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Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 3:02 pm
by djbeech
Our garage in separted from our house by an unadopted lane that 5 other houses drive along to gain access to their homes. I am wanting to dig across the lane so that I can get electricity & water to the garage & to return any waste water from the garage into our current drains. We are based in Cornwall and have private drainage.

Are there any special problems I should look out for here? We have good relationships with all the neighbours so I don't think they'd be too bothered. Electricity comes in from overhead cable & we do not have mains gas in our area.

Any help would be gratefully received.

Darren

Posted: Sat May 28, 2005 1:13 pm
by Tony McC
You need to determine who owns the lane or if it's joint ownership. It will belong to someone, and your deeds may be a good place to start looking. It's not unusual for the lane directly outside each property to belong to that property with the proviso that they must permit free access to the other property owners and their guests at all times.

Once you know who owns the lane, make sure you have a consent and then dig away to your heart's content!

Lecky ought to have at least 450mm of cover when buried, and you need to denote its path with marker tape buried 50-100mm above it. I'd strongly recommend using a duct for the lecky cable, and also provide a draw roipe just in case you need to install additional or replacement cables at some point.

Drains need to be at least 600mm deep, prefarbly deeper, and it's probably a good idea to encase them in concrete as the last thing you need is a broken drain that requires the lane to be dug up yet again, blocking your neighbours' access and making you Mr Unpopular.

Water is supposed to be 750-900mm deep as a minimum as frost cover. Again, it's a good idea to indoicate the presence of the service pipe with marker tape. You might not forget where the services are located, but if you sell the property, marker tapes alert future diggers of the possible danger below.