CLIMAX, N.C. — Jim and Tammy Sardi had been thinking about moving for quite a while. The house they had lived in for almost two decades was too big and they wanted to downsize.
“We just wanted something smaller and single level,” Jim Sardi said.
The old house in Climax sits on a portion of about 48 acres the family has owned for years. Jim and Tammy love the area and figured they would just build a home on some of the lands. Most of the land is just woods and trees.
“We just decided to clear a small section just a bit down from our old house,” Sardi said.
The Sardi’s sold the old house and quickly made plans to build a smaller home. The plan was to move into the new home last November. The construction was only expected to take about six months since most of the house was being built in a factory.
The couple reached out to Duke Energy about running power to the lot back in April but agreed to use a generator for the build and have a line connected closer to the move-in date.
Sardi called Duke Energy in October to get a power line run to his home. The area is rural, but Sardi wasn’t led to believe it would be that complicated of a process.
They (Duke Energy) said okay we just need to get easements for overhead power lines approved by (one of your) neighbors,” Sardi said.
The power lines would run above the property and connect to Sardi’s home. There are only a couple of poles in the area, so options were limited. Sardi had reached out to his neighbors about the easements and the new construction.
One of the neighbors was his brother, while another was the family, to which he sold his old house. Sardi said he never heard back from any of the three neighbors, but all reached back out to Duke and denied access to the easements.
“I was shocked and unsure what to do,” Sardi said.
The house was completed by now but without the easements, Duke Energy could not run power to the home. The family had been renting a place after selling the old house and now had to extend their stay.
“It was costing us a lot of money,” Sardi said. “The ripple impact of not being able to move into the house is horrendous.”
The Sardi’s continued working with Duke Energy and the neighbors to devise a solution. It appeared the case may end up in court if something couldn’t be worked out.
By now, the calendar had turned from 2021 to 2022 and there was still no power to the home. The neighbors denied every request Duke made to use the easements to run the power lines.
On January 5th, the Sardi’s sent an email to our Call for Action Team at News 2 hoping we could help. Our team investigated the issue and spoke with the couple about it.
“We didn’t know what to do, we needed help,” Sardi said.
Our team contacted Duke Energy to better understand what was going on. We also got NCDOT about the issue. A spokesperson with NCDOT put us in contact with a regional supervisor who told us the lines could be run along the maintenance right of way they have access to.
“From the general statute we have the authority to grant (Duke Energy) approval to be inside of a maintenance right of way,” Bobby Norris from NCDOT said.
We then contacted a representative with Duke Energy and had someone from NCDOT also contact the power company. A couple of weeks later Duke Power sent a formal request to access the maintenance right of way and NCDOT granted an encroachment use.
“This is an important issue News 2 had been able to bring forward by helping us contact NCDOT and Duke Energy on our behalf,” Sardi said.
Duke Energy sent us several emails prior to and after the agreement was reached and the lines could be installed. Part of the delay involved the threat of litigation from the neighbors along with some perceived threats toward Duke workers.
An email sent by a Duke Spokesperson reads:
Duke Energy is committed to keeping customers informed about issues that could affect them. This situation is a dispute between property owners in which Duke Energy found itself in the middle and has been working to resolve with all parties. It is not a service issue or something that customers would commonly encounter.
Our service installation was delayed as the result of the property dispute, including a threat made to Duke Energy by one of the property owners. While we did receive one approved by the NCDOT to commence work, this remained a dynamic situation, and because of that, we had to first ensure that it was safe and practical for our Duke Energy crews to complete the project.
Duke Energy takes its obligation to provide reliable, safe energy to our customers very seriously. In this case, we worked closely to resolve the matter with all parties to resolve the matter in the safest, most efficient way possible.
The Sardi’s have been able to move into the house and are finally able to put this stressful situation behind them.