Locating telephone/FOC in salt water environment

[jblondell]

All,

I am new to the forum and wanted to ask a question regarding locating a metal conduit that has been placed in a flush mounted HH. The metal conduit is underground (bottom of the HH). There is a lug screwed to metal that is connected to a locate wire. There is no ground rod in or outside the HH. We have to use a ground spike with our locator.

Our company inherited this network and it is now a problem for us to locate the conduit when the water (high tides) or just corrosion from the salty air is left standing in the HHs.

Is there some tiype of product that can be used in order to good locate. Nolox or some type of oxidizing agent or reagent could be used?

Look forward to the responses...

[yahoo]

welcome dude........that is a very good question???? you may not get the answers you seek until the new week starts....so you may have to bump your post again on sunday night so the majority of guys will see it on monday am......good luck!!! if you have further questions about bumping your post let me know!!!

[sprayandpray]

My 1st question is: Are you attempting to locate cable inside the conduit or locate the conduit itself? If it's the conduit, you are going to have some ongoing and increasing problems with corrosion, as nothing you do will prevent corrosion after the conduit is buried.

[FiosKing]

is this copper? or metal? and you cant locate it with a rd?

[Mke]

uhhh, I have a few questions as well. This is a comm vault? Is the conduit Loaded? Is the issue that it is submerged, or the condition of the conduit not acceptable? Top that off, I know where I work, we use galvanized conduit to bring up into certian pedestals, but right after the 90degree bend we transition to PVC conduit Schedule 40 to be exact. Being a new system to you guys, is it locateable at all?

just some questions

mke

[ProfessionalLocator]

Problem in all circumstances; Wet ground makes getting a good signal difficult or impossible.


Assumption: There is only one conduit, not a bank of two or more.

Assumption; There is a line inside the metal conduit and hooking up to this does not locate when you hook directly to it either by clips or ring clamp.

Mark the line on a dry day and use the golf tee or marking stake method below.

Assumption: The conduit is empty.

If the conduit is empty use compressed air to blow a line down it to the next hand hole. Then pull in tracer wire.

If you get a dry day where you can get a signal mark the route with paint as usual. Then go back and mark the route by pushing golf tees into the ground. Push them deep enough that a lawnmower won't hit them and pull them out. You now have a permanently marked line.

There are available commercial stakes to drive into the ground where you can buy a marker plate. The spike goes through the hole in the center of the plate and the plate names the utility below. They can even have arrows on the plate to show the direction of the run.

Consider trying a simple metal detector, like people use at the beach looking for coins in the sand, to follow the metal conduit if you cannot get a signal.

If this conduit is owned by your firm and it is badly corroded consider getting a directional bore crew in and installing new conduit. Trenching will be cheaper if this will work okay.

[Lifer]

fishtape, it's always worked for me, that and good locating equipment

[Dave72]

The metal conduit is underground (bottom of the HH). There is a lug screwed to metal that is connected to a locate wire.

If you could get that locate wire up and out of the salt water, it might work.. eventually its gonna corrode off though.

I was gonna suggest using a sonde connected to a pushrod, but you would need at least a 3" duct, and Im not even sure if a sonde works thru a metal pipe ? There's a limit as to how far you can pushrod up a duct too.

Probably best to pull in some of that mule line (pulling line) that has the locate tracer wire built into it. If at some point that wire corrodes open, you can still use the (kevlar ?) pulling line to pull in a brand new replacement.

[Wingfoot]

Hey jblondell - Welcome to the'Vine.

I look at a supervisor's territory like a ring gear in a Dana 60 rear end. A locator is only a tooth on that gear; taking care of a small piece of the entire gear. Keeping this in mind, this is how I would handle your situation:

As a locator, I would do everything I was taught to get a tone on that FOC line. If no success, my responsibility is to contact my immediate supervisor. I would call my supervisor immediately, with a follow-up email to CYA, to advise of his/her problem; a FOC that can't be toned in their territory. Once, as a locator, I've advised my supervisor of this situation, it's no longer my problem. As a locator, if I don't follow these steps exactly, this situation now becomes my problem. I risk the consequences of a cut fiber duct run; becoming a tooth knocked off the ring gear.

As a 1st line supervisor and my locator contacted me about a fiber that he/she can't tone, I would immediately meet with my locator at the utility sight and have my locator duplicate his attempts to locate this facility. Together, as a team, we should be able to determine if the FOC in question can be located. If I was a supervisor with limited locating skills, I would have a dependable veteran locator meet with us on sight.

As a team (my original locator, myself as supervisor and/or with my dependable veteran locator) we determine the FOC can not be toned, then it is my responsibility, as a supervisor, to contact the facility owner to get them involved to resolve the problem.

Good luck.

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[animal]

have someone blow a locate wire thru it if there is room
had this on a fiber in a inerduct that ran for 200'

[noOT4me]

When direct connecting to the tracer wire you will want to make sure that the wire at the next HH is grounded.