The Need For CAT And Genny Training

It is a fact that there are many, many miles of underground services in the UK, carrying electricity, gas, water, sewage, telephone cables, fibre-optics, and more. Nobody really knows exactly how many miles there are, but it is at least 1.5 million and may in fact be a lot more.

Furthermore, they can also be anywhere – even in what might seem like the most unlikely places. What that means is that wherever you are going to dig you first have to undertake a survey in order to see if there are any services there and where they run, how deep they are, if possible, and what sort of services they are.

For this, you need two tools – the CAT and Genny – used in combination. The CAT has different modes of detection but what it can locate on its’ own is limited. This is why the CAT has to be used in combination with the Genny – short for signal generator. The Genny can apply a signal to different types of utility which can then be detected by the CAT so when working together they will locate a lot more than using the CAT on its’ own. Even then, there are certain limitations which is why anyone undertaking survey work using the two tools needs to attend a CAT and Genny course in order to fully understand not only how they operate together, but also – possibly more importantly – what the limitations are.

It is possible for them to return a negative result when there is, in fact, a utility there. In terms of the amount of excavations carried out every year this doesn’t happen all that often, but nonetheless there are around 60,000 cable strikes every year, a dozen or so of them fatal, and quite a lot more causing serious injury, so a CAT and Genny training course is essential.

Understanding The Limitations Of Buried Utility Detection Tools.

Any contractor who is going to become involved in any sort of excavation or digging must be aware that there is always the chance of striking an underground cable, gas pipe, water pipe, sewer, and more. These utilities can be absolutely anywhere, even in places that on the face of it seem very unlikely. Fair enough, if you are digging in a street full of shops or in a residential close, it is fairly obvious that there will be electricity cables, sewer pipes, water pipes, and so on, but they can be literally anywhere.

What that means is that it is necessary to take every precaution in order to ascertain if there are utilities where you are going to dig, and if there are to locate exactly where they run. Fortunately, there are several tools that can help to locate underground services such as the Cable Avoidance Tool, or CAT, the signal generator, known as the Genny, and so on.

One tool that is frequently used is the Vivax Metrotech vScan which, according to the manufacturers, has been designed to make buried utility detection simple and cost-effective. They say that you don’t need to be an electronics expert to get the best out of it, as the main controls and features are in keeping with industry standards. However, as with all these tools you really do need training in how to use them in their various modes, and vScan training is no different.

Part of the problem is that you need to understand the limitations of these tools – and they DO have imitations. For instance, one thing which seems obvious when you understand why is that you may get a negative reading and believe there is nothing there. However, if the tool can only read to a certain depth and the utility is below that depth you will get a negative reading!

Striking underground services when digging can be fatal

When you are a contractor who is often called upon to undertake any sort of works which involve breaking the ground, you have to be extremely careful to avoid striking any underground services. This might seem an obvious thing to say, but the fact remains that there are somewhere around 60,000 strikes of underground services every year – about 230 every single working day up and down the country.

This is not just in order to avoid damage to the services themselves, although that’s bad enough, it is all the other problems which can arise, not the least of which is an injury to the worker or workers who cut into or damage the service. Serious injury happens frequently, and there are around a dozen fatalities every year just as a result of striking underground services.

Depending whose figures you believe, there are anywhere up to 1.5 MILLION kilometres of underground services in this country, so they can be anywhere. Even if it is not 1.5 million, it is certainly above one million marks. OK, we all expect to find electricity cables, telephone cables, water pipes, sewage trunking, gas pipes, and so on in the local high street. But services can be found anywhere, even in places where you would NOT expect to find them.

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