Posted By TomP Well perhaps not hell - more like frustration but can anyone add their tuppence worth??? We excavate trial pits and drill holes on private land (factories, gardens, brownfield developments etc.). Most of the time the client has no plans of the electrics or gas on site but assures us there is nothing there. Industry accepted practice is ‘no utility plans’ but dig a starter pit to just beyond a metre then excavate or drill, scanning the area with a CAT as you go. Problems: 1. CATs don’t pick up all cables, pipes etc. 2. Services can be deeper than normal if landscaping or resurfacing has been done We have recently developed a safe system of work (based on HSG47 which demands plans as part of the safe system of work) which states that even where the client has no plans for the site we still need utility plans (gas and electric) for the surrounding area in addition to a CAT and hand digging (just in case anything crosses the land). It also allows us to stick signal generators on cables / pipes indicated on the plans and trace them across our site or not. Our clients are going up the wall because we are demanding utility plans for the surrounding area before we mobilise to site. I think it is a case of the industry being way behind the guidance but they think it is us being over the top. I think I’ve answered my own questions but please discuss: 1. Should requests for utility plans include areas surrounding private land? 2. Any other draw backs with not having plans? 3. Any good examples where lack of plans caused problems? 4. What do you do?

Posted By Ron Hunter I think you should rest assured you're doing the right thing. Client pressures aside, there is no reason why HE couldn't have arranged (or maybe via Designers/CDM-C)that these plans and any necessary preliminary works were avaiable in good time to negate Project hold ups. Perhaps your Client should consider the cost to them (in terms of money and reputation) should a high pressure gas main be broken...........

Posted By Wayne Pitt In Australia we have a group called "Dial Before You Dig" DYBD ..anyhow you contact them & they let all possible utility companies know what you're doing. The utilities then send you plans of what they have. This can alleviate the dramas & possible some responsibility back onto the utilities. Have a look at their website www.dialbeforeyoudig.com.au We also employ professional locator's & get landowners to sign off stating that you have taken all reasonable steps to locate etc.

Posted By Bruce Wayne As pointed out earlier, where CDM applies and your client should be providing with the information. If it has been included in your contact, you should be given sufficient time and resources to plan the work accordingly. I would definitely be asking the CDMC to do their job!! We used ground penetrating radar to survey a few sites in the past. It was good on green field sites, but inconclusive on brownfield sites due to old buried structures and foundations which were not easy to identify from utility services. Armed with these results, we knew where to pilot excavate by hand and where clear to go straight to work with excavators. The system can be expensive. Hope this helps, Bruce

Posted By MAK The client is required to supply all available information pertinent to the site. This should apply to adjacent areas or any property likley to be affected by the project or any business or property which could have a diverse impact on the project. He supplies this to the CDM-C for inclusion to the pack.. However.... what usually happens is that the initial design process sometimes can take a long period of time. So for example even when the service information is sourced and if it was surprisingly up-to-date, there would still be a requirement transferred to the Principal Contractor to ensure the validity of the information to mitigate any risk. I like Merv's answer and he's right. it is well known in the industry that any service information available is usually out-dated. I'm with Bruce also, the key is that you must be given sufficient resource to do your job, and this should always be a key consideration when developing your fee proposal. Always look very closely to see how this has been addressed in the tender documentation you receive. I'd be interested to hear how your client "assures" you, there is nothing there? He has key responsbilities under various Regs to ensure your safety etc etc, Is he putting himself in the firing line by making non-valid, non-defendable "assumptions" that there is absolutely no risk of encountering services on any bit of land, without demonstrating how is he reaching these conclusions?

Posted By TomP Thanks for all the input. It looks as though my requests for statutory utility plans are justified. I agree with the points related to CDM and the clients responsibilities re information and mobilisation times. Doesn't cut much ice with the clients however as they don't see our work as construction (actually neither do most of our managers and engineers) but my propaganda program rolls on in a bid to educate them. As an aside you'll be amazed at the number of people who are willing to sign a disclaimer to the effect that 'if you hit something we'll take responsibility'. So they’ll go to court for us against the HSE if we kill someone??? …… You can see them running for the hills even now…..! Doubly amazing were the number of managers on our business that thought disclaimers would be okay as well…

Posted By peter gotch 1 HiTom, For 20+ years we have had Suziephone in a large part of the Central Belt of Scotland. One phone call and you get what the statutory utilities know. Subsequent legislation [at home, so don't ask me to quote - and will be too busy next week] effectively requires Susiephone but with improvements across the whole of G.B. [Not sure about Northern Ireland] Has yet to happen. So HSG47 approach. 1. Get what you can re U/G services 2. CAT and Genny. [Not least since 1. likely to be out of date and in any case inaccurate for all sorts of reasons, incluing other utilities having moved them] 3. Save digging practice In broad terms....... Better to hit an U/G cable with a machine. [electricity supply authority might not agree but their view takes account of other priorities!] Need to make sure that the excavator driver knows to stay put in nice insulated cab in the event of cable strike and that others do not touch machine. Conversely, if you are going to breach a gas main, do it by hand - much smaller leak. A few years ago the M74 was closed for a significant time when a machine broke the gas main some considerable distance away in Moffat. All iron gas mains need to be treated as posing extra risk. Regards, Peter

Posted By Tony Simpson You might want to consider using a specialist utility mapping company such as Subscan Technology Ltd. Buried utilities are located by trained surveyors using radio detection and ground penetrating radar techniques to show the location and depth of services. This information is then presented as a drawing in Auto-Cad format for future use.Go to www.subscantech.com for more information.

Posted By Alan McMaster Hi Tom, I put in a response to tell you about the FREE services we provide for planning excavations but the moderator considered it to be advertising a service. I thought telling you about the free service would be OK given that other threads had mentioned Susiephone & Moleseye (now MapInfo One Call). Having been CEO of one and founder and MD of the other, we do know what we are talking about. So I shall not mention the website where you can find a totally FREE list of every utility, authority and pipeline that may be affected and be contacted for plans, for any UK location. To put the problem into perspective, there can be up between 26 and 47 (and rising) different organisations to be contacted for a UK site, including Northern Ireland. It varies from country to country and further divides according to each authority area. It is also probable nowadays that there are multiple water / gas / electricity / telecoms companies AT THE SAME SITE. In some places one water company does the clean water and another does the sewerage. Unbundling of the Transco gas network has produced gas transportation companies that I guarantee you do not know about. Street lighting might be under the local or county authority, or can be the responsibility of one of the electricity companies. Knowing whether it is the County or Local authority to be contacted for plans and permits is difficult, again varying throughout the UK, even within the same county. What everyone forgets to ask for is traffic lighting / monitoring equipment, street drainage, and to call on the duty that is on every UK authority - to record and provide details of privately placed buried services such as an electricity feed to a garage that crosses a public street or footpath. And then you are faced with the problem of how to contact these organisations. Some have their own online Dial Before You Dig service, and the Linewatch services for pipelines is good but it only represents companies that have bought in to that arrangement. The problem is of course that even if each organisation had its own Dial Before You Dig service online, you would still have to make contact with up to 47 of them. And then deal with 47 responses coming back, some with plans, others not-affected, others require you to go to their online service and use their search facilities. Of course, some are better than others in responding and you will have to gee-up a few of these to get action. And some utilities charge just for an enquiry, some only charge if they are affected, some have variable rates and their own rules, others give the plans for free. A minefield, quite literally for the excavator. Wouldn't it be great if there was a service that would do all this for anyone that needed plans for any site? Put in a single enquiry and have it all taken care of for you? Well there is but rules about commercial concerns on the forum do not allow me to tell you about it. To answer 3 of your specific questions: 1. Should you ask for plans for private land? You should ask for plans for ANY site, on-road / off-road / public / private etc for many reasons, not least of which is that if you ask and are told there is nothing there, you have some element of comeback if you dig something up or hit it. 2. Utility plans are the START of your diligence - they give you clues about what is thought to be there and an approximation of where it is. A proper survey is essential though if you are intending to actually dig. 3. We receive calls every day from contractors who are on-site and have dug up plant that they did not know about or even who might own it. As often as not they have damaged it - hopefully not at the expense of the poor soul who was handed a pick and told to get on with it. When they find these things work stops until they find out who owns it and how to contact them and that can take days if not weeks. Utilities vary greatly about giving plans and 'Not Affected' responses but are all remarkably good at pursuing costs for repairing damages... All reasonable endeavors must start with availing yourself of at least the list of possible asset owners. You can have that for free, available 24/7 online. But I cannot tell you where. Kind regards Alan McMaster

Posted By Alan McMaster Something is not right here. Tom asks for help re underground services and gets responses from the forum, some of which suggest products, services and websites. Included in these suggestions are Dial Before You Dig Australia (website included), Moleseye, MapInfo, Susiephone, and Subscan Technology (website included). All pass the Moderator review. I provide Tom with information and details of a free service to get a list of the asset owners at any UK location and my first response is moderated off the site for being commercial. So I remove all references to the website or service and submit a revised response that gives him an insight into the problem and tells him that there is such a service. Remember, this is a FREE service but I cannot mention it so I don't. Last night my second entry - the one that does not mention any website or name any service - is suspended as the Moderator is looking at our website to see if my claim is good, and I receive an email asking me how to access the free list so that my claim can be checked out. Also suspended is an entry from Jim Walker who comments on the standards of Moderation on the forum. I explain to the Moderator that registered users (registration is free) can see the lists and known charges for plans, and the reason there is a quotation given is that we give the free list of the contacts to allow those with the stomach and time to do so to make their own contacts, but we give a quote for us to do that for them. Now call me picky, but I cannot imagine that the moderator has accessed the systems and services that others suggested to check them out, or suspended absolutely neutral and totally bereft-of-product responses while they conduct due diligence.

Posted By Alan McMaster You can get a free checklist of all the utility, authority and pipeline contacts for any UK location on http://www.national-one-call.co.uk If you want, they can get them all for you in 12 days for a small fee.

Posted By Robert. Utility plans are a must, but be very aware that most older plans were handed down from local authorities and were not suveyed by the new owners after handover They are inicative only and the margin of error can be as much as eight metres and deviate onto and through private property without owner knowledge Very, very scary.

Posted By Robert K Lewis The best answer is to use one of the better services survey companies. They can find almost anything with their range of detection equipment including non-live cables and plastic ware even without tracer. At less than a grand for a day and lines marked they are cheaper than a hit. Bob

Posted By TomP Thanks for all the assistance and input to my question over the months. If nothing else it has convinced me I’m not a total loonie and we are justified in asking for utility plans. If Bob is referring to Ground Probing Radar (GPR) and I think he probably is then I agree it is very useful but it does have imitations. As it relies on detecting inconsistencies in the soil density it can be fooled by utilities installed using trenchless technologies such as horizontal drilling. It also struggles with some of the smaller cables. If anyone has any better understanding of such technology and knows of a very, very good GPR technology that overcomes these drawback please let me know.