Finding and working with a State Licensed Contractor is the best way to go!

Property owners in Florida are lucky when it comes to easily hiring and controlling licensed Underground  Utility and Excavation contractors. The Department of Business and Professional Regulation (DBPR) really does a great job of making sure that “bad” Underground  Utility and Excavation contractors that damage the public are weeded out. They respond quickly to complaints they are given from consumers. Complaints from other legitimate Underground  Utility and Excavation contractors are addressed as well but perhaps a little slower and with less feed back from DBPR. Developing a one on one business relationship with a DBPR representative helps legitimate Underground  Utility and Excavation contractors in controlling the unlicensed activity in their area but DBPR is underfunded that the investigators are spread thin.

If a property owner hires a State licensed Underground  Utility and Excavation contractor, they do have an enormous amount of power over that contractor. If the property owner has a problem with a licensee, the property owner has the following options:

If the licensed Underground  Utility and Excavation contractor abandons the project and refuses to return the customer’s call, one remedy is for the customer to call the DBPR or send DBPR a complaint form. The DBPR will then contact the Underground  Utility and Excavation contractor to resolve the issue. Every licensed Underground  Utility and Excavation contractor who wishes to maintain their license will immediately work with the DBPR and get the issue resolved right away.

Even if the licensed Underground  Utility and Excavation contractor has gone out of business or is dodging the DBPR, the residential consumer can go for the Florida Construction Industry Licensing Board’s Construction Industry Recovery Fund to recover all or a portion of their losses. The rules for the fund read: Payment may be available from the construction industries recovery fund if you lose money on a project performed under contract, where the loss results from specified violations of Florida Law by a state-licensed contractor. For information about the recovery fund and filling a claim, contract the Florida Construction Industry licensing Board at the following telephone number and address: Department Of Business and professional Regulation, Construction Industry Licensing Board, 7960 Arlington Expressway, Suite 300, Jacksonville, Florida 32211-7467. Telephone: (850) 727-3650.

All residential construction contracts are required to contain this clause. The fund provides residential property owners who contract with licensed Underground  Utility and Excavation contractors with the ability to recover up to $50,000.00 if they have been ripped off or otherwise damaged by that licensed Underground  Utility and Excavation contractor.

You may review the Florida Statutes by clicking on: www.myflorida.com/dbpr/pro/cilb/index.html and click on Statutes and Rules.

Call Rick Fender, the Vice President of Cloud 9 Services, Inc for additional information at 407-481-2851 and http://orlandoutilitycontractor.com/

Help for Underground Utility Contractors

Cloud 9 Services, Inc. has always worked with a few of the local Plumbers and Utility Contractors when they need backup help on thier more difficult projects. Now we are offering our quality Aquatech jet/vac truck, trailer jetter, septic/grease pumper truck, track and push camera systems with sonde locators, crane truck and skilled sewer technicians including our confined space entry team to all Central Florida Plumbers at a discounted rate. When Plumbers or Utility Contractors who do not have this equipment or personnel and get into a situation where they need our help, we are available for emergency service 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Call Cloud 9 Services, Inc. 407-481-2750. www.cloud9services.com

Cloud 9 Services, Inc. Offers Support for Orlando Plumbers and Underground Utility Contractors

Cloud 9 Services, Inc. has always worked with a few of the local Plumbers and Utility Contractors when they need backup help on thier more difficult projects. Now we are offering our quality Aquatech jet/vac truck, trailer jetter, septic/grease pumper truck, track and push camera systems with sonde locators, crane truck and skilled sewer technicians including our confined space entry team to all Central Florida Plumbers at a discounted rate. When Plumbers or Utility Contractors who do not have this equipment or personnel and get into a situation where they need our help, we are available for emergency service 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Call Cloud 9 Services, Inc. 407-481-2750. http://www.cloud9services.com/

Piggy Back Contracts-

The City of New Smyna contract has now expired. Call Cloud 9 Services, Inc. at 407-481-2750 about other "Piggy Back" contracts that we can use to work together.

The Benefits of Piggy Back Government Contracts for Underground Utility Projects

Many State and local government Public Utility Departments can benefit by using "Piggy Back" contracts for their underground utility work as well as other work.

Cloud 9 Services, Inc. has a contract for shceduled and emergency repairs and jetvac cleaning operations for the City of New Symrna Beach. The City has allowed this contract to be Piggy Backed by other State and local government entities. The work covers jet/vac cleaning of storm and sewer lines, repair of starm and sanitary sewer lines, manholes, curb inlets, sink holes, line clogs, Video or TV inspections and troubleshooting of storm and sanitary pipe and structures. The contract also covers regular work as well as emergency repair work. The contract which was competiviley bid can provide your department with the auxillary help that you need to comply with DEP requirements of cleaning storm and sanitary pipe and other work.

There are hourly rates for laborers, pipe foreman, supervisors, equipment operators and pipe layers. Ther are equipment rates for our backhoe, jetvac high pressure cleaning Aquatech Vacon style trucks, dump trucks, utility service trucks, crane truck, well point system, sewer bypass system, confined space entry equipment and our TV camera pipe inspection truck.

You can check the Piggy Back contract for all of Florida and most particulay Central Florida at our web site at http://www.cloud9services.com/. You can also reach us at 407-481-2750.

Lift Station Repair Troubleshooting

Cloud 9 Services, your lift station experts.
Our lift station technicians have the knowledge and equipment to service all your lift station needs. Liftstations are sometimes called wet wells or pump stations and are used mainly for pumping raw sewage uphill. The lift stations normally consist of (2) submersible pumps in the bottom of a concrete or fiberglass cylindrical tank, piping valves and a lift station control panel.
Some of the less qualified companies may send out their technicians to diagnose the problem only to tell you the pumps must be bad or some of the control panel parts need to be replaced without really checking for the actual problem. It is easier and more profitable for them. These tough economic times have caused some companies with no work or lift station experience to expand into the lift station repair field.
After all how tough can it be? It is only a couple of pumps. What an easy way to make some money. The customers don’t really know anything about the lift stations anyway......
Wrong! There are several components involved with lift station diagnoses. Several questions need to be answered before the lift station repair technician even opens the control panel.
• Did the lift station just stop completely?
• Have you had any trouble before?
• Has the lift station alarm been going off?
• Have you noticed any sewage backups or sewer backups in the building?
• Is there any construction going on in the area?

Just to name a few questions. There is a lot more to lift station repair than just replacing a couple of pumps and a control panel. Without the experience and knowledge of an expert you could be paying for work that doesn’t need to be done.
Let Cloud 9 Services, Inc. be you lift station experts.

Call 407-481-2750 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Hydroexcavting benefits for underground utilities

The action of removing soils from an area using water and vacuum is known as hydro-excavating. We use the Aquatech B-10 jet/vac trucks here at Cloud 9 Services, Inc. for our hydro-excavation work. The Aquatech trucks we have are similar to other jet/vac trucks such as Vactor, Guzzler, Camel and others. The trucks use a positive displacement blower to produce great vacuum on the debris tank on the truck. The tank is connected to a large 8” vacuum hose which is connected to aluminum vacuum tubes. If the material being excavated is wet such as a sewage spill or drilling mud or just wet soil, then no additional water is needed in order to vacuum the material into the debris tank. However, if the material is dry, water must be added before it can be vacuumed. This is because the dry material may be so light that it will be blown through the debris tank and into the vacuum blower. This will cause wear and premature failure of the vacuum blower. If the material is dry, then we use the jet hose and the onboard water tank to wet the materials as they are vacuumed.

There are many uses for the jet/vac truck performing the hydo-excavations. If you have to repair or replace an underground utility pipe in an area where the surrounding utilities are very close and you are afraid you may damage them, then you can vacuum the soil from around the area without damaging the utilities. In other words if you are afraid to use a backhoe, then the hydro-excavating is the answer.

Another use for hydro-excavating is for caisson installations. In a situation where you want to install a very deep manhole or wet well in a confined space, you can install the structure with hydro-excavating. This is how we perform the work in Florida where we mainly have sandy soils. Most of the time we have to dewater the area by means of wellpointing before we can start the hydro-excavating. Then we dig a shallow hole for the first section of precast wetwell structure to be placed. Then we use the water from the truck and the vacuum tubes to remove the soil from the inside of the structure. As the soil is removed, the precast structure drops evenly into the excavation. Then we set the successive sections of precast on top and continue to vacuum until the precast is at the correct elevation.

There is much more to this operation which I will address in future articles. For any questions on hydro-excavating, please feel free to contact us at Cloud 9 Services, Inc.