Whatever You Do, Don’t Rely On STATS When Excavating

There is a wide range of manufacturers of tools that are essential for the location of underground services. This is because it is a big market, since the vast majority of construction projects involve digging into the ground.

Our Cable Avoidance Training Covers The Limitations Of The Equipment Used

Any contractor that is required to undertake excavation work in the course of a project should, without question, carry out a thorough survey of the site before commencing any digging, whether by hand or machine. A cable strike can, and often does, cause serious injuries to workers on the site, and these can sometimes be fatal.

Indeed, the HSE gives an example of a company which was fined £210,000 after a worker was killed by an explosion when he and other workers were using breakers and a shovel and struck an 11,000-volt live cable. The HSE stated “The company had not informed workers that there were live cables in the excavation and failed to put adequate measures in place to prevent them being damaged”.

How Can Excavators Cause Cable Strikes?

A cable strike is one of those unintentional and unforeseen situations that cause health and safety hazards to the engineers and immense financial loss to the service provider. One of the common causes of a cable strike is the lack of proper site inspection before excavation. Even a slight collision with a spade can electrocute an individual. Sygma Solutions offers training and detailed insight to utility engineers about avoiding such situations while working. Over the years, we have become a trusted name among many.

Do You Know Exactly Where The Electricity Cable Comes Into Your Home?

Most people who have a home with a back garden, and perhaps a front garden as well, don’t give a moment’s thought when it comes to digging in their veg plot, or uprooting a shrub to replace it with something else. They just go ahead and get on with it. In most cases, that is fine, but there can always be an issue about striking utilities, nearly all of which run underground.

Follow Best Practice When Carrying Out Any Excavation Work

Making contact with underground services when carrying out any excavation work can be deadly – and expensive as well. Buried services are a major hazard on a construction site, and anywhere else where a contractor needs to dig. For instance, you may be asked by a utility to dig down and replace some pipework, but there may also be other utilities running right alongside the one that you have to deal with. Equally, they could be either above or below it, and it is very easy to make a cable strike.

Cable Strike Avoidance Training From Sygma Solutions

The construction industry is a dangerous place to work. There can always be accidents which occur, however carefully a contractor plans and carries out the work. There can be accidents with scaffolding, accidents with tools used for working, accidents with vehicles on site, and so on.

One of the most dangerous areas is that sort of work which involves digging because there is always the possibility of there being underground services in the area. Some places are obvious, such as a residential area or an industrial estate. There are going to be all sorts of services running underground. However, you might be required to dig in a quiet lane out in the country where you might imagine that there is nothing whatsoever, yet there can still be services there.

Any Form Of Excavation Work Can Be Dangerous

Undertaking any form of excavation work in the UK can be fraught with danger. This is because there are huge amounts of services that we use every day, and in some cases all day, and they can be anywhere. We all use telecoms. We all need water. We all need electricity. And we all use sewage pipes. Quite a lot of people use gas. There are also fibreoptics, fluids under pressure, flammable liquids, toxic liquids, LPG, and more.

It Is Essential To Carry Out A Survey Before Undertaking Any Excavation

Every day in the UK there are over 12,000 street works taking place, virtually all of which involve digging to some depth, and some of these result in striking underground services of one sort or another.

The reasons for striking underground services can be many, but overall, the main reason is insufficient knowledge of the likelihood of services being present at a site before any work was commenced. This is partly due to there being little or no record of underground services at a site and partly due to lack of a thorough survey of the site before work began.

When Using Cable Avoidance Tools You Need To Understand Their Limitations

When you need to undertake any sort of excavation work, avoiding a cable strike is critical. And we are not just talking about electricity cables here, because the term is often used as an overall description of any sort of underground services. This could also be natural gas pipes, water pipes, sewage pipes, telecoms, fibreoptic, and other gas pipes such as LPG.

Striking Underground Services When Excavating Can Be Fatal

According to LineSearch BeforeUDig (LSBUD), it is estimated that there are some 4 million excavations taking place across Britain every year. These may be by water companies, gas companies, telecoms, sewage works, electricity suppliers, and more. However, LSBUD also says that in 2017 only 2.25 million excavations were preceded by a thorough search for underground pipes or cables before the work commenced. That means that a shocking 44% of all excavations took place without a proper search.