Morning all,

I need some help, recently there have been a number of cable strikes (mostly water), the guys are all trained in CAT & Genny (I know water cannot be detected), they know how to read the drawings, all sites issued with HSG47, management informed of the procedure, and in the last month there has been 3 strikes.

I just dont know what to do from here. I think its down to operatives behaviour and their attitude might be 'ah sure its only water'....

Can anyone give me advise as to where to go on this one??

Thanks

Thanks for your reply Stevie40.

No trace ribbon on the pipe in question, drawings obtained and location of water pipes not marked up, training was carried out in the new year (this year), works are planned, and supervised, I personally think there is just a behavioural issue with the guys in site.
Its like I've hit a brick wall on the matter though, and I just wanted some advise.
Perhaps behavioural training is required.

you would think that the financial side would be enough to stop this, but it doesnt seem to be an issue, repairs are done, and nothing is said, I have had enough, as I feel these water strikes are warnings of what could happen, but no-one else (at present) is thinking along my lines, I'm having a meeting on site tomorrow with the PM to discuss in full what is going on, and then I'm tackling the MD, I can shout, but sometimes the MD's shout seems to be heard better

I am so worried that something will happen, I have been told that everything was in place, and trial holes were done, and they still managed to hit these pipes, tomorrow will tell a lot though, as this is 3 strikes in a month, thats not on at all. and its on one site. perhaps the gang need a shake up, or managment.

Possibly the most accurate statement on here for a while.

Hi Lawlee, for what its worth.

We have just finished laying a high voltage cable between Ireland & Wales with about 40km buries in roads in Wales and the same in Ireland. We had a big problem with the contractor hitting services all over the place and all the investigations and trend analysis pointed to 2 things:

1. The crews were all trained and had all the right equipment but choose to ignore the method statements.
2. They were paid per meter, i.e. Benefit from pushing progress outweighed minor repair costs.

I'm pretty sure you will find this is a behavioural issue, might also be condoned by supervisor so you will want to check that out.

Forgot to say, if they have had 3 strikes, make it a disciplinary offence for a service
We did this years ago and service strikes dropped to an all time low.
Of course no one then wanted to be responsible for scanning anything, but thats a different story.
Our service strike record were part of our tender process, so it was explained to everyone,that if we continued to hit services, we wouldnt win any work, and we wold all be out of a job.
Service strike paperwork generated so much paperwork it was un real due this affecting winning work

I'm now in this trade too (but water) and we regularly strike services 7 since April gas / electricity (not live) & telecom (regularly 2-6" below the surface, or even under an inch of tarmac. No major problems / minor injuries yet - some delays, but no big deal.

In my short time, I've learnt that site plans are poor - have you tried getting plans out-of-hours from BT? If so were you successful?

We regularly dig up old iron water pipes and asbestos is very common and I've even seen a roman wooden water pipe!! We've kept 2 x 10' ones in our offices - doubt whether they were picked up by CAT scanning !

We retrain our guys every 3 years + tool box talk every 6 months + daily / pre-use CAT scanner tests - we really do trust to due diligence by the small teams & always interview the teams post incident.

I'd be interested to know if anyone uses ground penetration radar - especially for small jobs (a team may do 4/5 digs / day - sometimes unplanned, so forget "Permit to Dig"). Where would these be used? Can't believe utility companies employ personnel bright enough to dig & use radar.

Apologies Tony,

The ... forget "Permit to Dig"... was not intended for all industries; for most non-utilities industries I would advocate it wholeheartedly. I was trying to imply that the "Permit to Dig" is not always appropriate to certain utilities companies, such as ours (water) when a team has to do a number of small jobs every day and/or respond to emergency call outs to repair leaks. For these we rely on a dynamic risk assessment by the members.

Larger & planned works always require a "Permit to Dig" - where then project engineer and supervisor can be called upon to review the work area in advance

Hi lawlee,

I am assuming that your guys are striking plastic/PPE water service rather than mains. Reasons being that these services are not normally listed on plans and plastic are untraceable with CAT/Genny. Cast iron and other metallic pipes should be able to be picked up by CAT and Genny on Radio mode if used correctly as these materials do emits radio waves which can be picked up by the Genny. In our own company experience has shown that most of the guys don’t normally bother to use their Genny’s to trace services and this contributes towards a lot of the strikes we have. Another issue is safe digging practices; again not all teams follow HSG47 therefore we have safety behavioural issues. To minimise the potential of utility strikes we put our teams through COP 2 (developed by the electric board back then) which establish the safe digging practices to employing when excavating near live electrical apparatus and the 0.5m restriction cannot be enforced; mechanical aid has to be used to break the surface – tarmac, concentrate, hard ground, etc. COP 2 requires the guys to mark 300mm up to the outer most utility service identified (by plans, CAT & Genny, etc) and marked out on the ground. This 300mm is the limit to which power tools are allowed from the outer most service identified. Operates are then permitted to break the surface up to the 300mm marked using powered tool and then use hand tools to ‘tunnel under’ surface of the 300mm marked and excavated by hand until they physically established the location and dept of the service they identified. We require our teams to employ this technique along with HSG547 safe digging practices for all excavations activities but the findings from many utility strikes investigations reveals that they often don’t, however whenever they do our strike rates fall dramatically.