Gas main replacement - digging up drive

ericonabike

Just had a letter from National Grid to say they will be replacing the metal gas main in my street with plastic. All good, except that it goes on to say...

"If the service pipe that supplies your property is metallic it will be necessary to replace it with a new plastic pipe AND WE MAY NEED TO DIG IN YOUR GARDEN OR DRIVEWAY ALONG THE ROUTE OF THE EXISTING PIPE".

As we have recently paid £2k to get the drive properly tarmaced, this caused us a little concern. I rang NG, who said they would 'make good' but not retarmac the drive. Which would leave us with a 'scar' on the drive. I've asked for their surveyor to call in advance of the works, to tell us exactly what would be required, but in the meantime thought I'd see if any MSE members have had a similar experience and what the outcome was.

tim9966

Could they do it under any grass? I've had to have mine dug up twice within a year, once for gas, then again for BT but both times they did it under grass which fully recovered within a few months.


They may be able to use a mole machine, which tunnels under the ground without the need for a trench to be dug.

greyteam1959

They usually push the new plastic pipe up the inside of the old metal pipe.
Much cheaper & quicker than digging a trench.
Might have to dig up at either end to make the connections.
If you are unlucky though they may have to dig your new driveway up !!
HTH

Alzibiff

Same issue here but a slightly different question.... On the day work finished to lay a resin drive after months of planning, we got notice that National Grid would be replacing metal service pipes for gas with plastic ones within the month and that this may involve digging on the drive. A week later we got a letter, dated 10th November, to say that if we were planning any work to be done in the garden or on the drive, we should consider postponing it until after NG had finished. On the same day, a note pushed through the door said that the work would be done today, 13th November and that they would need access to the meter (which is in our garage).

Too little too late - any advice? This project must have been on their books for months and it seems very unreasonable to give householders notice of a matter of days.

Currently waiting to find out whether they need to dig the drive or can get away with digging out a hole in the garage floor in order to get the new plastic pipe in place. Fingers crossed.

Robin9

I've been on the other end of this as a Design Engineer for an Electricity Board making arrangements for work on private property only for the job to be postponed or even cancelled. Heads you win, tails you loose.

Alzibiff

I guess that my question centres around this: can National Grid (or their subcontractor) get away with giving a couple of days notice? I would have thought that their regulator would have imposed a minimum period of notification to consumers which was something in the order of 2, maybe 3 months in order to give people the chance to postpone resurfacing works.

I don't want to do it as it would be an imposition but I feel a complaint letter coming on .....

redux

It was done here 3 or 4 years ago.

They dug holes in the road or pavement at all the joints, cut them, fed plastic pipe through inside the iron, and redid the joints. I have a feeling they didn't like the existing feed to the house, which incidentally was under a concrete path, and they shoved the new pipe through the ground separately with some kind of remote controlled mole machine.

matelodave

We had a similar situation several years ago in our previous house and they managed to push the plastic pipe through the steel one so there was no need to dig up the drive or garage floor.