Help with supply cable regs after 3 phase accident

[NICKF]

This is probably a bit of an unusual third post but I could use a little help here. I'm a plasterer and last year and was doing some work on a basement and whilst chipping off some plaster managed to hit and short circuit an incoming 3 phase cable. Which was the supply both for the flat I was working in, and the two flats above. The upside only of what has probably been the worst day of my working life was that I was completely unhurt. The chipping hammer survived aswell though the bit was almost completely turned into plasma.

I now have a 2.5K bill from UK power networks for fixing the supply. Which hurts although I can't help feeling lucky that is all the grief I'm walking away with.

I'm trying to keep my liability insurance out of it it, partly because of the excess is high anyway and I'd prefer to pay now rather than have high premiums every year from this point.

I'm now trying to work out what the regulations for incoming supply should be, hopefully to provide some grounds to reduce the bill a bit. For example how deep should 3 phase cable be buried in a plastered wall. At the point I hit the cable it was barely an inch under the surface of the plaster.

Any pointers much appreciated

.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Supply cable?

Well that wont be BS7671..

as page 13 of wiring regs reminds us:-

110.2 The regulations do NOT apply to the following installations:

(i) Systems for the distribution of electricity to the general public.

I assume that a surveyor from UK networks has seen the damage?

It may well be that they deem it unrepairable and need a new cable brought in?

TBH

 

[kme]

I`d tend to agree with Special Location here - unless you were to try and prove negligence on the part of the person who buried it in the first place - which, in itself creates a cuple of issues:

1. Could you find the person concerned, and would they incriminate themselves, even if you did?

2. Would a court find that to be a mitigating circumstance?

Given the above points; I too think that, although you could not be expected to know it was there, you nevertheless damaged it. Think, in your situation, I`d be grateful I could still count all my fingers, and chalk it up to "wrong place, wrong time." Sorry if that sounds a bit unfeeling, it isn`t meant to be.....I DO think that, under the circumstances it ought to be "one of those things" - but it isn`t.

n.b. relevant regs are ESQCR - we do have a couple of legal beagles on here, who may be able to tell you if HASAWA `89 has any bearing, or indeed any other set of regs. Sorry I can`t be more help than that.

KME

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Thinking this through a Little further.....

IMHO you would have to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that cable had been installed in position likely to produce hazard or danger...

But you would also need to take into account normal acceptable practice -vs- what could be considered completely unreasonable and thus extremely unlikely that any person would ever expect to find a hazard or danger due to cables pipes etc...

such as:-

1) How many years has the supply been there without being damaged.

2) What are the relative positions of suppliers fuses & meter equipment, could it be deduced that a cable was likely to pass through the area you were working.

3) Basements are a commonly used area for bringing electrical, water and gas services into a building.

4) All experience tradespersons should have a knowledge of other trades & services and building structures as to likely routes of cables, pipes, ventilation ducts, load bearing structures etc..

5) Numerous cable locating devices are available to purchase from

 

[binky]

DNOs don't like making cable access and hence charge a small fortune. Seems unreasonable to have cable buried in wall by whatever clot did the basement conversion. Think you would be better off claiming on the insurance or getting some proper legal advice to argue bill down.

 

[wozz]

I think the point number two specs brings up is very important here, i think you have been unlucky to hit it but lucky to have no injuries, but if I did it I would be fuming it was buried (if there was no cutout) near it!

 

[ProDave]

Why can't you claim on your PL insurance? Surely that's precicely the sort of thing it's for?

I don't know about yours, but I don't get any no claim discount, so I don't see I would have much to lose by claiming. I would have to pay the excess which is a lot less than

 

[Sidewinder]

You may find involving your insurer may help as they may investigate the incident and mitigate their, thus your loss?

This is certainly the way PI works, they defend you to minimise the payout.

 

[SPECIAL LOCATION]

Indeed slidewalker......

Insurances don't like paying nowt they don't have to

 

[Evans Electric]

Might be worth an hour with a solicitor, he may be able to save you a bit . I'm not familiar with ESQCR but the fact that it was buried in plaster within a building is a bit worrying .

As said above though , any drilling or chasing should be preceeded by a check with a detetector and as you are not Mr DIY it would go against you. Having said that , I would not expect to find a supply cable beneath the plaster ,either .

Otherwise , you paid your premiums , at least you have insurance, use it.

Hang on a minute , we're helping out a PLASTERER here .............OMG!!!! .....the enemy ......what are we coming to ???

Hope it works out pal, and thank whoever your God is that you are still here to tell the tale , with eyesight , all limbs intact and no 1st degree burns , say thanks for that wooden shaft on your hammer.

 

[batty]

If you are going to pay it yourself ask for a breakdown of the bill my brother did that and halved his bill.

 

[NICKF]

Well its been an age since the original post, but a huge belated thank you to everyone who gave advice, especially Kme for pointing me in the direction of ESQCR.

After 2 years and 5 letters their claim against me is over now with them accepting half original amount. Interestingly If I hadn't made the early 50% offer I suspect they may not have taken me to court anyway. However once I made the offer I couldn't legally get out of it at a later date.

To all those asking why not let the insurance company pay for it. They told me they would pay as it wasn't worth disputing and my insurance premium would go up after the claim.

Other than given basic legal advice the solicitor wasn't of much use as they said it was too specialist and that I should contact my trade association legal team -which wasn't an option as I'm not a member of any.

Below are the relevant extracts from the letters I wrote that I believe caused them to back down.

What pissed me off about them claiming I was liable wasn't that I could have avoided it (in retrospect I could) but that they could have done also (see point 2 for how)

. Perhaps they didn't want it tested in court or perhaps it wasn't worth taking me to court for other reasons.

Anyhow thanks again. Here's the extracts below for anyone interested and in case anyone in the same situation finds this from a search and finds it useful.

You assert in your in your letter that I could have avoided damage to your cable by

making preliminary checks and using a cable detector. However, even if it were

found that my checks were insufficient that does not necessarily make me exclusively

liable as I am not the only party with responsibilities. My assertion is that the hidden

cable was a hazard and that anyone, for example, a householder putting a nail in the

wall to hang a picture, could have damaged the cable in the way that I did.

In my last letter (in the form of an email attachment sent on the 9th of August) I asked

you, how you had delivered on your statutory obligation (under ESQCR) 'to prevent

danger so far as is reasonably practicable' with respect to supply cables in situations

such as this.

I don't feel that you have adequately answered this question in your reply. Perhaps

my last letter to you was unclear. I shall endeavour to be more specific below and go

through your reply point by point.

You claim you did not plaster over the cable when you installed it. I do not dispute

this. You also claim that you are not liable for works after your initial installation and

that such works would have been done without your consent.

It was indeed these subsequent works that that made your cable a hazardous. Whilst,

I imagine, there are some circumstances under which you would not be liable for

subsequent works creating a hazard; it is also true that your statutory obligation to

prevent danger does not end when you finished the initial installation.

In the light of your statutory obligations, please can you answer the following

questions:

1) What is, and where can I find, the correct regulations governing how your supply

cables should be installed in peoples homes. Note, I cannot find this information in

the 17th Edition wiring regulations. For example, if one of your cables travels

through a wall are there specifications as to how deep the cable should be?

2) Given it is the case that your network sometimes runs inside people's houses. What

information have provided to people over the years to ensure that it doesn't become

hazard. For example, a householder is putting up some shelving on a wall where one

of your cables currently hangs exposed, he employs a carpenter to do the work and

requests the cable be covered up. Where would the reasonable carpenter or

householder go to find the specific information on how to safely cover your cable

correctly so that it doesn't become a hazard -- Presumably some coverings are

acceptable because I note that when renewing the damaged cable your contractors

placed the new cable in the existing wooden boxing. I think we can both agree that

hiding the cable in plaster is not the right thing to do, but how would the reasonable

householder or tradesman know this?

3)I think it is unlikely that this is the first time this has happened. How have the

Courts interpreted your statutory obligations as a network operator and mine, as a

tradesman, in the past in situations such as this - with specific reference to supply

cables inside people homes. 

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

Thank you for posting this reply.

 

[kme]

Thank you indeed. I`m glad we, as a collective, were able to help you mitigate your costs.

I would be interested to know their replies to the questions you posed above..

KME :x

 

[Evans Electric]

A nice change for someone to report back , specially so far down the line . Thanks. 

 

[NICKF]

"I would be interested to know their replies to the questions you posed above.."

So would I  They left it a while and then strangely denied ESQCR applied to them.   See here for the letter https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0G5WKRQUlgea0RDWGlFUGdZbUk

At that point I realised I was probably dealing mostly with a credit control people rather than lawyers or engineers and they could be just making stuff up with lots of threats and demands. I wrote back to ask them why they thought they were exempt from ESQCR  and I didn't hear from them for a long time.  Then I got a more politely worded letter accepting my earlier offer of half the amount.  Thinking about it now I should have at least got them to answer my questions before I paid them but at time I just wanted to get it over with.

 

[steptoe]

:slap

'will deny any involvement or responsibility'

of course they were involved, they put the cable there,

******* arseholes!

sounds/looks like a standard letter they use to scare people off I reckon.

at least you got 50% , but i'll bet you could have got away with more, remember, NO cable detection device is foolproof,

the only other thing is you should/could have asked them for drawings of where their cables are/were, but I'll bet they wouldnt have had any, but that might have been a defence of theirs in court that you didnt.

I dunno really.  :C

 

[SLIPSHOD & SLAPDASH]

I think I can answer why they replied as they did. In many blocks of flats and conversions the owner has to provide the rising main cables which the supply company then take over. In this case though I don't think that was the case and the head (and main fuses) were after the damage ?

Even so it was still a cop out as if they had adopted the cable it was there responsibility to check it's installation so ESQCR applies. If it was an adopted cable they would not have repaired it but thrown it back at the property owner.

 

[NICKF]

Interestingly after the incident I find myself more often that not  having a look at how the supply cable in on  job comes even if I'm working nowhere near it : ray  

And especially in basements they're covered up by something sometime not with no real consistency of what or how and in various states of repair and sometimes just rusted and crumbling away in wet coal cellar or something, its still puzzles me I can't  find any info on how they should be treated / not treated. 

 A cynic (unlike me ) might observe that by saying nothing they save money by not having worried customers ringing them up   saying there rusty cables falling to bits not like the nice shiny ones on the

"Is your supply cable safe and in a nice condition and installed correctly? If in doubt call us now and well send someone round immediately to fix it for free!"  'Help page' on the DNO website    

On the topic  of 'free' do you lads/ladesses have a server fund donations page or something?

 

[NICKF]

I think I can answer why they replied as they did. In many blocks of flats and conversions the owner has to provide the rising main cables which the supply company then take over. In this case though I don't think that was the case and the head (and main fuses) were after the damage ? Even so it was still a cop out as if they had adopted the cable it was there responsibility to check it's installation so ESQCR applies. If it was an adopted cable they would not have repaired it but thrown it back at the property owner.

That makes sense, I did wonder what they meant.    Yes it was 3 meters before the point where fuses were, which was the same place where the phases were split up.