42

UPDATE 5/25 - The electric company spliced and re-buried the cables. It's a 120V line and should have been buried at least a foot below ground. They'll come by again to locate the rest of the line leading up to our electrical box and trench it deeper if it's too shallow. I added a photo of the progress so far.

Usually I'm pretty careful when I mow, but last time I got careless and accidentally hit this exposed cable with the mower.

I'm not sure what this is for or why it's exposed in the first place, but it's pretty close to the green electrical pillar outside our house. The outside sheathing is rubber and and the inside looks like a twisted steel cable with a bit of PVC pipe.

Any idea what this is or what I can do to bury it? Do I need to get our utilities/electric company involved?

close-up

zoom out for scale

UPDATE - Spliced and buried.

enter image description here

Bucket
  • 563
  • 1
  • 6
  • 11

1 Answers1

61

That is a Homac 600V rated splice so it's probably part of your electric service. I would be calling the power company right now and report a dig in to an exposed service or secondary lateral.

Stay away from it until the power company inspects it. It could be an abandoned line but you want to assume it's hot. It looks like a ground rod has been driven close by so maybe some old facilities have been relocated.

JACK
  • 80,300
  • 19
  • 72
  • 190
  • 49
    Yeah, and that should not be anywhere near the surface. This is not your mistake, unless, you re-graded without calling the "I am digging holes in my yard, help me find pipes and wires not to hit" number, commonly 311. – Harper - Reinstate Monica May 25 '21 at 00:00
  • 5
    The other thing is certainly the top-end of a ground rod. And both should NOT be exposed in the middle of a lawn. – Tonny May 25 '21 at 09:37
  • 2
    @Harper-ReinstateMonica I haven't done any re-grading or digging in this area, but I have noticed some subsidence over the last year, which may have exposed it even more. FWIW, the call-before-you-dig number for my area is 811. – Bucket May 25 '21 at 13:18
  • 1
    @Tonny the electrical company came by yesterday and said I could either pull the ground rod out or cut it below the surface. I'll probably do the latter. – Bucket May 25 '21 at 13:20
  • 2
    @Bucket As there seems to be nothing connected to the ground rod (normally that screw terminal at the top would be used for that) pulling it out (or cutting it as far down as you are willing to dig) is the sensible thing to do. Pulling out can be very difficult. These ground-rods can be really fused to the ground. If you have a long-handled crowbar you may be able to pull it up like a nail. Put a block of wood or a cinder-block on the ground to give yourself a solid surface for leverage. – Tonny May 25 '21 at 13:48
  • @HannoverFist If you look at the first two pictures, the first one was taken several months after the second. The cable has emerged from the surface significantly, and in the surrounding area I see a fair amount of ground settling. I believe the cable was mostly buried when the house was built, but over time became exposed. Either way, it was clearly not buried deep enough the first time, so here we are. – Bucket May 26 '21 at 18:11
  • 4
    Surely better to get the electrical company to do that??!!! – Araucaria - Not here any more. May 27 '21 at 02:00