Locating electric lines past the meter

**mossyhorns137** · May 20th, 2011, 11:39 PM

With primary metering and secondary metering where do most locating companies end there marks.
We have a lot of commercial customers that have the secondary metered at the transformer and quite a few customers that have the primary metered , where does the locators responsibility end in your area?

**X-ray specs** · May 20th, 2011, 11:56 PM

Howdy, we are always told that we are responsible to the meter, past that is private. There are exceptions; if there is a weatherhead or if it comes down a pole in anything but a u tube then it is generally private even though the meter may be further down the line. I got to know the crews and they usually have the answers up here in MN.

**UULC** · May 20th, 2011, 11:59 PM

99% of all locates end at the meter. After that it is private. That is where the private locates come into play. At least in Florida.

**BD2U** · May 21st, 2011, 12:15 AM

When we marked the electric we went to the meter as well. Now there are some times where you had to do a little bit of investigating. There are a lot of the older apartment's. They all have their own meters, so we always had to check for a primary meter on the transformers. If you had a primary meter on the transformer then all the electric past that was private. Which made us feel soooooo much better when you didn't have to mark the spider web of lines inside of a complex.

**cablehound76** · May 21st, 2011, 12:47 AM

I think it pretty much depends on your contract with the client. We have some clients who we locate up to the meter for, and some who we locate everything past the meter...

**UULC** · May 21st, 2011, 01:16 AM

Let me clarify my last post. With TECO we only went to the meter no matter where the meter was. With FPL it was what the r-drawings said. If the drawings only showed the primary stopping at a transformer then that is all we marked. This was only on commercial properties.

**mossyhorns137** · May 21st, 2011, 09:26 PM

Thanks for the info guys, we are going through some growing pains here and are concerned with liability issues , taking care of the good contractors versus the guys that are just here to make a quick buck, and addressing the customers concerns also. My major concern is having a hard rule to go by that fits every situation, mainly to protect the locator. We kind of go by the nothing past the meter rule but management says in some cases we will be the ones fixing it so it makes sense to locate it rather than have it cut. My argument with that is where does the locate end, just the primary, just the secondary service to the breaker/switchgear,or lines beyond that to adjacent buildings or in some cases even exterior illumination i/e ball parks with lights. I don't have any problems locating any of these but with these being private, whose to say that nothing has been added in recent years and i have marked it all. I feel like this leaves the locator very vulnerable, if a damage was to occur, it could be easily blamed on the locator. Again THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT !!

**daman1** · May 22nd, 2011, 02:39 PM

i think the reason no one marks past the meter is because if you do that, then you take financial responsibily for any damages. If it was mismarked or there are unknown private lines that would not be on your prints and they get marked, the contractor would no longer be liable for the damage. Even if your company would be the one to fix it, I still think they'd prefer to bill the excavator for their time. Once a line is marked, you own it. Maybe this varies from state to state, I'm not sure.