Hit electric cable

[Highworth paving]

Hi all
So while digging out this weeks drive I hit the mains electric cable ( low voltage demestic type) with the digger bucket. I called the electric board and they sent someone out within the hour. He then said he would require someone else ( health & safety). So after waiting another hour for the other guy the repair took another half hour to complete.
The reason I’m posting this is to find out if I have any chance of avoiding the cost of repair ( £400-£500 ). I hit the cable on the boarder of the two properties where a retaining wall is required as the neighbours lawn is about 600mm (2ft) higher. The cable was just underneath the old wall foundation & only 150mm below garage floor level on the driveway I’m excavating but when it enters into the neighbours property it is then 600mm down due to the change in level. I always thought that mains electric should be at least 450mm down and be covered with warning tape. I know I should of checked for cables first as had quite a few near misses in the past but where do you think I stand on this
Regards
Craig

[digerjones]

Sorry to be bearer of bad news but you will have to pay in my experience. I hit one with the digger. My insurance excess was 500 and think bill was 600 so didn't bother with insurance. But I don't think they would of payed anyway. They wanted proof of all the precautions I had made. Plans drawings cattle scan etc.

[Highworth paving]

I did take photos with me holding a tape showing cable at 150mm down but realise there just gonna say you should of done a cat scan. I did get away with hitting gas a while back though. So fingers crossed

[DNgroundworks]

There are no statutory depths for services to be buried at, just guidelines.

Ive hit a few and had to pay for the all bar one where the attending gas man took pity!

[Highworth paving]

Nearly 2 weeks ago now and haven’t received a bill, so I’m still hoping. Will let you know what happens

[Dave_L]

I doubt you will have received one either - we damaged a LV incoming cable into a house not so long ago, WPD were there within the hour and it was rejointed with one of those resin submarines, no charge.

Also we were planing off a council car park a couple of months ago, at 30mm we hooked a street lighting cable out the ground! Some fantastic groundwork there eh? Anyway, repaired free of charge by WPD.

[Shedlord10]

Not long back we had to dig down and stabilize a rd. I was going along the top of the high voltage cable ( ordinary shovel not insulated ) taking off the ( no warning tape ) sand Next thing flash, bang wallop.
There was a spur to an house that some twat had curved around, not in line about 2 metres out of line. Buried by the sand. My metal shovel went through it, flames shot up my arm, singed my airs on arms, chest and face. The guy next to me must of broken the 4 minuter. When he finally came back to check on me and ask if i ok i couldn't hear him because of blast. I just carried on cleaning the sand off. Didn't have a mark on me ( fecking miracle ).
I reckon miliseconds before i hit it i had taken my hand off the metal shaft so just holding the wooden handle. So rather than the leckie frizzling me to a frazzle i just got the blast. Lucky day...won a lucky dip on the lotto lol.

[Tony McC]

I saw a lad hospitalised after driving a pick through a cable when I was still at school and just helping out my Dad on site, and it made me ultra-cautious for the rest of my life. We had a CAT as soon as they became available, and drummed it into our lads about being careful when working in service strips, but there is always the "Friday Afternoon Job", which was thrown-in with no regard to the safety of the installers or those that may come after them.

My Dad and brother were on a small back-yard job, taking a day away from site work and filling-in a for my usual driver with the mini-digger, when they went through a 10Kv cable that had been laid through the back garden, just 300mm or so down, no marker, not even any sand cover. Luckily, it was lots of sparks, bangs, crashes, flashes and shock, requiring several "recovery" pints in The Boundary pub just around the corner, but no-one was seriously hurt.

The cable should have been routed along the line of a public highway service strip, for 100m or so up the road, then along a ginnel to the rear of a row of houses, then 100m or so back along another public footpath to lead to a sub-station, all like a big U shape, but some bone-idle lecky-board subbies had taken the short cut. Fair enough, it wasn't a 'back garden' when they did it: it was just a plot with the house not yet built, but they must have known what the plan was - it was a new-build site and the whole point of the big cable was to provide power for the 15 or so houses that were being built (we had done the roads and sewers, and the groundworks, on the site about 10 years earlier). But how did they get it passed by their supervisor???

Our Brendan was driving and he reckons the fact that the little 3 tonner was sat on doubled-up decking sheets of ply, and didn't have the front blade down when he hit the cable are what saved his life.

You can apply all the safety measures possible, but as Sean says, there's no accounting for tw*ts!

The lecky board re-routed the cable over the next couple of weeks, profuse apologies to the property owner, not a frigging word to us!