ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area How would you handle this?

This post reminds me of a policy I have been using as of late. Any time we will be drilling into walls and ceilings, cutting walls, ceilings, floors etc, or trenching I first make it a point to locate all the utility shutoffs, just in case, so we can shut it off in a hurry ti minimize damage. Of course it wouldn't have helped in this case.
One thing you might have done was cut the line at the tee and plugged it so you could turn on the gas for the house and worry about getting the pool line fixed later.

"I think you guys here chastizing him for not getting a markout are being totally unfair."

If he is in New Jersey, he is required to get the mark out, and if he is digging in the back yard, he should have asked for, mark out of entire property, we do it for every dig job, no exceptions, anything that requires more then our hand to dig, also he may want to read the exclusions on his liability policy, for any dig work, if you are doing the digging and there is other then utility owned piping, it's your responsibility to locate the pipe, not the owners, there have been plenty of dig accidents, where utility piping has run thru back yards with easements.

No one is being hard on anyone, they are just pointing out the issues in digging.

We call locating services for ground rods.

For pools, how about using RMC you only need 6 inches, better installation and less digging.

Was there a tracer wire with the gas pipe?
In NZ there is a 2.5 mm² yellow wire warped around the pipe for tracing the actual pipe route.

if not, it makes it impossible to trace.

rodalco, standard practice here in NJ is to install the trace wire.

now forget the legalities of it all. plastic pipe for pool heater gaslines are here to stay. UL listed and code approved. So while they may be inferior, too bad. They were a little shallow and that is his only out in this situation.

but the key thing here is that he was feeling really bad about telling a good customer that they won't have gas til monday. this is where he really went wrong.

don't worry about the plumber's you know. None of them appear to give a rat's ass about you at this point. Except for the one who is out of town on vacation, there were no excuses for not getting there late last night or really early this morning. Either one of the 2 plumbers could have cut out of their other job and headed over to perform a fix. or at the least, disconnected the pool heater gas line and got the rest of the house turned on.

or call a plumber that offers emergency service.

i'm not trying to bash shock by any means, it's just this situation that we are talking about.

If I was the customer I would expect a plumber to be found.

If the contractor did not find one, I would find one and expect to be reimbursed.

"or call a plumber that offers emergency service."

We just went thru this last month, working in basement at retail store, noticed the water pipe near the panel was in poor condition, we called the owners attention to the pipe, he comes down to look at it, and bangs on it, and the pipe opens, water all over, we shut it down, he calls his plumber, with no return calls, he tries emergency plumbers, the man was there in less then an hour, the customer thanked us for bringing it to his attention, now if while we were working there we hit the pipe, we would being doing the same, calling an emergency plumber.

Let's step back, and look at the way things are supposed to be handled.

You are expected to do the best you can. This includes taking reasonable precautions ("due diligence.")

Yet, sometimes 'it happens.' At that point, you have a duty to minimise the amount of harm done, and 'make it right' ASAP.

Only after this do you get to worry about payment, change orders, assigning blame, etc.

So, in this example... you ding a pipe. You maybe shut off the gas, call a plumber, get it fixed.... and carry on. If you have a proper emergency patch kit (they actually exist, and can resemble anything from a dent-repair kit to a roll of glorified duct tape), and time becomes an issue, you might consider making such a patch... but only until it can be fixed right.
You keep the customer posted on this throughout the entire drama, get your job done, and everyone is happy at the end.

You'll lose money on that job? Perhaps. Yet, I've had a few folks become loyal customers after seeing how I responded to an "oops" moment.

[This message has been edited by renosteinke (edited 09-10-2006).]

Just remember- It takes 3 "at-a-boys" to make up for 1 ......
In other words most people will spread talk about how you messed things up faster then they will talk about how great you were.
I would do what ever it took to get the gas line fixed ASAP - then deal with the repercussions later.

[This message has been edited by electure (edited 09-11-2006).]

In TX, the locator will not mark private lines.

So, it this part of the country you would have done nothing wrong. Yeh, get it fixed but have the plumber bill the homeowner. You might split the costs.

We've put it in our u/g work contracts that we're not responsible for lines that are not located. If it's under 30' long we dig it by hand due to all the sprinkler lines.

Rigid does not hold up well to the effects of chlorine gas from the pool. It's much better than EMT but not as good as PVC. Anything below 3' and 10' horizontally from the pool is corroded in about 5 years(especially aluminum bell boxes).

Thank you for all of your replies on this matter. I have read each one and will consider them all next time I go trenching. Now a quick update.

I did get in touch with a plumber who did go to the house this morning to make all necessary repairs. I met him there this morning before he got started. He got all the gas services back up and running and all is well. As far as billing goes, he just told me I owe him one. The customer was not really too upset as I have done work for them before and this has been the only problem I've encountered thus far.

Just out of curiosity, just how far down should this gas line have been? Shouldn't it at least be 3' underground or at the very least below the frost line?