Locating Underground Utilities Before Undertaking Groundwork Is Critical

If you are the director of a contracting company that is engaged in any sort of ground work you will no doubt be very aware of the necessity for locating underground pipes and cables before undertaking any actual digging. Even so, you may not be aware of the appalling number of cable strikes that occur in Britain every year. Estimates vary, but an often quoted figure is around 60,000. Several of these result in serious injury and death.

Of course, the cost of repairs is one thing, but the University of Birmingham produced a report in January 2016 (http://assessingtheunderworld.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/IBuild-Cost-of-Strikes-Report-General-Anonymised-FINAL-1.pdf) which indicated that there is a ratio of 29 – 1. In other words, if you have a cable strike which costs £1,000 to repair, the true cost in terms of indirect and social costs such as downtime on site, loss of business by companies affected, and a whole lot more, is £29,000. 

It follows that locating and identifying underground utilities through the use of a CAT and Genny is critical in reducing the number of these incidents. The combined network of underground utilities – gas, water, electricity, telecoms, sewage – totals over 1.5 million km. This is five times the length of the UK road network. Furthermore, the utility industry undertakes about the same number – 1.5 million – of street works every year in order to maintain and upgrade the various systems. 

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Training In The Use Of The Vivax Metrotech VLoc Pro

The Vivax Metrotech VLoc Pro is an advanced tool that helps operators to quickly and accurately detect buried utilities. The Vloc Pro uses dual core processing and co-located antennae to ensure optimal performance. Vloc training is vital in order to learn how to use the tool to its’ fullest effect, and at the same time understand its’ limitations.

There are far too many cable strikes in the UK from contractors digging without being fully aware of cables and utilities underneath, the type of utility, and the depth at which it is located. Even one cable strike would be one too many, but the fact is that there are thousands every year, many ending in serious injury, and there are a dozen or so deaths every year as well. Professional Vloc Pro training can help to avoid some of these dreadful incidents.

Considerable emphasis is put on classroom Vivax training so that the operatives understand the need for surveying underground utilities, together with the guidelines of HSG47, and how they should conduct a survey to comply with the rules. Operatives should learn how to understand buried services STATS plans in order to gain some idea of the routes of underground utilities. They also learn about electromagnetic theory and the way that it is used in locating buried pipes and cables.

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