Hi my fenceposts at the side of my house are rotten at the bottom so its time for renewal, So yesterday I started breaking a couple out and have found a cable between my post and the kerbstone at the side of Scottish water’s service road. The problem is this cable is touching the concrete I am breaking (massively taking more time to break/dig out)Anyway their engineer should be out tomorrow so would it be cheeky of me to try and get his guys to dig out my posts (about 10)Problem is I do not want to be responsible for their cable? Thoughts and suggestions please. Cheers Mark

gotta be worth a try, cant imagine they would though

Services such as electricity cables, phone lines, gas pipes and water pipes have to be buried to a certain (minimum) depth. I can’t remember what it should be, but if it is shallow they may be required put it in deeper. As you are digging it is your responsibility (in their view) to survey for such services before digging. They would just love to bill you for damage to their property. Try to get them to do the job especially as it isn’t (?) on your property.

Try to get them to do the job especially as it isn’t (?) on your property.

Therein lies part of the problem its on the other side of my post however it is on the other side of the kerbstone from their road so I am not exactly sure if my property is up to the kerbstone or the fence (about 9 inches different) I always assumed the posts were put where they were because it was easier to put them there.

Is it still live? It might be an old redundant cable that’s been there for decades.

Also cables should be a certain depth and have yellow plastic tape running above it to warn anyone digging that they’re about to hit some cable.

Think its still live I have a pumping station at the back of my house all built circa 1992 (house and pumping staion) cable is only a couple of inches in the ground at kerbstones.

There are no given depths for gas I can assure you. What sort of size cable btw?

Its actually 2 cables one is like an instrument cable in a grey plastic pipe the other directly below it is a 1″ black cable (dunno if its armoured or not)

Grey duct will more than likely be BT, pumping stations have connection and probably what is known as a telemetry line.

Minimum depths my hoop. The hydro replaced my mains cable from overhead to underground.

Its barely a foot under my front lawn – i watched them doing it

Drains on the other hand.

I dug trenches in our garden to put in leccy cable to shed – there was a recommended min depth (can’t recall but was a good 18″ IIRC.

Same for the trench I had to dig to get plastic water supply pipe, that was even deeper, maybe the 3′ / 1 metre.

Both times the cable was topped off by hazard tape and part back filled by chuckies..

I had an issue like this and got them moved (free) as the cables / gas and water were not at the required depth.

(I think it was roughly a spade and a half depth)

They do take their time though!

The electricity cable was the most interesting as they spliced a bit in with the whole system live (very thick rubber gloves and wellies were worn!)

Had Scottish water out and they confirmed its a cable that feeds them but owned by leccy board. Now spenergy have came out and the guy went on about how I should have got drawings before I dug the old posts out, then prceeded to show me the drawing on his laptop which showed the cable nowhere near the dig so I am now waiting on the planner phoning me.