# Forum More Stuff Debate & Technical Discussion  Dial before you dig

## Black Cat

Was chatting to the plumber about this service the other day. Seems if you dig up a cable, even if it is nowhere near where they told you it was, and may not be in conduit, like they told you it was, or is 20mm down instead of 500mm down, it is still your fault if you dig through it. 
Sounded pretty stupid to me, but hey, thems the breaks.  
But. Yesterday I was having the bottom paddock rotary hoed on the side that does not include the newly-installed absorption trenches, and up comes a dial before you dig label that had been buried under the ground. 
So like a good citizen I called DBYD to let them know that there was a possible cable somewhere within cooee of my place that was missing a label, and they were all very helpful - send me a map, send me a list of local contacts, send me a list of local cable location services (that I have to pay for) and that was that. 
Problem is, the map shows all services go across the front of my land, on the road reserve. But this label was about 80 metres back from that boundary. I would simply assume that it was misplaced, except for the fact that my neighbour has a DBYD post in her back yard, roughly on a diagonal from the location the label was found. 
Now, it seems to me that if you invest millions of dollars in infrastructure, then put signs up to protect people from digging through mega-wattage, mega-dollar cabling, you might from time to time carry out an inspection to make sure the labels are where they are supposed to be. But no. Apparently, having found this mis-placed sign, it is my responsibility to find out where it belongs. 
Does anyone know of anything so utterly ridiculous. And if so, please let me know, because my next step will be the telecommunications ombudsman I suspect. I plan to have more earthmoving down in that location, not to mention driving in star pickets, so it would be pretty upsetting to find out that they had forgotten to tell me about something like that ....

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## China

To be frank there could not be a more useless service ths dial before you dig ( my personal opinion)

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## SilentButDeadly

Ha....we drilled through our phone line about a half a dozen times when we started on our extension. When I asked the Telstra bloke where the heck it actually went they said "it comes from over in that direction and then heads off over in that direction". Yes, mate...but where exactly? "No idea". The DBYD map was even funnier.....someone had simply ruled a straight line between the two known points. 
DBYD is actually an essential service........if you are digging up a footpath or an area you know to have an easement through it.  Otherwise....take a swing but be open to the possibility.

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## RumpledElf

I kind of like it that most of my services are overhead ... saves a lot of hassle. I'm going to attempt to get our new house connected via overhead electricity (water obviously ends up underground) but they're so keen on underground I might be fighting an uphill battle. It'll barely be 6m in a straight line from stobey pole to house, the stobey pole is right on the property boundary, they don't need to dig a trench dammit!

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## Black Cat

My saga continues, and has become increasingly frustrated by the fact that Telstra apparently fails to include organisational history in its staff induction courses. The sign I found, free-floating in the bottom paddock belongs to Australian Postal Services, so as soon as I mention Postal Services, they try to fob me off on Australia Post. Finally after having found myself shouting at someone intemperately, I suggested she look around the office and see if she could spot someone over the age of 50. She did, went and asked them, and voila - OHHHHHHHHHHH you mean the PMG used to be in charge of phone lines ............ derrrrrrrrrrrr. 
So now, having been via the Telecommunications Ombudsman, I am awaiting a call from something called TSS which apparently is the holder of all maps associated with telecommunications services, past and present, and they will ring me back (yes, I have a number to call them when this fails to happen) to let me know what this is all about. 
As you say - DBYD is possibly the least helpful service known to humankind, and potentially very dangerous indeed given their failure to manage their assets adequately to either ensure they are in position, or that, if they are redundant, they have been removed. 
Thanks for letting me get this off my chest. If a solution is found, I will post it here for future reference by anyone else who is unfortunate enough to find a loose DBYD sign and tries to do the right thing by the relevant service - apparently they don't grasp the concept I am doing this .... Sigh.

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## GeoffW1

> To be frank there could not be a more useless service ths dial before you dig ( my personal opinion)

  Hi, 
Yes, it is a bit overblown, given that it: 
- does not tell you anything about buried water and sewer services inside the property boundary (although my Telstra aerial line was shown, but then, I only have to look up for that) 
- does not guarantee anything it does tell you 
Cheers

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## Black Cat

And then there is the nice little 'duty of care' statement they send you with their unreliable maps which tells you all your responsibilities, but seems to fail to mention any that they may have (assuming they have any at all).

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## Armers

I deal with this stuff day in day out... it is very very helpful on the public side of your boundry, i'll then show you the property entry points, there after it kinda gets vague. You can do alot of assuming but other then that you're kinda stuck.  
if you DBYD then you can plead ignorence, if you don't you can be slapped with some big repair bills. I Do know the gas call out bills have trebled in the last 12 months. Lol...  
Then again good old telstra can do what ever they want.. Its bad when you get to a large multi dwelling unit block and the drawings are hand drawn... with no distances  :Frown:  fun looking for pits then! 
Good luck, have fun! 
Cheers
Armers

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## SilentButDeadly

I do actually respect DBYD given that I have watched a couple of epic fails as a result of not using the service..... 
One was near my office when the contractors of one of the local builders preparing a new estate managed to dig up the same fibre optic link twice in the same week.....dunno whether it was the same contractor but the result wasn't pretty!! 
The other was whilst having a quiet beer with a mate in a Dubbo pub when the blokes outside who were trying to repair or re-lay a wonky pavement managed to punch a hole in the 100mm natural  gas main...the gas blast went slamming in the overhead verandah and we all very quickly bailed to the back of the pub.....and these wobbly dickheads stood there and looked at it for ages before the bloke behind the bar went out and said I've called the fire brigade...and they went "oh yeah this could go bang couldn't it" .....we left

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## Wombat2

Some years ago my next door neighbour on 200 broad acres  where he was born and lived all his 50 odd years had a dead cow in the middle of his farm - being far from the house and shed he decided to bury it where it was - got his tractor with backhoe and proceeded to dig a hole - straight though the trunk cable to Lorne.  He didn't even know there was a cable on his property let alone where it was. Telstra tried to sue him so he countered with  legal argument that they had buried cable on his property without permission - trespass and a few other things his solicitor thought up - Telstra dropped the case - mind you they had gone diagonally across his property from one corner to the other - a distance of about a kilometre - too lazy to go around ( or cheaper)

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