Does anyone know how deep cable lines are installed? My cable company replaced the previous line to the house and now are finally going to bury it with spring coming. They asked I provide them with any figures like where sprinkler systems are, but would there be a problem with geothermal, horizontal installs about 6 ft. deep?

Our cable from the curb to the house is less than a foot deep.  There is no way you'd have to worry about the cable folks hitting something 6' down for the run from the curb to the house. 

My cable company had buried their line so shallow that I hit it digging less than 3" deep with the skid loader bucket cleaning up after the installatioin of geothermal in my home.
Dan

Glad to hear the cable company determined you are entitled to service....(now if I could get the wireless folks to do the same for me:)
j

I believe their guidelines call for opacity - that is no more depth than is necessary to render the cable invisible.

?????? opacity?

Now that is a good one I have not heard.  It clearly describes the cable company's behavior in my area.  It is not uncommon to have their lines sucked up out of the thatch by homeowners riding lawn mowers!!!

Honestly, I think I would perfer to dig the trench myself if they agree to put there line in it.  I'm hearing about some of these new Fiber cable installs from Verizon and I'm not at all impressed with how deep they are placing the lines. In many cases it's just under the grass. If I'm going to have one line to support all my phone, TV and Internet access, I for one would like it to be something that's not going to get accidently cut with a lawn mower or cut it while trying to plant some flowers / bushes. 

The electrical codes state that direct burial cable must be 24 inches deep, or 18 inches deep if protected by conduit. I feel fiber / cable should be at least 12 inches down, if not deeper to protect them.  As for a cable install hitting your geothermal closed loops, nothing is going to be bured that deep. Even underground electrical service lines aren't going to be more than 3 feet deep.

While the trench was open for main electric service I put a couple more conduits in for cable and phone. When the installers arrived I directed their attentions to the conduits, already equipped with pull strings.

That was a smart move. I did the same thing when I had foam blown into all the exterior walls of my old house. I inserted a 1/2 inch PVC pipe next to the chimney with a pull string in it. It allowed easy access from the attic to the basement. I came in handy a few years later when I had to upgrade the thermostat line with more conductors to support central air. It pays to plan ahead. Out of curiosity, just how deep was the electrical service cable, and was it encased in anything? PVC? Metal?


  

main electric is in 3" PVC conduit buried 30-36", as required by utility

The cable companies contract out the burying of the cables.....Those 'contractors' go as fast as they can and only bury deep enough where it can't be seen...:(..I've cut thru a number of them installing irrigation systems.....Most were only 1-2 inches under ground.........where I only go 8 inches down.....

20 years ago, I came home one evening and a contractor had dug a trench from the back of my property, all the way out to the street (laying fiber optic for cable tv). Coincidentally, their trench (most of 2 feet deep), was exactly where I had been planning to dig a trench to run my swimming pool backflush line out to the street.

It was about 6:30 PM when I came home, and seeing this miracle trench, I went out and asked the guy who seemed to be the boss, if it would be OK if I put some pvc in there overnight, and when they came to fill it in the next morning, they could just pretend they didn't see my pipe.

He said, "Of course not".

I said, "let me put it another way": "Inside the garage right there, you can find a refrigerator with 2 sixpacks of Michelob. There are assorted swim trunks in the cabinet in the bathroom off the garage. It's about 100 degrees today and you've been working hard."

On the other hand, I was just looking at the survey of my property a couple of weeks ago, and I happen to know that the utility easement runs down the *other* side of the house, not here where your trench is.

Ended up we drank the whole two sixpacks, I burned us some steaks and baked potatoes, and the next day, my backflush pipe was all buried. :)

Coincidentally, last summer, I was going to set a post out there and called "DigSafe", to have them locate the fiber optic cable. The guy on the phone said there was nothing out there because my utility easement was on the other side of the house. I said, "Trust me, there is a fiber optic cable buried out there because I watched the guys bury it". He said, "Ok, well dispatch a locate, but they aren't going to find anything." The next day, he called back, sounding kind of puzzled, and said that they not only found my fiber optic cable right where I said it would be, but that there also seemed to be some kind of "gas pipe", buried right beside the fiber optic. I didn't tell him that the "gas pipe" was on top of the cable...

Let me add a couple items to your vocabulary. I teach networking and some of this rubs off.

The technical dig-up term is called 'backhoe fadeout'.

Adding to robinnc's comment: it has been said that the cable TV technicians are the ones too stupid to get hired by the phone company.

Also born/raised on a farm. Deep enough is deep enough to farm over it. If the disk or cultivator reaches the cable, it's not deep enough.


At least one backbone fiber company acquired old natural gas pipelines -- no longer cert for gas, but just fine for blowing fiber into. They very carefully left the 'gas: do not dig' signs in place.