Chaps

Will soon start digging driveway for garage footings - does anyone know who I contact to find out where my gas pipes are?

Cheers very much

ATB

Simon

Can you not hire one of those scanners that locate hidden services?

No one is going to know the exact location of pipes anyway

Why not try contacting British Gas ?
I know for a fact thet BT offer a "Safe to Dig" service and if you sue it and then happen to hit their cables they don't sue you.
Got to be worth contacting BG first.

Regards
Jon

the gas network and power network providers are required to keep records of such. Particulary Gas you need to be careful, a gas leak might end up under someone elses property. Boom!!!!

Is your meter on the side where you are digging ? They usually come in via the shortest route possible.

Try calling the gas board. They may have records or offer a dial before you dig service. If you have no joy there, try looking for where the gas main may run, e.g. from your gas meter to footpath - usually in a straight line and at about 600mm deep. Look to see if there is gas tap in the footpath.

You could then carry out some trial holes yourself. Pick a possible location and carefully hand dig down to locate it. Do this in two places if necessary. If you are excavating for the drive with a machine, I would recommend keeping the bucket at least 500mm from the gas pipe as stated in HSG47 - avoiding underground services.

My gas pipe was only 6 inches under the tarmac. The guy on the digger found the gas pipe, electric cable and cut through the water pipe. Best dig by hand, Its much safer.

Around 3 years ago, I lost all of the electrics, as did the house either side of me, United Utilities turned up and had to do a full survey and dig up next doors drive to establish where the cable was damaged, this showed nothing up so had to get a 'man' in with a device that traced the cable. Seems no records were available at the time that showed the routes of services into properties, once it left the pavement.

Be VERY careful, the utility companies rarely bury their supply cables & pipes the correct depth


A Mate is a supervisor for a large roadlaying & surfacing company and they have given him a fancy piece of kit for detecting cables and pipes as they have had a lot of issues with supplies being laid too shallow in the past

Hi i do this for a living and cables pipes are often not where they should be all is do able but also remember you have lots of services connected to your house make a list you can hire a cat or better still get a mate who knows how to use one cable avoidance tool it will find water lecy phone etc gas can be difficult if it is polyethelne pipe no signal but you can connect a genny signal onto the tape if it has been laid with it dont let this put you off thousands of cables are dug arounds every day just go careful and you will do ok need a good digger driver

Also check that if your garage is going over your incoming service the gas supplier does not require the meter to be moved.

Be careful, plans and deeds may well contain information that looks sensible, my experience is that it may not be so.
The utility companies have been at best unsure of the layout, at worst completely incorrect information may be offered.

The garage footings were dug carefully at my previous house, based on a utility map. The reason they didn't come across any cables/pipes/mineshafts was purely by luck. The builders then (less carefully) dug a hole for the soil water (guttering),
BANG!!
Blinding flash, lots of grief, panic, burns and everything else. The power cables were in a completely non sensical place.

My current place, no one knows, or can verify anything to do with water/power/sewage. Seems in 1950 no one really cared to note..