Possibly the very biggest danger of carrying out any works which require digging – which is very many of them – is the risk of striking underground services. They are everywhere, and it is reckoned that there are about 2.5 million kilometres of them in the UK, although the exact number is impossible to know.

Some of these underground services may not cause harm to those digging and hitting them, but others can cause severe injury and even death. While telecoms may not be likely to cause injury, the cost of repairing them and the cost of delays to businesses while they are out of action can be immense.

However, other services can be fatal. Suppose you hit an 11,000-volt electricity cable for instance? Your chances are not going to be very good. And yet it is estimated that there are some 4,000,000 excavations carried out in the UK every year, resulting in around 60,000 strikes of utilities underground. Again, the figures are impossible to quantify because there is no unified method of reporting these cable strikes, as they are called. Not only that, but the estimated figures may well be too low because many such incidents are not recorded for one reason or another, so the actual figures could be much higher.  

It is not just electricity cables that run underground. There are gas pipes, too. And sewage. And water. And fibreoptic. And other types of gases such as LPG.

You might not think that striking something such as a water pipe would be dangerous. However, it could cause serious flooding. Furthermore, the water pressure in some underground water pipes is quite severe. It can fly out of the ground with sufficient force to cause injury, and it may also include stones or other objects that are in the ground as well. Furthermore, a big water leak under pressure can cause the soil in an excavation to collapse, trapping workers who are there.

Sewers are normally gravity fed and not under pressure, but nonetheless there is a serious danger of injury to workers from exposure to raw sewage.

Striking a gas pipe can cause an instant explosion. However, it may also cause a small leak which can build up into a large area and do an incredible amount of damage later on. This is particularly the case with some gases such as LPG which are heavier than air and can build up in places such as cellars, undetected until the worst happens.

While telecoms and fibreoptic may not cause injury, the cost of repairs and the disruption to homes and businesses can be considerable. This can lead to claims for compensation from the contractors involved. In addition, there may also be cost involved as a result of delays to the contract while the repairs are carried out.

The simple fact is that many of the cable strikes that occur could have been avoided if the layout of the underground services had been correctly charted and marked out before any work was commenced. 

This is why it is essential to carry out a proper survey of the ground where any sort of excavation work is due to take place before so much as inserting a spade.

Some of the best tools are those manufactured by RadioDetection such as the RD7000 and RD8000 series. At Sygma Solutions we provide RD7000 training and RD8000 training for operatives who need to locate underground services and be able to pinpoint them and mark them out, so that contractors know where they are and can at best avoid digging too closely or at least dig with caution and avoid cable strikes.

Of course, we have tools for this job, but the fact is that operatives who are going to carry out such surveys need the proper training in their use, and in particular their limitations. And they do have limitations.