Page 15 - West Virgina 811 Magazine 2018 Issue 3

caused damage to their home, business past that we didn't know about. I'm

or equipment. It was during those surprised that there's not more talk

investigations that he began to notice about this problem," Mickey said.

a trend — several houses that suffered "It seems like a rash of these have

electrical fires recently had foundation happened in the last yetzir."

‘’‘’‘’’k '‘’’“‘‘’"‘‘“d‘ since this problem is relatively new

”LasI year, I saw maybe a dozen to the 811 community and electrical

foundation repairs that caused companies, Mickey wasn't sure of a fail-

damage to homes one way or another, safe procedure that would prevent this

sometimes quite catastrophic — in sort of disaster from happening. But he ‘ \\

some cases the house burned down," did say that communication will be key J J F 9
Mickey said. ”One house had to the success of future initiatives.

foundation work that caused it and tyyvo 0}“ D‘ mg thing» he menmmed m 8“

other houses to burn in a cul-de-sac . .

during a recent damage prevention

Mickey said that during investigations council meeting was to consider adding \\ I
he's seen several instances when a information about foundation repairs .v i

house gets jacked up, it causes a wire to future tickets, alerting utility owner/ ' v — _.
to pull out of a lug in the meter socket, operators that this type of work would = t. .
causing a short. But sometimes the be done. _ , ’-~:__ 7]: , - i
”The foundation repair that caused of time, we'd roll a truck out with one ' '

the three house fires on one cul-de-sac of our design engineers —iusI like we

pulled the energized conductor loose do when a customer wants new service V

and down into the ground going into or an upgrade," he said. "We will look ~.

the house," he said. "Since everything at it and put into play countermeasures

is connected to ground, and the ground to allow them do what they need to do

is ultimately connected through water without any hazard or danger Any

lines back to the city main, that‘s how utility would be happy to do that."

it got to the other two homes. The .

Some of the less-reputable foundat-ion

plumbing got hot and charred the N W mm mm Wm M “E

‘’‘’‘“’d' ‘“'}“d‘ °‘“”°“ “'2 “*9” hopmeowneg to call 811 to report the

Surprisinhagly, the dharna}g‘e doesn't dhigglnf activity, rather thlan hanfillifigl

always ppen w ile t e foundation t e tic et request emse ves, w ic a so _

work is underway — the hazard can complicates things, according to Mickey to ta| k W lth a n
linger undetected for months. And many of the foundation repair

"We had an incident last year where §<;;;"“:;ff;3::j;y;°{;;ffn 3:15” excavator?
the house had been leveled and the ’ i Pd h I ’ f

h d been finished for about u 3"’ amag? ‘ H ‘."“Y."““ mm

“““"““‘°’ “ . * their work — including instances where

“"2” '“‘““l‘='- “WY d“‘ “W Wm“ electric lines were damaged and caused 3 3 5 "/0 Of
during a dry season. During the next gm ’ ' .

big rain the ground got saturated, " 8 1 1 M a g a 2 I n e
causing the ground to swell and the He also mentioned that it's likely that a d e r S a
house to raise up a little more — and not many leveling mntractors are aware

that was the straw that broke the that this problem can occur, as it‘s e x c a v a t 0 rs a n d
camel's back. It caused damage to the certainly not something that happens on y e S y 0 U C a n
customer's appliances." every job ‘

_ , M , r e a c h t h e m

Mickey thin.ks this problem is more There may be toundation people out

widespread and common than one there who on.ly know this is going f0 I‘ '9 S S 1 h E! H
might expect, given that not every on because they've experienced it 5 C e n ts .
incident is investigated to its end. If themselves. If they've never been faced

a customer doesn't make a claim that with this, they might not know,” he said.

coserv is responsible for an incident, , h h . h. _

his investigations are typically wrapped “ V°“ ‘“ “’“°“"’““ “"‘“3‘ "

. _ _ type of work done, make sure your , _ _ _ , V
up quickly, so there are likely dozens _ Man t: V! n on he H‘
contractor is aware that they are i
“‘ ‘’”‘°’ ‘“°‘‘’‘““‘‘ *3‘ “M 3”“ res onsible for submittin a ticket to .
undetected. *1” * i . 3 Greg Jones
311 before they dig and request that g A A

"we have an outside contractor that they also contact the electric company 5 0 1 —4 / 4 —O I '7 5
comes in and gives us expert torensic to ensure this type of damage doesn't H L gs‘ L, 1 y M N _ g Q _ ‘_ V g M
assistance on certain cases, so we've occur 9‘ ‘ ‘J 4.‘ ‘J ‘ “ '3 5‘ "l *‘ "*3 “ "“‘
learned a lot more about this. I'm sure .

we have had a bunch of these in the 0”" “ml “WW Md ““ 5"‘ P"“‘- .

201.t!,!ssu: 3 West Wglma E11 . 13