How to find someone to dig a trial hole.

mrlee

Bit of a long post, my apologies. I’ll try to cover the important bits.

Planning approved for a small extension (2.3 x 3.6) on the side of our house. Will end up being about 300mm or so from our fence.
Builder started work a few weeks ago, tore down the fence & dug about 80% of the foundations to a metre deep before being stopped by a “road patrol”
Turns out there is an oil pipeline that runs parallel with fence, approx 2 metres away. We had no idea it was there (wasn’t flagged by solicitor 10 years ago when we purchased, or by planning/ building regs earlier this year) but it has a 6m easement strip (3m either side of pipe) which prohibits us from erecting any structure within it. At their best reckoning the easement extends about a metre into our garden. They want us to pay to have a trial hole dug to determine the exact pipe location before we can enter into the process of applying for consent to continue the build (which they can refuse)
Found out tonight that the builder doesn’t want to dig the hole as he needs a min of £5million liability, the paperwork they sent him mentions £15 million for something. He’s (fairly enough) not interested in digging the hole anymore but that leaves us with the problem of trying to find someone to do it.
Should I be looking for another general builder? Are there companies that do this sort of thing?

The issue also remains that we’re committed in as far as having paid for an architect and planning fees, plus the first stage of building control. We needed a new fence anyway so I can discount the cost of that but I think we’re about £1200 in, plus whatever the builder wants for the work he’s done so far (plus hire of temporary fencing which is ongoing until we can get a proper fence erected) Part of me is considering filling the foundation trench in & abandoning the extension, especially as we might pay to locate the pipe then have the consent refused.

How much is this likely to cost to dig the trial hole? Needs to be about 1.2m deep (depending how deep the pipe is at this point) & something like 1m square. There is also some procedure that needs to be followed with regards to filling it back in (something to do with sand before the original soil I believe) & the pipeline company will supply a guy to over watch the digging.

Appreciate any thoughts,
lee

EachPenny

You're lucky the builder got stopped when they were. It is surprising the issue didn't get flagged up at the planning stage, even if the easement didn't ring any alarm bells.

You really need a company which specialises in ground investigations rather than a builder - have you asked the pipeline company if they have a list of approved contractors or someone they can suggest?

Some oil pipelines operate at very high pressure so the danger in disturbing the soil around them is the pipe loses its containment and ruptures - you can imagine the consequences.

Don't take shortcuts with the investigation work, and if you do decide to abandon the project, make sure you check with the company before filling the excavation in.

If you've not already found it, this site is useful -
http://www.linewatch.co.uk/facts.php

mrlee

I hadn’t seen that site but it seems to be along the lines of what I’ve been given. It’s frustrating that planning don’t check for pipelines, if it’s known a pipeline runs through an area you’d have thought it would be a standard check. The problem is that it’s down to the householder to know the pipe runs there which is stupid if you’ve not been told it runs there.

My initial thought was along the lines of ‘who on earth would want the responsibility of digging down to the pipeline?’ & that’s the position of our builder. We need to be mindful of the cost given that it could be knocked on the head ultimately for being in the easement.

I had previously assumed the company would use their own staff to dig the hole but they said I would need to find someone to dig down & they would need to meet criteria (risk assessments, liability insurance etc) I will ask if they have anyone they have used but suspect,that again, the onus will be on me.

It sounds as if a specialist contractor would be expensive - out of interest is £5 million liability a lot for this sort of work or just a standard amount they would have in place?

Thanks for your help,
lee

EachPenny

The approach of planning departments is a bit hit and miss (no pun intended). Some will map known special features or constraints so when a planning application is registered the system will automatically identify who needs to be consulted and/or if problems might be encountered. But the system doesn't always work which is why it was possible for planning consent to be given to a tall building requiring piled foundations directly on top of a railway tunnel in London. In that case work only stopped when a train driver noticed a hole in the tunnel roof.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/547c8fb940f0b60241000157/R032014_140213_Old_Street.pdf

If you read it that accident report also refers to the fact information from the Land Registry should have flagged up a potential issue - and in your case you should have been made aware of the easement, even if you didn't understand the full implications.

Hopefully the pipeline company will help you find an appropriate contractor, if not the best bet is to google some local companies and ask them if they can do that kind of work. £5M might sound like a lot, but if the company has the capability of doing the kind of work you need done then they are likely to have that level of insurance or above.

Something else to consider and discuss with the pipeline company is whether a ground penetrating radar survey might be suitable and sufficient. I suspect they want a trial hole to actually see and confirm the position of the pipe before they give you the consent. But if the pipe is likely to be within 3m of the foundation and you are unlikely to get the consent then for your purposes you only need to know the rough location, just to verify in your own mind that there is no point in proceeding.

Because it doesn't involve any digging and is relatively quick, a GPR survey should cost significantly less than a trial hole, but that depends on where the nearest company is, and also on the complexity of the arrangements required for digging the trial hole.

Furts

You need a reputable, local groundworks company to take on all this. My intuition is this will be costly. There will be all the administration, and meetings, plus the risks involved in the work for no subsequent gain to the contractor. Cost in supervision, overheads, a couple of workers perhaps for a couple of days, spoil removal, reinstatement, profit to reflect the risks, and you could be looking at £thousands.

Somebody has to fund the oil pipeline person watching the works - will this also be your responsibility?

mrlee

EachPenny wrote: »

Because it doesn't involve any digging and is relatively quick, a GPR survey should cost significantly less than a trial hole, but that depends on where the nearest company is, and also on the complexity of the arrangements required for digging the trial hole.

The road patrol guy used a scanner when he first visited. I’m told told the issue lies in that there are 2 pipes near each other & it distorts the signal, hence needing to actually see the pipe.

Furts wrote: »

You need a reputable, local groundworks company to take on all this. My intuition is this will be costly. There will be all the administration, and meetings, plus the risks involved in the work for no subsequent gain to the contractor. Cost in supervision, overheads, a couple of workers perhaps for a couple of days, spoil removal, reinstatement, profit to reflect the risks, and you could be looking at £thousands.

Somebody has to fund the oil pipeline person watching the works - will this also be your responsibility?

That was my first worry but our builder agreed to do the work. Once he received the criteria for carrying out the works he decided against it (no issue with that whatsoever as he’s just a small operation)
The pipeline company will supply a guy for 3 days for free to supervise I believe. Not sure if the over watching would need to be applied the completion of the foundations.
Spending too much on the hole digging isn’t realistic, especially as we get nothing more for our money than the ability to carry out the project as we believed we could initially.

Thanks for your help,
lee

EachPenny

mrlee wrote: »

The road patrol guy used a scanner when he first visited. I’m told told the issue lies in that there are 2 pipes near each other & it distorts the signal, hence needing to actually see the pipe.

I'd guess he was probably using a cat and genny which are affected by that kind of thing. You can get strange effects with the signal being induced into other services or parallel pipes. GPR surveys 'look' down through the ground, so whilst they are not centimetre perfect they usually allow crossing and parallel services to be distinguished. If that was what the guy was using and still couldn't work it out, then digging will be the only option.

Unfortunately having two pipes further complicates the digging option as both would need to be located and if they are at differing depths, consideration has to be given to protecting the ground supporting the higher pipe while digging deeper to find the other.

mrlee wrote: »

Spending too much on the hole digging isn’t realistic, especially as we get nothing more for our money than the ability to carry out the project as we believed we could initially.

Something else to consider is when you come to sell the property a purchaser may be concerned about the easement and the vagueness of where it actually lies. If you have to pay for a survey at that time you will get no benefit from it at all, other than the ability to sell the property.

Doing it now might mean you can have the use and enjoyment of the extension, plus the added value to the house, whilst having the information about the easement to hand when you come to sell.

mrlee

EachPenny wrote: »

Something else to consider is when you come to sell the property a purchaser may be concerned about the easement and the vagueness of where it actually lies. If you have to pay for a survey at that time you will get no benefit from it at all, other than the ability to sell the property.

Doing it now might mean you can have the use and enjoyment of the extension, plus the added value to the house, whilst having the information about the easement to hand when you come to sell.

Thank you EachPenny, you obviously know what you’re talking about.
I don’t foresee a sale of the house in the future for a few reasons to be honest. The whole project (from design through to completion inc a replacement fence) comes in at around 14.5k. We have a buffer of maybe 20% but it sounds as though this may be dented heavily by the pipe locating costs leaving little for any complications with the actual build.

I’ve spoken to the pipeline company this morning & they are going to find out if there is anyone they can point me towards for the dig.

Obviously the builder can’t wait forever, he’s currently juggling his jobs. The build should have been completed between 20th - 27th November so after this date I suspect it will be difficult for him to fit us in so we might have to go to the back of the queue.

Essentially this whole thing now hinges on the dig cost & if we can justify the risk of losing the money for the dig (although I appreciate this would give us knowledge of the exact pipe location)

Thanks for your help,
lee

Furts

You really need to pin down the oil pipeline folks. Whilst you will not get a definitive answer you may get a hint. You have to ask if your build is likely to be allowed. By logical reasoning it will be refused, after all that is why the easement exists. If the rules can easily be broken then there is little point having an easement on such things.

You may find you should abandon your extension, and thus not have to pursue the trial hole procedure. All the more so, now that you say two pipes may exist - which is logical because of logistics. But also consider the unknown - you do not know if other services are in the easement.

Also be brutally honest over your extension. A £14k budget is tiddly in building terms, so is a contingency of around £2.5k. If you said the trial hole works in total came to £5k I would not be surprised. Indeed that is the budget figure I have in mind.

It does sound like you are opening a can of worms here. Were it high value building, on prime land like London i can understand pursuing the trial holes, but on a £14K extension going for a redesign and avoiding easements strikes me as a logical move.

However if you give a location folks on the forum may come up with reputable groundworkers names. These are not plentiful - many contractors are out there, but not many I would recommend, and I work with some of them!

EachPenny

Furts wrote: »

You really need to pin down the oil pipeline folks. Whilst you will not get a definitive answer you may get a hint. You have to ask if your build is likely to be allowed. By logical reasoning it will be refused, after all that is why the easement exists. If the rules can easily be broken then there is little point having an easement on such things.

If I've understood the OP correctly, it isn't a case of obtaining permission to build within the easement, it is confirming the extension would be outside of it. The consent is then related to carrying out works in proximity to the pipeline, even if the actual structure is outside the actual easement area.

For example, the pipeline companies like to be aware of certain agricultural works within about 50m of a pipe running across fields... primarily because these pipes are capable of leaking many tonnes of fuel per minute. A 100ft high fountain of petrol in your back garden is not the kind of landscaping feature most people would want

mrlee wrote: »

Thank you EachPenny, you obviously know what you’re talking about.

I'm not an expert, and haven't dealt with this issue on a domestic scale, but I did come across the issue with a highway project at a time when the location of the pipeline network was not something that was generally in the public domain. I got a very strange phone call from someone who wanted to meet me on site... all very cloak and dagger

But I was involved for many years in identifying and tracing utility equipment and the same rules apply. There's stuff in the ground that can do you and your property serious damage if you start digging holes without first finding out what's under you.

mrlee

Furts wrote: »

Also be brutally honest over your extension. A £14k budget is tiddly in building terms, so is a contingency of around £2.5k. If you said the trial hole works in total came to £5k I would not be surprised. Indeed that is the budget figure I have in mind.

You’re quite right, it is a tiddly budget but it’s what we have to work with. The garden isn’t very big & the proposed placement of the extension is realistically the only place it could go.

EachPenny wrote: »

If I've understood the OP correctly, it isn't a case of obtaining permission to build within the easement, it is confirming the extension would be outside of it. The consent is then related to carrying out works in proximity to the pipeline, even if the actual structure is outside the actual easement area.

Yep, this would be the ideal scenario. Seems we’re had a bit of luck in that the pipeline closest to us is actually abandoned which gives us a bit more room to play with.