Cables buried in the garden!

retepetsir

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Doesnt BS7671 only apply to installations beyond the DNO supplier fuse?

Yes indeed it does

force_ten

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Doesnt BS7671 only apply to installations beyond the DNO supplier fuse?

that may be the case but we dont know yet if this is a local supply cable owned by the power company or if it is a bodge carried out by a previous owner, we have very little information as to what type of cable it is

but one thing is for sure if it a live cable be it power or telecoms it should not be buried one inch below the surface and rectifying it should not cost the homeowner anything

the utility company cant charge you for damage caused to a buried cable which does not meet the minimum depth requirement

Justicia

C_Mababejive wrote: »

Doesnt BS7671 only apply to installations beyond the DNO supplier fuse?

Yep; this is the reason that I also added the requirements from ESQCR alongside BS 7671 in my earlier post

missprice

force_ten wrote: »

but one thing is for sure if it a live cable be it power or telecoms it should not be buried one inch below the surface and rectifying it should not cost the homeowner anything

the utility company cant charge you for damage caused to a buried cable which does not meet the minimum depth requirement

Thanks for this info. I have an armoured cable running through my front garden from next door. In my garden its maybe 3 inches below the surface. From next doors garden I can see it come out because his garden is maybe 2 feet higher than mine. Scared the bejeezus out of me when I first saw it.

Have traced it all the way to my electric meter and although it bothers me personally not at all, I do worry that him next door will plunge me into darkness one day.

force_ten

what happened a lot is when estates were being built the utility companies provided cable and duct and the like and left it to the developer to bury the cables, this should have been inspected but often wasnt

I used to live on an estate where the BT/Openreach cables were direct buried non armored cable under about two inches of tarmac on the footpath, with buried joints for customer feeds and every time anybody put a stihl saw into the tarmac they cut straight through the cable meaning days without telephone or internet

the cabling on the estate was a complete joke carried out by the estate developer in the 70,s and it was never picked up by Post Office Telecoms as it was in the early 70,s

moneyistooshorttomention

On a related tack, as regards electric cables that are up there in mid-air and attached to the outside of houses:eek:, then I'm guessing that isn't a problem per se - unless those "up in the air" cables have trees growing up touching them.

I'm feeling more than a little nervous about walking past a house like this (complete with the pole the electric cables are running from being sited there in the pavement).

Is this something I should be worried about and making sure, accordingly, that I walk the other side of the road?

I've just got visions of a day with both lots of wind and lots of rain and those electric cables blowing around near those trees and wondering if its possible for the electric to "travel back down the electric pole" in the pavement right by where people walk.

Am I right to be concerned on this or no?

missprice

force_ten wrote: »

what happened a lot is when estates were being built the utility companies provided cable and duct and the like and left it to the developer to bury the cables, this should have been inspected but often wasnt

I used to live on an estate where the BT/Openreach cables were direct buried non armored cable under about two inches of tarmac on the footpath, with buried joints for customer feeds and every time anybody put a stihl saw into the tarmac they cut straight through the cable meaning days without telephone or internet

the cabling on the estate was a complete joke carried out by the estate developer in the 70,s and it was never picked up by Post Office Telecoms as it was in the early 70,s

This is an 80s estate. When I found the cable last year ( by digging up the garden ready to pave it) I called the council, they said it can't be live cos the cable is supposed to run down the street.

So I chased it and saw that it went pretty close to my meter ( could not look any closer without digging up stuff I don't want to dig). Called them again, they didn't want to know and as its not a problem for me I left it alone. Am now thinking before I pave anymore of the garden I should maybe look at getting it sorted.

Or should I just forget about it til next door does something stupid like gets a digger in?

moneyistooshorttomention

Personally, I'd get it sorted now, as next door wont regard it as "something stupid" to get a digger in if that's what they decide to do. They will just do it, ie because they know that cables will be far enough underground for it not to matter.....until they discover the bit of "inefficiency" that caused them not to be...:eek:

Take my word for it, there are lots of us out there who "know" cables will only be where they are supposed to be..and therefore won't be on the lookout for them being anywhere else (well...you have to trust that the odd person knows how to do their job properly and will do so once in a while....).

lstar337

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

On a related tack, as regards electric cables that are up there in mid-air and attached to the outside of houses:eek:, then I'm guessing that isn't a problem per se - unless those "up in the air" cables have trees growing up touching them.

I'm feeling more than a little nervous about walking past a house like this (complete with the pole the electric cables are running from being sited there in the pavement).

Is this something I should be worried about and making sure, accordingly, that I walk the other side of the road?

I've just got visions of a day with both lots of wind and lots of rain and those electric cables blowing around near those trees and wondering if its possible for the electric to "travel back down the electric pole" in the pavement right by where people walk.

Am I right to be concerned on this or no?

Yeah, the pavements where I live are littered with corpses after a bit of rain.

You would think by now that somebody would have done something about this health and safety issue.

---

On a serious note, the electricity cannot travel back down the pole to a pavement.

Follow this link: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/science/physical_processes/circuits_conductors/read/1/

To learn a little more about insulators and conductors.

force_ten

missprice wrote: »

This is an 80s estate. When I found the cable last year ( by digging up the garden ready to pave it) I called the council, they said it can't be live cos the cable is supposed to run down the street.

So I chased it and saw that it went pretty close to my meter ( could not look any closer without digging up stuff I don't want to dig). Called them again, they didn't want to know and as its not a problem for me I left it alone. Am now thinking before I pave anymore of the garden I should maybe look at getting it sorted.

Or should I just forget about it til next door does something stupid like gets a digger in?

it might be worth getting somebody out to look at it and see what they say

google the name of your local power distribution company and Dial before you dig, and see if they have a number that you can call or an e mail address where you can contact them

as for your neighbour you said his garden is two foot higher than yours so the cable could well be two foot deeper on his side of the fence

earlier this year I applied to drop the kerbs of my property and as part of this we had to pay for utility searches so the contractor knew the location of services in the pavement before digging

the one we received from the power company was a complete joke and they obviously had no idea where the local supply to our house was located, the map had a dotted line line marked assumed route of supply which ended at the gas meter cabinet, well the actual cable is located six meters to the left of their assumed route following the property boundary around to the back of the house and entering the property in the utility room

good job we didn't follow the health and safety print they supplied, I had an idea of where the power supply was buried so we track located the cable and marked its actual location before doing any digging in the garden