High pressure leak

Started by Porcupinepuffer, July 28, 2016, 08:52:11 AM

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Porcupinepuffer

Had an interesting day about two weeks ago. We had a re/re ac job off 655 Richmond rd. There was a landscaping contractor doing work for the attached house directly beside us, in the backyard. Upon my co-worker opening the valves to our a/c, (about a 20 seconds later) I hear the roaring sound of a high pressure leak. I assumed that something just blew out from our a/c, so I race over to the backyard to question my co-worker and see what's going on, and the contractor working on the property directly beside us waltz's over and tells us he just struck a high pressure gas line with his pick axe. Definitely the largest natural gas leak I ever heard. I find it hard to believe it was 60psi or less. I never attempted to go around the fence and look at it, the roaring sound of it blasting out was enough to keep me away.
Now this guy had it all marked for where the gas line and other items are supposed to be located. He said the gas line was a good foot off from where it was marked. My co-worker saw it and said it looked like a 3" or larger sized pipe is what he hit. You could smell the gas from at least 300' away. Fire trucks only took a couple minutes from the initial phone call to arrive.
I'm wondering if there's any particular regulation with how close you can actually strike the ground from where it's marked? I'm wondering who will be at fault if the markings were off, or if he would be deemed as having dug too close to the markings.

And on another note, it really amazed me how many people in houses directly beside this leak were reluctant to want to step outside their house.

harshal

I think it's the contractor fault.my friend had same issue he had to pay fine for 1600 from utility company.

Attavior

Hand dig within 1m on either side of the locate marks.  Other then a shovel,  nothing is suppose to come any closer to the main/service then that (1m)

If he hit it with a pick axe a foot from the mark he is at fault.

Admin

Enbridge has Call Before You Dig documents for Excavators, Home owners and Third parties - Here