Any contractor who needs to undertake any
sort of groundwork or excavation is at risk of striking underground services.
These can be electricity cables, telephone cables, water pipes, gas pipes, sewers,
fibre optics, and more, and they can be found quite literally anywhere. Some
places are obvious, others not so. For example, if you are out in the country
and there is a small piece of woodland next to a lane you might think that
there would be no services running through it. However, it might just be the
shortest route to the next village or a farmhouse.
All contractors who are going to carry out
an excavation need to first undertake a survey of the area in order to
establish (a) if there is anything there, (b) if there is, where exactly it is
– including its’ depth, and (c) what sort of service it is.
There are a number of tools which can help
to identify and locate underground services, notably the CAT and the Genny, but
operatives who are going to use them need to be fully aware of how they work in
all their modes and, critically, their limitations – and they do indeed have
certain limitations.
All such operatives should undertake cable
avoidance training which should cover all of the above. People do talk
about cable avoidance, but it is not just related to electricity cables
but is used as a generic term to cover all underground services. You no more
want to strike a gas pipe than an electricity cable, nor yet a sewer or a water
pipe. You might think that striking a water pipe would not cause much harm, but
water under pressure can throw stones out of the soil and if one strikes you it
can do a lot of damage. There can also be serious flooding.
A cable avoidance course is essential for
anyone tasked with undertaking such surveys.
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