Taking bets on the cause of the problem…

[Codyboy]

Line was only about 12 inches before the excavator hit it. Code (now) I was told is 18.

The funny thing about 811, who was called, is that the excavator operator is one of the guys who would have marked the sewer, if the main were in the area. They don’t mark laterals for sewer which was in the area, he found that as well…

As stated on the electrical, they wouldn’t have marked anything beyond the service line to the meter.

Here they will not mark the water or sewer at all.
The URD from the transformer or pedestal to the house is a private line that is installed and maintained by the homeowner.
Utility owned lines they will mark.

A lot of contractors either don't know or ignore the fact the URD to the house will not be marked and don't want to take responsibility when they hit it.
Ive had that conversation a lot with contractor's and homeowners.
I am not sure if on the dig ticket it states this or not that they have been notified private lines are not marked.

 

[Oggy]

I put a dig ticket in when we were planning this, and there was nothing stating that at all. Thinking about it, the line from the pole may not have been marked, just the gas… it’s not that far though, so you know you need to bolo.

I found out when I called the guy at the sewer plant to ask about the sewer line that wasn’t marked, he’s the one that told me they don’t mark laterals.

 

[wyliesdiesels]

BTW! Did you call for a utility "mark out" prior to digging?

811/USA does not do locates for feeders on private property here in california so GLWT

 

[OccupantRJ]

I got lucky when we first moved here in 2008. Cable tv lines were being installed a month later, so a locator guy came out to mark for the cable plow-in to my house. I have concrete in the way so they had to plow through my rear fence gate and hook around the rear corner of the house. I happened to be home at the time the locator came and casually mentioned that I thought there might be an electrical line very near where they were planning to come into the house that fed my shop. He cheerily stated that was no problem and that he could help with that issue. He jumped over into the area where the power to the shop was suspected to be and scanned and marked for about 6 feet out. He scanned the line with his detector and shot his color marks only in that affected immediate area, but then volunteered to scan the rest of the 80 feet to my shop while I marked it by laying conduit I had in a line on the ground until he left. I came back and shallow buried a series of metal pieces 6” under on the line so I had a permanent indicator that I could easily find later with my metal detector. That gave him plausible deniability and I ended up having it to follow 10 years years later when I installed the water and network cable to the shop and the sewage grinder pump discharge line to the septic tank.
I then just scanned the path with the metal detector and marked it and was off and running as to where not to dig.