There is an old saying “Out of sight, out of mind” and that is very true when it comes to undertaking any sort of work which involves digging into the earth. Nobody knows for sure, but it is estimated that in the UK there are at least 1.5 million km of underground services in the UK – electricity, gas, water, sewers, telecoms, and so on – so they can literally be anywhere.
Yes,
we know there are obvious places like your local High Street where there will
be all of those in most cases, although, of course, some areas do not have gas.
But there are other places that you might not consider, such as your own front
garden!
Yes,
you have those services running into your home, don’t you? You may want to put
up a new fence along the front of your home, but do you know where those
services run? Probably not. Certainly, they may be at a greater depth than you
need to dig to install a few fence posts, but then how do you know?
But
when you are talking about construction work or digging down to repair existing
services, you just have no way of knowing what is under your feet. This is why
it is vital to undertake a thorough survey before beginning any sort of work
involving excavation, and yet it is estimated that over 40% of all such
excavation works are undertaken without a thorough search beforehand!
HSG47
The
Health & Safety Executive has produced a very good guide called HSG47.
Indeed, to use another old phrase, every business involved in any sort of
excavation work should “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest”HSG47.
One
should also obtain STATS – plans of underground services – from the utility
suppliers in the area, but these are insufficient on their own, for many
reasons. They can only be used as a guide.
It
is essential to undertake a thorough site survey using the CAT and
Genny before beginning the work. Clever as these tools are, they need
to be used in combination, and users also need to undertake proper instruction
in order to fully understand how to operate them.
At
Sygma Solutions, our purpose in life is to provide operatives with outstanding
training in the use of the CAT and Genny in all their modes so that you
can be confident when using them under any sort of conditions and also,
vitally, be aware of their limitations. They do have certain limitations and it
is critical to understand them so that no errors are made.
