PAS256 - the New Code of Practice for Buried Utilities

The precise mapping of buried cables and pipes is required for avoiding damage by contractors or workers undertaking excavations. There are over 3 million highway excavations carried out each year, but very little guidance for the owners of assets on how best to manage the data records. This leads to excavations that are unnecessary.

PAS256 is the publicly available specification that has been created to capture, record, maintain and share data and the location information of buried assets. This is a code of practice that is curated to address the reliability, variable quality and availability of the existing data. PAS also provides recommendations on how the recording, capturing and maintaining data related to underground utility services can be improved. PAS256 is intended to be used alongside PAS128. If you are not aware, PAS128 is applicable to abandoned, active, redundant or even unknown buried utilities and the precise location of their surface features.

With the new PAS256 in place, contractors and workers are required to sign up for PAS256 training. Without proper knowledge of this practice code, safe excavation cannot be carried out and that might result in grave injuries, reputation loss and steep financial losses.

There are several professional training companies providing well-designed PAS256 course under the guidance of experienced professionals. Get enrolled and be able to create a safe working environment for yourself, your workers and bystanders. Proper expertise and knowledge ensure that the risks associated with cable strikes can be reduced or prevented.

Know How Cable Avoidance Training Helps

The ground is filled with millions of buried utilities. Without knowing the precise location of the underground utility services, you cannot begin your excavation or digging project. A thorough survey of the area to be excavated is crucial if you want your project to be completed smoothly and without any accidents, such as cable strikes. Striking and damaging buried utilities can be life-threatening, along with causing a massive delay on project completion, temporary interruption of utility services for the buildings nearby and financial losses for the company. The utility company might even ask the contractor to replace the utility cables before starting the excavation project.

In the UK, more than 60,000 utility strikes are reported on a yearly basis. Even when cable strikes are not posing a life risk, it is a huge loss of finances and gives a bad reputation to the company carrying out the excavation project. Such unfortunate situations can be avoided if the contractor undertakes professional CAT course and becomes a certified surveyor.

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You Can’t Train A Cat, Can You?

You may have seen companies advertising cat training and laughed out loud. Surely it is not possible to train a cat? If you have ever kept one you will know that you can train it to arrive at the kitchen door when it is feeding time, but that’s about it. You most certainly can’t train a cat to do much else, as you could a dog. For instance, you can’t train a cat to round up sheep. Cat’s do their “own thing”. It has often been said that you don’t own a cat – the cat owns you!

However, the cat training we are referring to here is training in the use of the CAT - Cable Avoidance Tool – which is essential knowledge for anyone engaged in the location of underground services. As a contractor undertaking any sort of work which involves digging into the ground – whether by hand or the use of a machine such as a JCB – it is vital to establish whether there are underground services before you try to remove an inch of soil.

To assist with doing this there are two main tools, the CAT and Genny (Signal Generator). Used in combination, they can locate a very large percentage of underground services, although even then they can miss some for a variety of reasons.

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As A Contractor, You Need To Be Aware Of Underground Services

When you are a contractor who engages in any sort of excavation work – even if it is only going down a couple of feet – you need to be aware of the ever-present problem of underground services. They can be literally anywhere. Of course, there are a lot of places where you would expect to find them, such as in any high street or residential street, because they all have telephone cables, electricity cables, sewer pipes, and water pipes running through them, and there may be gas pipes, fibreoptic cables, and more.

It is thought that there are at least a million kilometres of underground services in the UK, and you can also find them in places that you might not expect to, such as out in the country or a remote Scottish island with few inhabitants.

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Vscan Training from Sygma Solutions

When undertaking any sort of excavation work it is critical to avoid striking any underground services. This is not just to avoid damage to the services themselves, although that is important. Striking a telephone cable, for instance, could bring a whole area of business to a halt – unable to use the internet or deal with customers. An electricity cable could have the same effect on manufacturers.

If you are a contractor and are responsible for striking underground utilities, at the very least you will have men standing around idle doing nothing until the utility has sent a team out to carry out repairs. You may also suffer penalties in addition.

However, while that is bad enough, more important is the danger to life and limb. Striking electricity cables and gas pipes can have very serious consequences often resulting in severe injury to contractors, and on occasion can be fatal. There are around 60,000 underground utility strikes every year – and that is even with all the equipment that we have to help locate them.

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How to Reduce Utility Strikes?

It is widely estimated that each year 60,000 utility strike takes place in the UK. The accidental striking of buried utility assets like, gas and water pipelines or electric cables results in temporary interruption of services, reputation loss and project delays. It also causes grave injuries to the workers on the site and people around it. It makes for an unsafe working environment. The main reasons for cable strikes are:

• Behavioural issues on the worksite during the excavation work
• Not being aware of the risks in the excavation before commencing work
• Not carrying out a thorough survey of the place and inspection of existing underground utility assets

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