If they used a conduit. In my area they bury just the line in most cases.
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Good point!
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You don’t have to dig deep enough to find it. Just deep enough that you’re sure its deeper than you will till.
I wouldn’t hesitate to shallow till over it if the lines are marked. If your tiller goes 8" probe 16".
I’m assuming this is the line from the utility to your house. If you have wired outbuildings or other stuff on your property that you or the landowner ran, all bets are off. I’d be very careful in that case.
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Are the electrical lines running along with the street? Or from the pole to the electrical box ( transformer ) in your yard near the house?
Hand dig. I hit a gas line once that was laid way above code. It’s main line to house too. Fortunately I didn’t puncture was hand digging with shovel.
All underground in our neighborhood. Green box out front.
Yeah, the power company has a policy not to tell residential customers how deep the cable is.
Wouldn’t hesitate to till over it. Unless they hit rock, they put those in with a trencher, which is a foot deep or more. If it’s the cable which feeds the transformer, it going to be very deeply buried because of the high voltage.
Even hand digging can damage the cable. They normally use aluminum triplex. You can tell what they used by opening your main panel. The insulation on that cable can easily be damaged with a shovel (I’ve done it before.) I wouldn’t even use a probe for triplex.
The odds of being electrocuted from hitting an electrical cable are almost nil. I’ve seen them hit before, they just smoke (as long as we are talking about the line which comes after the transformer). It’s only 240v. I might recommend tilling in fairly dry weather using a thick pair of gloves to hold your tiller, as an extra precaution, but I wouldn’t be at all afraid of tilling over it.
If you nick the cable (even with a shovel) you need to fix it, or the cable will corrode. I used Scotch Kote in the past, for nicks. There are also kits you can get to splice a cable, if you cut it. The problem is you have to work the cable “live” unless you call the power company out to cut the power from the transformer, which after calling them, they won’t let you work on it.
I’ve worked 240v live quite a few times. You just have to use good insulated gloves and taped tools, insulated boots. Of course you don’t want work it live if there is any water in the hole.
All that said, I think there’s probably greater than a 99% chance you won’t get into the cable with a tiller going no more than 8" down.
I’m much more worried about hitting a water line going to the meter (although they are generally deeper). I’ve not hit one of those, but I imagine that would be very messy and expensive to fix.
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I’m not worried about a waterline, I am on a well, and judging from where the well water pipe comes in the house, it’s about 30 inches deep.
I have both cables to contend with, both the one out by the street that feeds the whole neighborhood, and the one providing service to my house.
I’m more likely to hit my Verizon fiber optic line, but that is less than an inch deep, and I’m actually thinking I can gently pull it out of the ground, move it out of the way, and then put it back in a little deeper after I’m done.
Yeah, the one which feeds the neighborhood you don’t want to hit. But it’s going to be deep, until it gets to the transformer. The other one isn’t a big deal. I’ve put those in before to ag buidings which carried a lot more amps than your house would.
Btw, the power company won’t tell you how deep the cable is for liability reasons (i.e. Joe Sixpack gets electrocuted because he’s digging in 2’ of water, hits the cable with a shovel and dies. His wife sues the power company because she heard the employee tell her husband the cable was 3’ deep. Jury feels sorry for the widow and awards an 8 figure settlement.) However, sometimes you can look over the shoulder of the person locating the cable and see the depth on the meter. There’s no liability then. Alternatively, you could buy one of those locators yourself and check the depth, but they aren’t super cheap. Probably looking a a couple hundred bucks.
Hmmm. The locator may be worth having.
Near the transformer may be dicey. I may just mulch that area and plant perennials, offset from the Line for the cable with the hope they will fill in.
Olpea, the locators are more like a couple GRAND.
You REALLY don’t want to mess with the fiber. It’s pretty easy to break, and they’ll probably have to pull the whole length again to repair it. At your expense, of course.
It’s basically held down by thatch, though.
I agree with @jcguarneri you don’t want to mess up the fiber.
Verizon cable it supposed to be berried 12 to 18 inches but you can’t rely on that because there’s places where is located at 6 inches or less.
Electrical
Service line 24 inches depth
Primary line 3 feet.
My best advise for you is to hand dig ( so speak ) by using a shovel to locate the depth of the Verizon cable length ways 5 feet apart, that way you would know for sure the depth of that cable.
Other think you could do is spry and kill the grass over where the cables are located so you won’t do any tilling there, till the rest of the area you want to till and apply the grass seed all over covering the spot where the cables are berried.
I thought of that, but I don’t want a bright green strip because of much different soil over that area.
Grass is terribly invasive -ask any gardener! - and you don’t have to seed that naked strip. The sod will fill it in within a season.
I dug a four foot deep trench to bury my well line and had to remove an 18" width of sod before I started. It looked dead when I put it back some weeks later but you couldn’t find it the next year. Same with a narrow strip I removed to install metal conduit.
If I recall correctly code calls for UF to be buried at least 24", pvc conduit at least 18", and metal conduit 6". Too bad people don’t always follow the codes …
If I ever have to dig up my well line I will feed the water line and the electrical cable through a nice, big pvc to simplify replacement should it become necessary.
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My bad. Maybe you could consider Clark’s advice and go with a metal detector. I’m just trying to think outside the box. I wouldn’t bother with anything, but just start tilling, if it were me.
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