Exelon gas line work -- will it ever end? And will they clean it up?

Submitted by CosmicRayCharles t3_y7rs6s in baltimore

Exelon's contractors have been blundering about Federal Hill since April installing new gas lines and hookups. They don't seem to have any plan that they follow; they do some work leave for a week, and then come back to dig some more. They've butchered the roads (especially the cobbled block of Montgomery -- I've driven on smoother dirt roads), wrecked the the sidewalks, including ones where people had recently paid to have the sidewalks rebuilt, and generally made a mess installing the most Rube Goldberg adapters in front of every house. I won't even get started about the tunnel to China they are apparently digging that closes Charles St. just south of Conway all day every day during the week.

I thought they were finally done, but they've returned to dig up Warren Avenue and other adjoining streets to the south. The signage says they'll be at it thru November 15 -- great planning to be trenching and paving when its getting cold/wet and it gets dark earlier every day.

But my real question is: will they fix things back if/when they ever finish? As in repave the street and rehab the sidewalks? I know they've been doing/done this work elsewhere and was wondering what the outcome was in other parts of town. I'm not hopeful.

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S-Kunst t1_iswy94g wrote

I had a very good experience with the workers who did the installation. The communicated when the would be there, and did the work quickly. They even had the brick sidewalk in front of my house and several others relaid. That was about 2 months ago. Many on my street still have not had the brick re-laid, also they spilled mortar mix on the sidewalk, which has hardened with the rain. The street is a mess, but I just saw city signs saying they were to repave. So , I am crossing my fingers that the work will be done.

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instantcoffee69 t1_isx6zje wrote

The infrastructure needs to be replaced. It's ongoing that will go on for as long as people want electricity and gas. It's a part of urban life.

For issue with a particular job. I would recommend speaking to the foreman. Generally they will give you the real timeline. Being friendly with them will make it way easier. They will fix the sidewalk and repave the road (at some point, there is no required timeline)

If you are having a bad experience with the wotk crew (and you've spoken to them and it went nowhere), I would call BGE and @ them on Twitter.

Utilities hate negative press and complaints. But it's double edge, the first thing big BGE will do is shit on the work crew.

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SonofDiomedes t1_isx9sd5 wrote

Blundering about, lol. They are replacing hazardous and failing gas lines in an old ass major city. I doubt you could do most any of the many different jobs that have to all be coordinated to get this done. Just stay at your computer, pay your bills, and be a bit less assholey about the things you don’t know.

Yes, the streets will be resurfaced wherever cuts were made.

Yes, fresh sidewalks will be poured.

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atomlinson89 t1_isxagvd wrote

The process in Bolton Hill felt like it took an eternity but in the end they did right by the neighborhood. Sidewalks were all repaired and new asphalt streets were poured.

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ConcreteThinking t1_isxasdk wrote

Utility work is complex. Project management on this type of work is difficult. They certainly are not "blundering about". What do you need to hear to make you feel better? That BGE and their contractors are incompetent and disorganized? Because that is the furthest thing from the truth. BGE and Exelon know exactly what they are doing. That's why you get energy reliably for relatively little cost.

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EfficiencySuch6361 t1_isxbi6a wrote

This multi-year process already happened on other parts of S Charles and Fort Ave as well as many other nearby areas, started over 5 years ago. Very whiney & self absorbed post here IMO

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Matt3989 t1_isxfdaz wrote

Replying to SonofDiomedes (#141,171)

I work in this industry, and by your "sit at your computer and let real workers do their thing" comment, I'm assuming you don't.

BGE gas contractors in Baltimore are pretty much the worst I've ever seen.

It doesn't help that Baltimore doesn't have any inspectors requiring proper backfill techniques. Sure, they'll patch the road... after they backfill with the spoil without proper drying or sifting. It'll be a complete surprise to everyone when they don't get good compaction and we end up with rutting for the length of the pipe.

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Matt3989 t1_isxg5vu wrote

>But my real question is: will they fix things back if/when they ever finish? As in repave the street and rehab the sidewalks? I know they've been doing/done this work elsewhere and was wondering what the outcome was in other parts of town. I'm not hopeful.

You can probably expect them to wrap up by November 15th. Generally steel plates can't be used after that, and the asphalt plants are shutting down for the winter so patches can't be placed. They'll be back out to finish up the job starting around March.

They will eventually resurface the road (at least 1/2 of it + 10' on either side of any house connection trenches), as well as pour fresh sidewalks.

In functional jurisdictions they would have had to break this job into smaller phases and completely Mill and Overlay the road/restore the sidewalks before shutting down for the winter or before doing more than a mile of work. But pretty much all of the utility contractors working in Baltimore City are the worst of the worst (because the city lets them get away with anything), of those contractor's BGE's gas workers are the usually the worst offenders.

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RL_Mutt t1_isxlfni wrote

They’ll patch it all up eventually. I live around Guilford Hall and they repaved and poured sidewalks, etc. It took a while but it’s done.

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Orioles281994 t1_isxlkb4 wrote

It’s obnoxious, and I am pretty sure this has been going on for longer than April. It’s obnoxious and right outside my house. I have never seen shittier work done. The roads have been destroyed. I hope they find the buried treasure they’re looking for.

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Matt3989 t1_isxo27m wrote

Replying to ConcreteThinking (#141,246)

>Utility work is complex. Project management on this type of work is difficult.

This is true, which is all the more reason they might be "blundering about". Just because you work in an industry does not make you good at it. There are plenty of awful PMs in utilities.

Just look at the shit show that Central Ave is.

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jabbadarth t1_isy84jy wrote

Replying to ConcreteThinking (#141,246)

I talked to some of the guys a few years back then they did mine and the toughest part is that they have to ohysically go into every single house in the city. In my house I had a finished basement so I had to cut a big chunk of sheet rock so theu could access the pipe. If I didn't have the tools or was some little old lady that process could have been a lot longer as contractors were called or the bge guys had to deal with it. They were telling me about basements they went in where they had to climb over decades of piled up junk just to find the pipes.

This isn't just digging up the street to change pipes it's connecting a pipe to every single house in the city with new meters new connections and all the issues of getting to the pipes in the first place.

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Constant-Ice6916 t1_isyo0xp wrote

Replying to Matt3989 (#141,615)

"You can probably expect them to wrap up by November 15th. Generally steel plates can't be used after that, and the asphalt plants are shutting down for the winter so patches can't be placed. They'll be back out to finish up the job starting around March."

Am in the industry - this is misleading. Gas construction absolutely does not magically shut down for the winter.

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Matt3989 t1_isytx71 wrote

Replying to Constant-Ice6916 (#144,676)

Does the city let you get away with cold patches for scheduled work? And what do you do about steel plates and plows? And scheduling gas shutdowns in the middle of winter?

Sure, emergency distribution system work can be done in the winter, along with transmission work that can be built using microtunneling, but why would you be purposely phasing construction that includes patches, plates, and gas shutdowns over the winter months?

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Constant-Ice6916 t1_isyw43j wrote

Replying to Matt3989 (#145,140)

"Why would you be purposely phasing construction that includes patches, plates, and gas shutdowns over the winter months?"

Because the winters in Baltimore aren't really all that bad and our work doesn't require the customer to be without gas for prolonged periods of time, (few hours at most). Sure, if the temperature looks like it'll get close to below freezing, we'll stop doing service work until the temperature improves - but work on mains is unaffected.

And yes - the city allows us to "get away" with cold patches. They don't require the use of hot mix like some of the other municipalities & counties do.

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Constant-Ice6916 t1_isz3q1f wrote

Short answer to your real question: yes.

If you want more detail, feel free to PM me. I recently left one of the companies that's doing work on this project & can give you their office's number - someone will gladly answer all the questions you have.

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Cunninghams_right t1_it0qt7m wrote

I had the unfortunate experience of living in one place while they fixed the gas pipes... then within a year of them finishing and re-paving, I move somewhere that was just starting the process. yes, they repave and repair sidewalks when done. in the meantime, there will be a lot of patches.

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