The Costs Of A Cable Strike Can Be Considerable

Construction workers who are required to carry out any sort of excavation work, whether by hand or the use of a digger, can be at risk of serious injury, and even death, if they should strike an underground cable or pipe in the course of the work.

Workers themselves are in the front line, so to speak, but the ramifications can go a lot further than that. If you should strike an underground service on any contract, it will at the very least mean that the service is out of action and the workers have to down tools while the utility company sends out men to repair it. That costs time and money for the contracting company.

Cable Avoidance Training Is Essential If You Need To Locate Underground Services

Any type of construction work requires a lot of thought and planning before it ever begins, and we don’t just mean the architectural side of things. When you build anything much larger than a garden shed, the first physical work involves digging down into the ground in order to construct the foundations, but that also requires planning.

There are underground services all over the place, and they can be anywhere, even in situations where you might be forgiven for thinking that there would not be any. Quite obviously they will be present in an industrial or residential estate, and in your local high street, shopping centre, and so on. But out in the middle of a field? Yes. They could be. As we have said before, that field might just be the shortest route from one village to another. Or there could be a property tucked away half a mile down a lane.

Our Courses Enable You To Obtain Your Qualification In Cable Avoidance

At Sygma Solutions we provide the training that you need if you have to undertake underground surveys for hidden services so that you can locate and identify them before a company begins any sort of excavation work.

Just about every building contract starts with digging into the ground in order to construct foundations and install services – water, electricity, telecoms, sewage, gas, and so on – and it is vital to avoid striking any existing services. They can be anywhere. So, it is essential to know, as far as is humanly possible, what they are and where they are.

Our VScan Training Will Give Operatives The Confidence That they Need

When you are involved in any sort of contract that requires excavation work, even if it is only digging down a couple of feet, there is the ever-present danger of coming into contact with underground services. Virtually all of our utilities, with the exception of some telephone services, run underground, and the fact is that they can be just about anywhere.

The problem is that there can be a lot of uncertainty about where they run. Some of them have been in place for many years, and although plans are available, they can be very misleading.

Cable Avoidance Training Is Essential For Those Who Need To Locate Buried Services

HSG47 is guidance from the Health & Safety Executive regarding the dangers of striking underground services when digging. In fact, it is entitled “Avoiding Danger From Underground Services” and it is aimed at “all those involved in commissioning, planning, managing and carrying out work on or near underground services”. It is stated that it is also useful to owners and operators of underground services. 

Cable Location Training Is Vital For Operatives Who Carry Out Site Surveys

Striking underground services when carrying out any sort of excavation work is always going to be serious. There is the risk of serious injury to workers carrying out the digging, whether with hand tools or a mechanical digger, and on occasion this can be fatal. There is also, at the very minimum, the cost of repairs to the service, whether that is electricity, gas, water, sewage pipes, telecoms, fibreoptic, and more.

Underground Services In The UK Can Be Anywhere

It is a fact that, in the UK, there is a huge number of everyday services that we all require, such as water, telecoms, sewage pipes, electricity, and so on, that are buried underground. Over the years, just about everything has become buried – even telecoms. Those readers who are older may remember the days when our telephone lines were connected to telegraph poles, but if you think about it, you don’t see many of those around today: they have all been buried underground.

Records Of Underground Utilities Range From Poor To Non-Existent

Depending upon whose figures you believe, there are between 1.5 million and 2 million kilometres of utility services running underground in the UK. They consist of electricity cables, water pipes, sewage, telecoms, gas pipes, fibre optics, and more. Many of them also need to be repaired, replaced, or even taken out completely, and this means that there are constant works going on all over the UK to excavate and deal with them.

Location And Identification Of Underground Services: What You Need To Know

If you are engaged in any sort of work which involves excavation of the ground, there is always the risk of striking some form of underground service. This could be electricity cables, gas pipes, water pipes, telecoms, sewage pipes, fibreoptics, and more, and what’s more is that they can be found almost anywhere, not just in the obvious places.

Underground Services Can Literally Be Anywhere

One of the biggest issues facing construction contractors and utility companies is the fact that there are some 2.5 million kilometres of services running underground in the UK, and that is only one estimate. Others put the figure at 4 million kilometres, but even if that is incorrect and the 2.5 million is right, that is still a lot of services running underground.