Best tool for tracing telephone cables before starting ground works

[BogBeast]

I am going to be clearing land and digging foundations before too long. The arear where I am digging is free of the usual important services (no gas mains, sewers electricity, fibre etc) but there is a telephone line that is 'somewhere' . I would rather not find it with the bucket of my digger, as the landline is till in use (at least for now).

 

A multicore cable terminates at a BT box (picture attached) and then goes off into the ground. I looks like at least a couple of the wires are unused. 

Can anyone suggest some sort of tracer that I can (preferably something pro that I can hire rather than something too DIY off of eBay) use to trace the cable route?

 

Many Thanks

 

 

[Dave Jones]

you need a cat scanner. you can hire them from the local hss/brandon.

 

make sure you get it with a 'genny' this will come with a clip so you can clip it onto one of the BT wires and it send a signal down it to make detecting it underground very accurate.

[markc]

Not easy tracing telephone wires, but if this isn’t in a duct I suspect it is only a few inches down and easy to follow/pull up. Scrape out around where it goes into ground, get an idea of direction it goes and then work your way along pulling and spade or trowel to get it out of the ground.

[BogBeast]

 

On 27/10/2022 at 07:51, Dave Jones said:

you need a cat scanner. you can hire them from the local hss/brandon.

 

make sure you get it with a 'genny' this will come with a clip so you can clip it onto one of the BT wires and it send a signal down it to make detecting it underground very accurate.

 

Thanks @Dave Jones, hopefully by energising one of the spare wires I wont upset the BT cabinet

 

On 27/10/2022 at 08:01, markc said:

Not easy tracing telephone wires, but if this isn’t in a duct I suspect it is only a few inches down and easy to follow/pull up. Scrape out around where it goes into ground, get an idea of direction it goes and then work your way along pulling and spade or trowel to get it out of the ground.

I think the cable goes for about 200m before it gets to the area of where I will be digging, so this is definitely going to be my fall back solution 🙂