Ive hit a power cable in my garden digging out a tree root

[Day6480]

So i bought a house at the end of last year and moved in in July in August I decided to dig out a tree root using a mini digger as I wanted to lay a base for a a garage. While doing it I damaged a western power high voltage line that was less than 18 inches deep. There were no warning tiles or tape (until we had to dig about 6 feet along) it knocked the power out for about 1700 homes including ours for around 20 mins then around 300 homes for about a hour and a half (Not our house) were dug the trench for wpd at the size they said as we had a digger to hand.
About a month ago we received an invoice for just under £3000, £900 for parts and £2000 for Labour. We appealed saying that the cable wasn't very deep, there were no warning tiles and that we had no information on the searches from when we bought the house (the water cables shown up on them) but we were turned down.
Now I understand there should be a wayleave/easement between is and the power company however we don't have one. The only wayleave that exists was between them and the council from 1959 (our house is ex council) is there any way we can get around paying the £3000 on these grounds?

[m3jappa]

Just fight it and they may go away.

I have been unlucky enough being a paving company to have gone through various services over the years, only a couple of times and luckily haven't had a bill.

The advice i have seen on paving forums is to fight them and they give in, although the homeowner is possibly easier to persist with.

It is ridiculous that outside of your property services have to be a certain depth, however once within your boundary they can be at any depth. The last one we did (electric) was so shallow that they struggled to repair it and almost had to run a new cable. I have seen gas at a couple of inches, virgin media cables are often sat within the grass. Even if you know they are there sometimes its impossible to know wtf they go as they snake all over the place. Their answer would be to dig by hand, which from a commercial pov isn't that viable.

[Day6480]

We have tried they basically said there is no way that we can appeal as we didn't scan the ground, request plans and dig trial holes. We never knew this had to be done in your own garden! Just seems like the guidelines are only there to protect them!

[normalbloke]

HSG 47 is your friend. Or possibly not in this case,,,

[V8RX7]

It is possible to get a breakdown of their costs ?

I'd suggest it is reasonable to expect you to pay but I'd guesstimate £300 is closer to the reality of what it cost them to fix a broken cable

[Fat Wolfie]

Do you have house insurance? Could find that the liability section will cover this - you’ve damaged third party property (the cable) due to negligence (in a legal sense, not having a go!) so on the face of it it’d be worth a phone call at least.

[Day6480]

Yes I do but they won't cover as we didn't have an assessor out at the time of the damage, we weren't aware we would get charges at the time

[Fat Wolfie]

Day6480 said:

Yes I do but they won't cover as we didn't have an assessor out at the time of the damage, we weren't aware we would get charges at the time

Bugger....

[m3jappa]

V8RX7 said:

It is possible to get a breakdown of their costs ?

I'd suggest it is reasonable to expect you to pay but I'd guesstimate £300 is closer to the reality of what it cost them to fix a broken cable

Theres reasonable as in what you or i would expect to charge or pay for damaging something, then there is these people...last one we did (which i didn't get charged for, well yet anyway):

man to come out, inspect the broken cable and tell me its broken

next day 2 blokes turn up in a van with trailer and mini digger. This is the digging team.

shortly after another 2 men turn up, these are the 'engineers'

so you can see the bill mounting up.

The digging team, dig the hole, its about the size of a wheelbarrow, one bloke watches the other.

Meanwhile another van turns up and drops off a steel plate.

engineers now make a start, the hole isn't big enough so he stops and waits, the digging team take over again now, this time removing about 2 buckets worth of mud.

Engineers can now get in and fix the cable.

Whole thing was a fking joke tbh, at no time was there more than 1 person actually doing any work. They were on site for about half a day, possibly a bit more by the time all their faffing about had been done.

They told me to expect 2-3k bill which luckily i never got, probably because the cable was about 50mm in the concrete we were digging up.

So if i did get the bill you can see how these blokes can earn 150 a day for being the helpers and over 200 for being a specialist (yes because joining cables is hard). you can see where their pensions, holiday and sick pay come from and you can also see where the company makes significant profit.

You can also see how it makes me feel sick to think i am charging fractions of what they are for doing an actual skilled job which i am 100% liable for, with no pension or sick etc. I can't charge more because of the relentless competition, they have none.

Feels like extortion to me. And no im not bitter (but i will say im glad they saw sense not to charge me for something so silly). I have heard of some insane costs from other tradesman., shutting roads, all sorts resulting in huge bills.

The repairs are so easy as well, all they do is what a competent diyer would do. The problem joe public have is either isolating the supply or having the knowledge (granted there's cost there) to be able to do it live. I have done armoured cables where i can isolate it and to do a proper resin joint repair takes about 45 mins tops.

[blade7]

Day6480 said:

dug the trench for wpd at the size they said as we had a digger to hand.
About a month ago we received an invoice for just under £3000,

Obviously you charge them £3k for the digger then?

[Day6480]

blade7 said:

Obviously you charge them £3k for the digger then?

They wanted 1500 for them to do it

[blade7]

Day6480 said:

blade7 said:

Obviously you charge them £3k for the digger then?

They wanted 1500 for them to do it

Did you tell them how much you wanted?

[Day6480]

blade7 said:

Did you tell them how much you wanted?

No we never said anything about it. We also had to get sand and put around the cable also put warning tape over it and fill it all back in

[V40TC]

Ask for a breakdown of the losses
and cost of materials used.

I too would send them a return invoice for £4.5k digger rental by return.

if they can make up charges then so can you.
if they reply "that is ridiculous" then reply " well you started it"

they will not pay out compensation to the homes isolated
they have an unmarked buried cable on your land.

I cannot see there losses add up to the stupid sum they have invoiced you for.
I would not pay
even till I was taken to court
if I lost,
ask for time to pay and drag it out as long as I humanly could.

[Day6480]

V40TC said:

Ask for a breakdown of the losses
and cost of materials used.

I too would send them a return invoice for £4.5k digger rental by return.

if they can make up charges then so can you.
if they reply "that is ridiculous" then reply " well you started it"

they will not pay out compensation to the homes isolated
they have an unmarked buried cable on your land.

I cannot see there losses add up to the stupid sum they have invoiced you for.
I would not pay
even till I was taken to court
if I lost,
ask for time to pay and drag it out as long as I humanly could.

They are saying it doesn't need too be marked as we should of scanned the ground 1st. We have a break down of the cost the parts came too £900 then £2000 for them too fix it. Seems alot of money tbh. The day it happened they just came out and switched something on the poll so every1 had electric again, then didn't come back for 3 days too fix

[bmwmike]

V40TC said:

Ask for a breakdown of the losses
and cost of materials used.

I too would send them a return invoice for £4.5k digger rental by return.

if they can make up charges then so can you.
if they reply "that is ridiculous" then reply " well you started it"

they will not pay out compensation to the homes isolated
they have an unmarked buried cable on your land.

I cannot see there losses add up to the stupid sum they have invoiced you for.
I would not pay
even till I was taken to court
if I lost,
ask for time to pay and drag it out as long as I humanly could.

This is what I'd do. Maybe even more than 4.5k and let them try and knock you down a bit. Who knows, you may even make money out of it.

Anyone know if OP can charge them ground rent or tell them to put the cable deeper?

[55palfers]

normalbloke said:

HSG 47 is your friend. Or possibly not in this case,,,

Very much this.

Before you excavate you need to CAT scan the ground and get underground services plan from utility companies.

Hand dig only in vicinity of HV cables.

[Chrisgr31]

A couple of years ago I managed to put a post hole maker through next doors gas pipe which passed through my garden unknown to me.

I got a bill for around £750 to fix it. I had legal insurance cover on my house insurance and passed it on to them. As I was negligent as should have done a search for gas pipes etc they paid up. Good news is that the legal liability cover has no impact on your household policy as its separate and no excess.

I dont see how you can have an assessor out if you hit a utility service as you dont know when it will be fixed!

[peterperkins]

Devils advocate.

If you knocked out the power for 1700 homes you are lucky maybe not to be being sued in this climate by every tom dick and harry who could not work from home or lost that important deal due or couldn't watch eastenders due to the power outage. Or the heart lung machine stopped working etc etc

I have no idea if you are supposed to scan the area before digging, but if you are then opps..
I would have had no idea either and probably dug through it as well and be in the same boat..

[Chrisgr31]

peterperkins said:

I have no idea if you are supposed to scan the area before digging, but if you are then opps..
I would have had no idea either and probably dug through it as well and be in the same boat..

I had no idea you were supposed to scan before digging, let alone ask the utility companies where there supplies are. Personally I assumed one would be told when buying a house if you had a supply to someone else running through part of it. After all ypu have a vague chance of knowing where your own supply is.

I'd like to know more about wayleaves and easements as its obvious if you have a telegraph pole, a cable or pipe is less obvious!