Page 17 - Alabama 811 Magazine 2018 Issue 4

customer claims the electric company past that we dldn’t know about. I'm

caused damage to their home, business surprised that there's not more talk

or equipment. lt was during those about this problem," Mickey said.

investigations that he began to notice "it seems like a rash of these have

a trend — several houses that suffered happened in the last year."

electrical iires recently had toundation .

Wm Pmnmedl since this problem is relatively new

to the 811 commumty and electrical

"Last year, l saw maybe a dozen companies, Mickey wasn't sure ui a fail-

toundation repairs that caused sate procedure that would prevent this

damage to homes one way or another, sort of disaster trom happening. But he

sometimes quite catastrophic — in did say that communication will be key \ y E 0
some cases the house burned down," to the success of tunire initiatives. J

Micke said. "one house had . .

foundation work that caused it and two 0"“. “‘ ‘hg “"55 he "‘“““""“d ‘° 3"

other houses to burn in a Cul-de-sac." ‘‘“““S “ ’“°“‘ “““‘”¥° P’°‘.’°““°“ . ‘

council meeting was to consider adding i I

Mickey said that during investigations lninrmatlon about inundatlnn repairs .\._ v ‘
he's seen several instances when a to future tickets, alerting utility owner/ 4 " ,____.
house gets lacked up, it causes a wire operators that this type or work would ‘ ;g

to pull out lai a lug in the meter socket, be done. "x__ ,,/," it
causing a short But sometimes the U . ~ "2 ~— l
mugs am mm wmPuCmd_ If a contractor would contact us ahead 5 e n

ui time, we d roll a truck out with one ,

"The ioundztlnn repair that caused ui our design engineers —jusI like we

the three house ares on one cul-de-sac do when a customer wants new service

pulled the energized conductor loose or an upgrade," he said. "we will look ' _

and down into the ground going into at it and put into play countermeasures

the house," he said. "since everything to allow them do what they need to do

is connected to ground, and the ground without any hazard or danger Any

is ultimately connected through water utility would be happy to do that."

lines back to the city main, thats how .

H W m ‘he Dam Mo ham“ me some ui the less-reputable toundation

plumblng got hot and charred the “P” °“"‘P"‘“'**‘ ""“‘ “*"‘ ‘he

wood, which caused the fires." "f"“?“‘”"“ “’ “ll 3“ ‘° “F” ”‘f"

digging activity, rather than handling

surprisingly, the damage doesn't the ticket request themselves, which also

always happen while the ioundatlon complicates things, according to Mickey.

work is underway 7 the hazard can And many nf the fuundntilm repair

linger undetected tor months. contracts that homeowners sign have

"we had an incident last year where *"';‘““ P;'“‘ ‘l“‘ E"°"“’*"' "T2 °‘;""‘“‘°’

the house had been leveled and the " “.“V “"‘“g’?‘ “‘ ‘."“Y.“"‘“ ’°"‘

contractor had been flnlshed tor about ““" ""’.“‘ ’ ‘““““““¥ "“"““‘°" “"“" .,

(hm mend“ They did mg Wm Electllc lines were damaged and caused 8 3 _ 5 A, 0 f-
during a dry season. During the next ‘*5’ 8 1 1 M 3 g 3 Z I I1 6
big rain the ground got saturated, He also mentioned that its likel that

causing the ground to swell and the not many leveling contractors are aware re a d e r 5 3 re
house to raise up a little more — and that this problem can occur, as its e x c a v a t o r s a n d
that was the straw that broke the certainl not somethin that ha ens on

camel's back. It caused damage to the every join. S W Y 9 5t K0 U C 3 '1
customer's appliances." “Th r e a c t h e m

ere may be ioundatlon people out

Mickey thinks this problem is more there who only know this is going fo r 1 e s s t h a n
widespread and common than one on because they've zxpenenced it 5 C e n t 5

might Expect, given that not every themselves. If they've never been taced '
incident is investigated to its end. It with this, they might not know," he said.

a customer doesn't make a claim that , . .

coserv is responsible for an incident, ‘‘ Y°“ '9 3 “°"‘°““""“ }‘"‘“E ‘}“*'

his investigations are typically wrapped We “‘ ‘”“.’k d“““' "‘“k‘ °“‘° Y°“’ /,., . l . W n —. V! .i a at

. _ _ contractor is aware that they are 4 an E l- “<'7- )— — it

“P ““‘°“"' "° me” “E “"2” “°"“‘ res nsible tor submittin a ticket to

ointherlncldemsIhathavegtme ’P° h ’. g _ h 50I~269r7000
undmmd_ B11 betore t ey dig and reouestt at

they also contact the electric company

"we have an outside contractor that to ensure this type of damage doesn't sat‘-:'s iii 6 l l in; part H 9 s i: on:
comes in and gives us experttorerisic occur. _ , _ g , , ma, , 7‘ H , 7 W
assistance on certain cases, so we've _ . . " " " " ‘ ‘ ‘ 7"" '5‘ " L ‘ ‘
learned a lot more about this. I'm sure 0“: 3"“ “Way” rm‘ the 5"‘ Pm“-

we have had a bunch ui these in the mm mm mm m . 15