Page 19 - Louisiana 811 Magazine 2018 Issue 3

caused damage to their home, liusiness past that we dldn’t know about. I'm

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

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

a trend — several houses that suiiered "It seems like a rash oi these have

electrical iires recently had ioundation happened in the last year."

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

”LzsI year, l saw maybe a dozen to the 811 community and electrical

ioundation repairs that caused companies, Mickey wasn't sure oi a iail.

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

sometimes quite catastrophic — in sort oi disaster irom happening. but he ‘ \

some cases the house burned down," did say that communication will be key J J F 0
Mickey said. "one house had to the success oi iuture initiatives.

ioundation work that caused it and two 0 E h L“ h . Ed 8“

other houses to bui-ii inacul-de-sac " “E. " ‘ E “'5” °"‘*“‘‘‘“‘ ‘“ .

during a recent damage prevention

Mickey said that during investigations council meeting was to consider adding \ O I
he's seen several instances when a iniormation aliout ioundation repairs .. ,

house gets iacked up, it causes a wire to iutiire tickets, alerting utility owner / » u — _.
to pull out oi a lug in the meter socket, operators that this type oi work would —— :3 J .
causing a short. But sometimes the be done. _ _ -s:__ /"rt g» , - 1
”The ioundation repair that caused oi time, we'd roll a truck out with one - '

the three house tires on one cul.de.sac oi our design engineers —ju.~1 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 win look .,

the hu\L~'E," 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 mzln,tl1nt‘s how utility would be happy to do that."

it got to the other two homes. The .

some oi the less.reputable ioundation
plumbing got hot and charred the .
mod] which mm H“ fim_,, repair companies win ask the
homeowner to can 811 to report the

surprisingly, the damage due5n'I digging activity rather than handling

always happen while the ioundation the ticket request themselves, which also _

work is underway 7 the hazard can complicates things, according to Mickey to ta| k W lth a n
linger undetected ior months. And many of the ioundation repair

,, . contracts that homeowners si have

Wehadanlncldzmlaslyearwhezz smfl,,Pn.mW,m,m,hg excavator?
the house had been leveled and the
oi any damage that may arise irom

cunrmcloz had been finished ior aliout mm Wm 7 indudin mum Whm

""2" "‘‘“‘“‘='- “WY “W “W ‘”‘"“ electric lines were dnmgaged andcaused 8 3 5 "/0 of
during a dry season. During the next fim ’ ' .

big rain the ground got saturated, “ 8 1 1 M a g a 2 I n e
Enusing the ground to swell and the He also mentioned that it's likely that r e a d e I. S a re

ouse to raise up a little more — and not many leveling contractors are aware
that was the straw that broke the that this problem can occur, as its e x c a v a I 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 iob '
. . .. . r e a c h t h e m

Mickey thinks this problem is more There may be ioundation people out

widespread and common than one there who only know this is going f0 I‘ I e S S t h a n
might expect, given that not every on because they've Expeuenced it 5 C e n ts .
incident is investigated to its end. li themselves. li they've never lieen iaced

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

coserv is responsilile ior an incident, H , . .

his mmfi fl _ . H d you re a homeowner having this

ga ons are typica y wrappe
up quickly so there are likely dozens WP“ “‘ “"“" “"5 "‘“‘‘E 5"" Y°‘" il 1 3‘ e r '7 ~ r l
' contractor is aware that the are - ~ * - '~ ‘ Wt‘-' '9”
oi other incidents that have gone _ _. _ . . Y
undmflm responsible ior sulimitting a ticket to G ,8 9 J O ,7 E. 5
B11 beiore they dig and request that

”We have an outside contractor that they also contact the electric company 5 0 1 —4 72 —O 7 '7 5
comes in and gives us expert iorensic to ensure this type oi damage doesn't , 7 ,, g _ _ _ _ 7
assistance on certain cases, so we've uccur 9”’ *‘i<‘~‘.“ '7 7 ‘ "" '3 W 3 ‘ ”“’=' ‘- ‘3 "‘"
learned a lot more about this. rm sure .

we have had a bunch oi these in the 0*‘ W‘ “W” Md ““ 5"‘ P"“‘- .

cm, issue 3 tausuaaaii . 17