldn't find the shutoff at the street until a neighbor came out to show them. It was two houses down from mine. We finally finished up with the sewer about 1:00 in the morning.

So anything I do now, I make sure i take pictures. On our second house, when I built the garage, I was allowed to build it right on the line. By now, there was a new company that would mark out utilities. I came home and everything was marked out. The 'hoe operator came the next morning. By the time he got done digging, the main power coming in was exposed in the side of the footer trench from front to back. I took pictures and left them in a cabinet when we sold the house for the future owners along with the blueprints that I made for the garage.

My house now has me a little shaky. We got the permit to build the garage and they showed where the leech bed was located, but now I am not so sure. If it goes bad, I have to move it and it will go out back. Hopefully I will have room for it. If not, then i have to go with a "mound system" at about a $20,000 price tag.