underground electical lines
 

Might of ran into an issue, dont know if you guys can help me out some... the township dug up part of our yard where all the lines go, and we have underground service for all utilities.. at our meter its conduit down to underground, well where they dug, the conduit stops... I thought the conduit was supose to run into a termination box or something? it just stops and the 3 wires come out, the electic company appears to of just ran wires in a similar way from where they split them in a service box at the front of our property they just run outside exposed underground to where they continue to the negibors houe, it appears our cables come out of the conduit and tie into the main lines rigth there underground nothings in conduit except the part coming from our meter to the end of the property.

shouldn't the electric companies main lines been in conduit? why did they tie in right there underground and not in a box? ontop of that the lines are only 1 foot underground for their lines! my conduit is over 3 feet underground and appears to slope up to meet with their lines...

and if this is wrong, im not even sure who to complain to... i'm sure the electic company will tell me to go away...

Residential service laterals are rarely installed in conduit by the POCO.

what about only being under 1 ft from the surface? and where they did the connection splices being direct burried? just asking because I want to be sure while this is dug up that it is correct

You could contact the local inspector and the poco but if they consider if unsafe you could be disconnected and forced to fix it on your dime not theirs.

Did the township damage the lines? If not, what are you complaining about?

I would leave it alone if it makes you feel better maybe put some marking tape of some sort a few inches below the surface the whole length of the cable. Anyone digging should be contacting dig safe anyways.

Power companys do under ground splices all the time with no boxes.
This a total non issure, let it rest.

Id guess they were buried closer to 30" origionally but if somebody comes along and does grading after the fact its hard to blame the poco.
This is why locates are a good thing before any kind of digging :)

no, township is claiming its not to code... code officer coming down on me as the one that is to pay to "fix" it, that's why I am asking these questions to see if it was right or not... they dug it up for something else, saw that and I got the complaints from them since it is in my yard...

I dont think it was a grading issue, the lines are only 3 ft from the road, so the grade didn'ft drop much.. i think they actually put them only 1 ft from the grade

As somebody who spent a lot of time putting in utilities in my younger years I can honestly say Ive seen it happen plenty of times over the years.
things start out being put deep into the ground then the grading co comes through and takes 6" off the top for a rough grading of yard,then the concrete guys come though and wack another 6" off when they install sidewalks/driveway and dump it in a differant part of the yard.
Then the grading guy comes back through to try and straighten the mess.
Years later homeowner number 3 hires some landscaping guy who wants to try out his new skid loader tearing up the yard to plant new grass........
It goes on and on :wink:

Here, that wire belongs to the poco.
Poco's have their own rules.
Every underground service I have done require 3' below finished grade for my sweep.
The wire from the transformer is not in conduit.

Here in 84,Pa.15330, we have to run 3" pvc and have to use sched. 80 90's and stub up risers.