Accidentally striking an underground service such as a gas pipe or electricity cable when undertaking any sort of excavation work can have a massively damaging effect, not only on the person or persons doing the digging, but on the owners of the utility, their customers, and the contractors in charge of the works.

According to the HSE, over the last six years, it has received reports of 3,792 injuries, including fatalities, that have been caused by workers striking an underground service. However, this number is only the strikes that have been reported to it. There are others that go unreported for various reasons, including the fact that the contracting company concerned doesn’t want the bad publicity that goes along with striking an underground service. So, in fact, the number could be considerably higher.

HSG47 is the guide produced by the HSE in connection with excavation and groundworks of any description, and it states unequivocally that planning the work before undertaking any excavation is critical. A business called Linesearch BeforeUdig (LSBUD) provides a free to use service that can be used by anyone who needs to undertake excavation and provides information supplied by its’ members which are utility and asset owners.

LSBUD states that there are 1.5 million kilometres of underground infrastructure in the UK, but this figure may not be accurate. According to other sources, the figure is anywhere between 2.5 million and 4 million kilometres. The truth is that nobody knows for sure.

With that said, LSBUD Managing Director Richard Broome reported in January last year that more than 800,000 kilometres were currently covered by its portal, which was an increase of 23% on the previous year, and that the portal was receiving one search every 12 seconds. A total of 4 million excavation projects are undertaken in the UK each year, and some 2.6 million of those were searched for on the LSBUD portal which meant that 62% of all excavation work was being preceded by a thorough investigation. However, it also means that 38% were not.

Not only that, as useful as the LSBUD portal is, plans of underground services maintained by utility companies and other asset owners are not always up to date and accurate, and in some cases are not available. This can be for a number of reasons: for instance, a contractor retained by a utility to lay a service may be required to install it at a depth of four feet but might have cut corners and only dug down two feet. The utility believes that it is four feet down when it isn’t.

That is not to say that one shouldn’t bother carrying out a search – far from it – but that you cannot rely 100% on the results. This is why it is essential to carry out a full survey of the area to be excavated before undertaking any work. In turn, this is the reason for our existence at Sygma Solutions because we have a combined 100 years of experience of using the CAT and Genny, which are the tools used for underground surveys, and our CAT and Genny training service covers their use in all situations and all modes, and critically also teaches their limitations, – and they do, indeed, have certain limitations.

This can mean that if you are not fully up to speed with them, you can obtain a false reading which makes you believe that there is nothing in the excavation area when actually there is. This is one of the problems with inexperienced operatives using the CAT and Genny, and which our training courses overcome.