Guess what happened today

[Hilldes]

 

[ProDave]

Was there a flash and a bang.

 

Who was digging for what?

[Moonshine]

Ouch, hopefully everyone is safe.

 

Who was responsible for service locations, and is there a bill to foot?

[Hilldes]

@ProDave @Moonshine My son was driving the digger.  We were just digging a small hole down the outside of a brick built manhole - to see what kind of soil pipe we need to connect into.  Basically the power cable came in a line above the soil pipe we were excavating then took a 90 degree turn just short of the manhole and then made its way past the manhole into the road. Will post a picture tomorrow showing the repair and the route the cable takes. 
 

There was no flash or bang as the digger pulled the cable out of a coupler. No one injured.
 

No mention as yet what this might cost.
 

The question is how to avoid this. I could hire a CAT scanner but not sure how effective they are. When UKPN came to do the survey before we disconnected the bungalow we ultimately demolished they really struggled to locate the cable entry point into the house- even with a signal generator. I spent a day digging a hole by hand but the cable was not there. They came back and with a very week signal from another CAT scanner we dug and located successfully. 
 

Who do you go to to get the route of all utilities across your property? And how accurate is this?

[Dave Jones]

you buy the map from the utility company, they are indicative only..

 

You CAT scan and keep a record off it. Then if you do hit and damage you can argue your case against costs. 

 

Your lucky with electric if it was BT you could be into tens of thousands.

 

http://www.digdat.co.uk/ is a good start.

[markc]

Wrong bucket on the digger, anytime digging around pipes and services use a bucket without teeth and you can feel everything. You only need teeth in bulk digging or rocky ground

[Hilldes]

Thanks for the digidat link @Dave Jones, looks like they only do water, and telecoms for my plot from a quick look but will have a fuller look later. As I now know where the electric and gas are at the garage end of the drive, and I now know there the electric cable is at the road end of the drive, we may just excavate by hand to expose the entire run. I know the locations of the sewer pipe and water and BT is overhead (until we duct it underground) so the risk now of hitting something should be low.

 

Thanks for the tip on the digger bucket @markc - will look to swap with the hire company.

[Conor]

Dial before you dig will tell you what utility companies have services in your search area, you can then go to them individually for maps of needed. But services to houses are notoriously unreliable. 

[Declan52]

I used to find services in roads and footpaths as a job. All the maps and service drawings are pretty much useless. Normally they are drawn to such a scale that the service could be anywhere between the hedge, path and first meter into the road. 

There is only so much you can do to scan the ground. Cat and gennny are the most useful but they won't pick up gas, water and sewer unless they have tracer tape above them. 

Hand digging is the only method to find something you don't want to hit but for a long trench it's just not going to work.

Use your eyes and look for manholes, telegraph poles, previous scars in the path or road, bt boxes etc. All the street furniture will give you a clue of what's down there. 

Even when taking all possible precautions you will still hit things. I have got covered in everything from water to number 1s and 2s, hit gas pipes,bt cables and the largest electric cable I've hit was 33kv which was a massive blue flash and a large hole in the digger bucket.

 

[Wil]

49 minutes ago, Declan52 said:

the largest electric cable I've hit was 33kv which was a massive blue flash and a large hole in the digger bucket.

 

That must have been a brown-trousers moment.

[ToughButterCup]

1 hour ago, Declan52 said:

...

Hand digging is the only method to find something you don't want to hit

...

 

Nearly, @Declan52, nearly. It's judging when to swap from digger to hand digging: that's the joke on this job. 

 

Does the Faraday Cage Effect work in a digger: suppose it must do  -  you've lived to tell the story, thank the Deities.

[Hilldes]

Pic of the repair, in the driveway facing the road, you can see the brick wall of the manhole on the driveway. The soil pipe entering the manhole should be another metre below the power cable. Now we know to connect in to the soil pipe we need to dig beneath the power cable.

 

The second pic is looking back from the manhole at the road end of the driveway to the garage, the electric and gas enter the garage to the right of the door. We may be digging this trench by hand just to confirm without doubt the route of power cable and gas pipe.

 

 

P.S. have hired a CAT scanner - as a minimum so I can say we used one if we did hit anything else. What I've learned from using it so far is:

1. It confirms what you think you know already - i.e that the cable runs in a straight line between manhole and the garage
2. It does not really confirm what you don't know already - i.e. the cable route for the short hop from the manhole to the road. I think maybe the cars on the drive had energised cables that were affecting to reading so will try again later.

 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

Couple of bent coat hangers stuck in some old biro pen cases.

They won't help, but if you do  miss all the buried services, you can claim they did, while stroking your wizard like beard.

Edited November 2, 2021 by SteamyTea

[markc]

Reminds me of when we were building the Motorola building near Bathgate … ground workers scuffed a cable … big fuss … hand digging only in that area …. Less than an hour later, pick through fire hydrant supply …. Fire pumps kick in and we have a geezer a few hundred feet high … that did far more damage than an excavator or 10 could.

Edited November 2, 2021 by markc

[billt]

30 minutes ago, markc said:

we have a geezer a few hundred feet high

 

Was that the bloke with the pick? That'll teach him.

[Declan52]

2 hours ago, Wil said:

 

That must have been a brown-trousers moment.

Massive blue flash and then the oh oh moment. Some kind soul had bought a field and stripped it out of hundreds of tonnes of sand and gravel and being the responsible land owner they filled in the 8m hole with medical waste. Next guys along to bring power to a factory dug across the field at barely 500 mm and kicked the cable in covered it over and said nothing. And then I got sent to it. Was near 5pm and had been digging in some lovely material and then bang. Had to dig round the cable to allow the repair team some sound footing to fix the cable. They where very quick that day. No standing at the side of that trench looking at the sky.

[Declan52]

2 hours ago, ToughButterCup said:

 

Nearly, @Declan52, nearly. It's judging when to swap from digger to hand digging: that's the joke on this job. 

 

Does the Faraday Cage Effect work in a digger: suppose it must do  -  you've lived to tell the story, thank the Deities.

As long as you're in the seat and not holding on to the metal frame your ok. A young lad was killed here a few years ago because he was standing at the door holding on to the frame when they hit a power cable. 

[Dave Jones]

3 hours ago, Hilldes said:

Pic of the repair, in the driveway facing the road, you can see the brick wall of the manhole on the driveway. The soil pipe entering the manhole should be another metre below the power cable. Now we know to connect in to the soil pipe we need to dig beneath the power cable.

 

The second pic is looking back from the manhole at the road end of the driveway to the garage, the electric and gas enter the garage to the right of the door. We may be digging this trench by hand just to confirm without doubt the route of power cable and gas pipe.

 

 

P.S. have hired a CAT scanner - as a minimum so I can say we used one if we did hit anything else. What I've learned from using it so far is:

1. It confirms what you think you know already - i.e that the cable runs in a straight line between manhole and the garage
2. It does not really confirm what you don't know already - i.e. the cable route for the short hop from the manhole to the road. I think maybe the cars on the drive had energised cables that were affecting to reading so will try again later.

 

 

 

 

do you think they updated the maps for next time ?

 

[Hilldes]

1 hour ago, Dave Jones said:

do you think they updated the maps for next time ?

 

Would be nice wouldn't it?. Right now we are painstakingly pulling off only the drive hardcore with the digger then digging the rest of the depth by hand to follow the route of the live gas and electric supplies. We have loads of flint in the ground - it's about as fast as an architectural dig. But still, once we have the live services fully identified, it should be quite straightforward to trench with the digger for the soil, surface water, water and BT.

[Hilldes]

Got the "LETTER OF CLAIM" from UK Power networks today for damage to their equipment "...caused by you or your agent's negligence.". Guess how much £?

[SteamyTea]

Well they are short of 45billion.

[Mr Punter]

7 minutes ago, Hilldes said:

Got the "LETTER OF CLAIM" from UK Power networks today for damage to their equipment "...caused by you or your agent's negligence.". Guess how much £?

 

£1200?

[TonyT]

Try to get out of it by

 

advising there was no warning tape?

the cable want at the appropriate depth?

[joe90]

7 minutes ago, TonyT said:

Try to get out of it by

 

advising there was no warning tape?

the cable want at the appropriate depth?

+1, always worth a try.

[Hilldes]

£493. Very reasonable I think given there were two men and two vans on site for around 5 hours until well after dark.