A $728 picture here in NJ. Wouldn’t be bad if I was employed. I know, I’ll get reimbursed. But it’s cash out just the same.
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Replies
did they use a horizontal borer or a vibratory plow to drag it through there?
I'd be contacting the company that did it ASAP and maybe you won't have to use any of your cash. Have you got in touch with them yet?
I get that it's a picture about 25 feet inside a damaged pipe, but what else are we looking at there?
I think it's the intersection of the OPs pipe and a TelCom Fiber Optic cable.
FIOS = Fiber Optic sumthin or other...
No wonder, and my telephone ain't working... it sounds like sh!t.
I'm not so sure that's a sewer line though. Looks like metal conduit.
I'm not so sure that's a sewer line though. Looks like metal conduit.
I think it's sched. 40 PVC. It's made in white, and will distort like that. And the walls look too thick to be emt. Altho I'll grant ya it looks awful clean for a sewer line....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Vegetarians! Clean as a whistle!
Vegetarians! Clean as a whistle!
You must not have any children--either that or they're all grown up and you no longer remember how green and mean a baby's poo is before you start feeding him meat....
Dinosaur
How now, Mighty Sauron, that thou art not broughtlow by this? For thine evil pales before that whichfoolish men call Justice....
Maybe the OP will come back and tell us what it is, PVC or metal. The shatter on the bottom wold support the PVC but the edges on the shards don't look plastic but the resolution of the borescope camera could be changing things.
Certainly the damaged pipe is plastic. The cable/pipe is most likely a plastic-jacketed fiber-optic bundle -- I think they are often orange in color and could take on the hue seen in the photo under those lighting conditions.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
that's certainly your opnion. wonder if the OP will come back and give more details?
Yeah, I'm kind of curious as to how this problem was found in a clean pipe. Is it new construction and did he just run the camera down there on spec?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
The term '$728 picture' makes me think he had to pay for the scope so probably not a luxury for him (based on the fact that I wouldn't pay $728 for a fun picture of a pipe).
Yeah, but the pipe is clean and dry. How was the problem detected?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
maybe conduit he couldn't shove/pull his wire through? that's the only idea I have other than clogged sewer but clean & dry puts doubt on that.
I figured I’d give you guys a while to play detective. Here is our, and the rest of the story.
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Back in January for the first time in owning this home for 24 years we had our sewer line clog. It happened when we had our daughter and her family of four staying here at our empty nest. OK it happens and our 5 yo granddaughter just flushed a copious amount of TP. Ran to HD and rented the power snake to deal with it.
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Then in Feb it happened again. I‘m unemployed so maybe I didn’t do a good job playing plumber and we now have more use of the sewer now that one of us is not working. Did the HD rental again, but noticed how far out I had to snake, which was right about where a FiOS conduit was put in last summer.
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Jump to yesterday and it happened again. Three strikes in three months and the details of the rest of the story didn’t take a great detective. So it was time to hire a plumber and document if I had a root or conduit problem. So yeah that is Sch 40 being pierced by a horizontal drill with the fiber optic conduit left in its path. They drilled from the right shattering the plastic leaving the sharp edge dragged to the left side. The cost for the scope was $500 plus they had to snake it first to drain the backup.
And no we are not vegetarians, but the pipe has now been power snaked three times lately.
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Anyway, after lurking here for many years, I figured you guys would enjoy a puzzle and the rest of the story as only small contractors would.
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Last summer Verizon gave notice they were installing FiOS in the hood for our betterment. The survey company went nuts marking everyone’s lawn with the exception of the sewer lines, which would be hard due to it’s all Sch 40. I was at home for a half day when the guy did this and he was concentrating mostly on his cell phone discussion while walking around with his detector. I’m the original owner of this house and was here often when it was being constructed so I know the layout. I know he was a little sloppy on our natural gas line, and I remember when Comcast put in their line there was a lot of damage in the neighborhood.
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A couple days later I came home after work at about 4:00 and in the beginning of our row of 28 homes there is a group of homeowners around with a few contractors, and a NJ Natural Gas service truck. I drive by and down to my house where they are just about to continue drilling. I’m a little nervous about how they are running the horizontal drill over my stamped concrete driveway, so I’m on the front stoop while they drill across my front yard to my neighbor and there is this loud pop. Like teamwork, my neighbors start coming out of their homes and they start yelling to each other if the electricity is out. The guy running the drill yells to his fellow workers that it wasn’t him, as the warning detector never went off. They did two more houses and called it a day.
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Total carnage for the day: Up at the start of the street the crowd was there because earlier they pieced an electric feed line and a natural gas line. The police evacuated the surrounding houses. By my house, they severed my neighbor’s underground electric feed, which then blew the transformer on my neighbors yard across the street, and they had done the same up the street with another transformer as well. My neighbor Abby has three young children including a 6 month old and with the severed line she only had one phase feeding in. So JCP&L had to put in some type of phase converter so she could get 220 for her AC during the hot August days until they repaired the line.
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A month later Abby is having her front yard dug up due to a sewer issue and found the sewer line center pierced by the FiOS conduit. I also notice two other neighbors this winter had a large amount of ice buildup at their curb, so I guess their sewer line is damaged in some way, maybe not to the point of an obstruction. You can’t hit a bulls eye every time.
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So guys, even the big boys can screw up big time even with all the markings.
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Edited 3/26/2009 9:50 am ET by TooManyToys
Edited 3/26/2009 9:54 am ET by TooManyToys
Edited 3/26/2009 9:56 am ET by TooManyToys
Has anyone complained to the PUC about these yokels?
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
No, Verizon is just completely and utterly incompetent. I have literally been inches from beating down Verizon techs who couldn't wire their way out of a paperbag. Need more space on punch down? Just disconnect some of the existing wires, they couldn't be being used for anything important. Lazy as hell? Charge me an extra $200 to terminate lines to the floor riser. Which is 2 ft from the Verizon panel.Did they pull your copper lines out when they did the FIOS install? This is a typical strategy for them (and illegal in most places, but they've got the municipalities over a barrel, so no one cares) once they do that you're stuck with their crappy unregulated fios service, or have to pay a ridiculous amount of money to have your copper replaced (upwards of $6k). I hate them and our idiotic regulators who are allowing them to let the existing copper infrastructure, which was paid for by the taxpayers for the good of all, to rot, so they can roll out unregulated services via fiber (which isn't tariffed) to rich suburban neighborhoods, all the while ignoring the inner cities and rural areas.Z
The cost for the scope was $500
Are you saying the plumbers bought a new scope and charged it to your repair? That doesn't sound right. Unless they plan to leave the scope with you when they finish."Put your creed in your deed." Emerson
"When asked if you can do something, tell'em "Why certainly I can", then get busy and find a way to do it." T. Roosevelt
Are you saying the plumbers bought a new scope and charged it to your repair? That doesn't sound right. Unless they plan to leave the scope with you when they finish.
Sorry, bad wording on my part. That $495 was the additional cost for them to run a camera down the line and videotape it.
27 hours after the call to Verizon, the original contractor Manhattan Contracting, who got replaced during this work, has called asking for the image of the conduit and not to have a plumber come and do the work. They are going to try to get back to me this afternoon. They need to investigate when they did the work. I reminded them about the other failures in the neighborhood and my neighbors situation during their installation. They asked for the neighbors street address to verify.
Not PO'd yet, but getting annoyed after the "we need to see when we did the work since this just started to occur" line. I understand needing the validation part, as no contractor wants to or should need to take up the repair of someone else's problem. But that's why the photo ID. Alhough they did thank me for contacting them (Verizon) before a plumber did the repair.
Tell them that if it's not their cable then you'll remove it.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
Yeah I was thinking since it's just conduit with no wire, maybe I should just drag my backhoe up here from the farm, attach it to one of the ends in the junction box and relieve my sewer of the problem.
But they're calling for the marking service, just asked me for all my bills, and should be here on Wed or Thurs. So I'll be here to see how they handle two lines that want to be in the same place. My intent is to have a nice undistorted sewer line straight as an arrow. What they do with a conduit (and how much it stretches) ain't my concern.
You can't tell if there's any fibers in it or not, unless you've observed them enough to know if the fiber was pulled (or if the conduit came pre-fibered).But if they claim they didn't do the deed then it must not be theirs, so they shouldn't object to you cutting it out of the way.
The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness. -John Kenneth Galbraith
If it's telephone conduit it's a waterproof/sealed/pressurized pipe - to keep critters and water out. If there's a breach, the pressure drops and the the local telco gets an alarm indicitating the location of the break.
Steve
Edited 3/26/2009 1:29 pm ET by SteveVA
I’m in the 24 hr wait period for a response from Verizon. The plumber suggested they or another plumber should do the repair and they would coordinate getting a Verizon person to witness the dig so they can verify the damage done by the FiOS installation. If this was a tree root, I’m be doing this myself (qualified and even have my own backhoe) but it’s not my responsibility. Digging really can be by hand as this is only 24” down and no rocks or other obstructions.
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I’m giving FiOS (actually they forwarded me to their installer) a heads up if they want to deal with this or reimburse me. My neighbor called them after her plumber dug the hole and found the issue, and then the FiOS contractor came and did the repair. Her quote was $3000 from her plumber.
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One by one all of the neighbors have been taken care of, although Abby is still ticked off. She also discovered the issue on the third cleanout and had to cancel a kid’s party on the morning of it due to the sewer blockage. Even yesterday she talked about the spoiled food in her refrigerator from the electrical loss. Our power was on quicker once they figured out to disconnect her lines from the main feed and got a new transformer in place. What she doesn’t realize yet is that the maple tree in her front yard where the electric was severed is half dead, possibly due to the electrical short last summer or JCP&L hacking off roots to get where the cable was severed.
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There is humor here, though. All of us have been getting monthly ads to purchased FiOS for phone, internet and TV. So yesterday afternoon the plumber parks his van at the curb and does his thing. As he is leaving I walk to the mailbox where the van was and the only thing in it was another mailing from FiOS to get their service.
<!----><!---->No, I don’t have FiOS and so far there is only conduit in the ground.
If Verizon doesn't perform to your satisfaction within a pretty short time, I'd recommend you bring your story to the attention of the good folks over at the Consumerist (part of Consumer's Union now). They're excellent at getting action where others have failed, mainly via shaming recalcitrant/unresponsive companies.
http://www.consumerist.com
Jason
The state "corporation commission" or "public untiles commission" is a better place to complain to..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Unfortunately complaining to the PUC will not do anything since FIOS is an unregulated service, and your PUC cannot do anything with FIOS. It sucks and is chitty, but that is what millions of dollars of lobbying gets you. Sole reason for FIOS is that it is unregulated. They can charge anything they want, and they don't have to deliver the service to people they don't want to (the poor and the inner cities where it's hard to run all the new fiber). So all the money that we've given them under the universal service fund, is for naught, as they will eventually abandon all the copper infrastructure they can. Z
Did they brag about this yet?http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10204828-54.html?tag=mncol;title
well, I guees that answered that question.
Thanks for the "explanation".
I thought someone was having a baby.A Great Place for Information, Comraderie, and a Sucker Punch.
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
http://www.quittintime.com/
I bet it was a vibratory plow based on how the metal is laid in; dent of the right side and shards pushed in from the top on the left side.
just guessing though
7g
"I thought someone was having a baby."
zing!
Would be fun (but expensive) to bring in a backhoe to fix the pipe and dig through their cable in the process. (They wouldn't have the moral right to gripe, but I'm sure they would, and bill you for the expense.)
Certainly the cable guys should fix this, and fix it pronto.
I had a friend that worked for the hiway department and there was a rural telco that had cables laying in the ditch.Every year they would clean out the ditches and work around and move the cable by hand.And each year they would send the telco a letter compaining about it.After several years they sent them a letter in advance that they would be cleaning the ditch and needed the cable removed.So they showup and the cable is still there.So they called the teleco and and with the sound of the backhoe reving up VERY LOUD IN THE BACKGROUND said that they where digging in 30 minutes no matter what was there.Teleco arrived in 15 minutes.PS depending on the what this is for there is very good chance that it is not hot yet..
William the Geezer, the sequel to Billy the Kid - Shoe
Edited 3/25/2009 8:21 pm by BillHartmann
That looks like a clogged artery in a medical documentary.
~ Ted W ~
Cheap Tools - BuildersTools.net
See my work - TedsCarpentry.com
ooooooooooooooooooops.
Curious, have they been responsive about getting your (and all of your neighbors') issues resolved?
"Preach the Gospel at all times; if necessary, use words." - St. Francis of Assisi