nucleustylzlude wrote:Unfortunately in the HSE’s eyes (Health & Safety Executive) it is ultimately the client / landowners responsibility to provide adequate services information to the contractor.
That's for a commercial client but it's different for a private customer.
Commercial client carries risks under CDM, but CDM doesn't apply to non commercial customers, so that's why, e.g. as a domestic customer, you have no responsibility or requirement (or even expectation under the law) to check their RAMS - the contractor carries all the responsibility, purely because in the eyes of the law it's unreasonable to expect joe public to be an informed buyer, but it's reasonable to expect a contractor to be 'competent' at their job and familiar with the relevant regulations covering their job.
http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/cdm/ ... tic.htm#q2
http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/cdm/ ... tic.htm#q3
If they dug without surveying or CAT scanning first, it's their problem (unless you told them to do that).
Personally I would be demanding surveying/CAT scanning first because I don't fancy the idea of explosions on my garden (if the contractor blows themselves up that's their look out, but it leaves a terrible mess and I wouldn't be able to watch TV that night because of no power
) - but that's only because I know a bit about construction in the first place...
nucleustylzlude wrote:99% of the time there won’t be enough slack to do so
Yep, absolutely. If that's your only or best option though, it would be worth checking out, just in case - you
might (won't) be lucky and it might enter and then leave your garden from the side you want to move it to, in which case, happy days!
It is all down to luck though...
What I'm suggesting if doing live is hand dig to expose, split duct over and then slew.
The contractor should then properly re-bury the cable (i.e. use the yellow 'Live Cable' tape over the top etc. )
nucleustylzlude wrote:I mean in pavement construction where there are multiple services, LV cables can be laid as little as 280mm from boundary properties, half that for lamp post foundations! So to me 1.0m sounds a bit excessive just to suit their ‘build needs’. They can hand dig just like they have to do on a whole host of their own works – its part of the job. It only because it costs more to hand dig than machine dig. I would seriously reduce that 1.0m recommended margin.
This was exactly my thinking, though much less bluntly put
