And assuming they didn't, I can imagine what was in their underpants afterwards
Confessions of a DNO engineer!
- Thread starter westie101
- Start date
Sponsored Links
But then they would have sued the leccy co for compensation ...
Yep, that happened when I worked for Eastern Electricity.
Live cable in an abandoned factory. Thief tried to nick it and got badly burnt (maybe fatally, I can't remember). The judge found that we had a "trench inspector" who was supposed to check for and disconnect live cables in the factory situation. Because he hadn't done his job, Eastern was liable.
After the judgement, Eastern got rid of all its trench inspectors so that if a thief got electrocuted in the future EEB would not be liable.
It's been crazy around the midlands as well. 3 blokes put away for stripping track cable in worksop this week, power cut in nottingham when 4 fellas attempted to rip out a substaion cable, apparently one of them has serious burns, that'll learn him NOT!!!
Mate mate who is a plumber had 3 packs of 15mm copper pipe locked in his van, broad day light, ripped his back door open and took the lot!!!
Had some scrap lads driving up and down the road last week, stepped out in front of them and told them i had their vehicle number and that if any metal went missing from our street that the police would be told. On the back of their wagon was 6 lengths of brand new copper pipe, some poor plumber out of pocket again!!!
Mate mate who is a plumber had 3 packs of 15mm copper pipe locked in his van, broad day light, ripped his back door open and took the lot!!!
Had some scrap lads driving up and down the road last week, stepped out in front of them and told them i had their vehicle number and that if any metal went missing from our street that the police would be told. On the back of their wagon was 6 lengths of brand new copper pipe, some poor plumber out of pocket again!!!
Sponsored Links
Congratulations on using an appropriate solecism. "That'll learn him", although strictly a solecism, has implied violent overtones entirely missing from the more grammatical "That'll teach him"
I'm sure we all would like to know the outcome when it goes to court.
Andy
Andy
Just an update on this one.
I got a letter to tell me that I now have a Witness Care Officer. The two offenders are named in this (though I know who they are as they are well known in Cockermouth) their next court appearance is early August where they will be committed to Crown Court
I got a letter to tell me that I now have a Witness Care Officer. The two offenders are named in this (though I know who they are as they are well known in Cockermouth) their next court appearance is early August where they will be committed to Crown Court
Well I hope they get their just deserts and not some namby-pamby telling off.
Discussing it with someone I know in the business, he tells me there's an awful lot more than gets in the news, including quite a few people frying themselves. He was wondering why they don't publicise it more - unless they are worried that if they do then they'll be held to blame and forced to "prevent" such incidents better.
It's not like there aren't copious warning signs, fencing, locked gates, etc, etc. If someone is in a substation, they know where they are and they know it's a dangerous place to be.
3rd statement today, explaining how much it will cost (£90,000 and rising) to replace the cable and why!
Got a call this afternoon, a local farmer had reported to the police that last night someone had dug part of a field up and stolen a load (100m) of cable!
Went to site and met the police, near an old railway line (lots of them round here from all the old iron ore and coal mining). Over this line was a bridge that had also had a cable running across it in a sort of wooden trough, this had been cut at one side and removed, the cable then crossed a farm track that had been dug up and into a field where there was a hole (about 2m x 1m x 1.5m deep) in which was the other end of the cable,
The hole was shielded from a nearby road with an old door and some plastic sheeting.
Now all this had been done in the dark last night, you can bet that if someone had offered the thieves the value of the cable to do this work they would have probably refused!
Oh and we have no record of the cable so doubt it was ours, I suspect I was something to do with one of the. old mines
Went to site and met the police, near an old railway line (lots of them round here from all the old iron ore and coal mining). Over this line was a bridge that had also had a cable running across it in a sort of wooden trough, this had been cut at one side and removed, the cable then crossed a farm track that had been dug up and into a field where there was a hole (about 2m x 1m x 1.5m deep) in which was the other end of the cable,
The hole was shielded from a nearby road with an old door and some plastic sheeting.
Now all this had been done in the dark last night, you can bet that if someone had offered the thieves the value of the cable to do this work they would have probably refused!
Oh and we have no record of the cable so doubt it was ours, I suspect I was something to do with one of the. old mines
I suspect there must loads of old disused cables buried as i think there is one at the back of our house because there was an 11KV line at the back of ours.
When they took the pole away i did not see them take the underground cable with them unless they pulled it from the other end if that is possible.
I am not going to give the location for obvious reasons.
Andy
When they took the pole away i did not see them take the underground cable with them unless they pulled it from the other end if that is possible.
I am not going to give the location for obvious reasons.
Andy
You wouldn't pull much length out, once it's buried then it takes a lot of force to move it.
But you would be right, there is an awful lot of old cable in the ground for various reasons. And of course, a lot of it is unmapped.
These days, at least for the electricity supply industry, there are records kept of just about everything - so new stuff should be fairly well mapped. Go back a few years (not that many) and such records would have been kept on paper maps and subject to all sorts of errors - forgetting to update the map, losing it, it going up in a fire, and of course that good old excuse - lost during a merger/acquisition/reshuffle/whatever. Of course, just knowing it's there doesn't mean you'd bother digging it out when it's no longer in use ...
Once you get past the supply termination point, then private developers/businesses may or may not have kept records which may or may not have been accurate and may or may not have survived when the business disappeared or sold the site. I used to work with a chap who used to work for the local utility company. He told me many tales, one of which was when a new facility was being built in the local shipyard. This facility required some big holes to be dug, and they found a veritable spaghetti plate of cables in the ground. So one by one they spiked them*. If there was a big bang and the chisel was no more, then they'd look for a tripped breaker/blown fuse, and enquire as to whose power had gone off - make alternative supply arrangements and update the records. If there wasn't a big bang, then the cable was dead.
* For those who don't know, spiking a cable involves a clamp round the cable, a chisel, and an explosive charge to propel the chisel - I think you can guess the rest
Retire to safe distance, pull string, explosive fires chisel through cable. If the cable's dead then you have cut the cable and the chisel can be reused. If the cable is live, then there's a much bigger bang, the cable is still cut (but may still be live), and you need a new chisel.
I have it on good authority that a D9 bulldozer can pull quite a length out of the ground.
The story surrounds a power station demolition and all was going fine until the found a live one!
All our records are now digitized, this included the old paper records we held that were scanned in some years ago. I have a laptop in the car with the full records for the whole company.
It's best use is for faults and saves going into the office to print them.
The story surrounds a power station demolition and all was going fine until the found a live one!
All our records are now digitized, this included the old paper records we held that were scanned in some years ago. I have a laptop in the car with the full records for the whole company.
It's best use is for faults and saves going into the office to print them.
Well those that you know about. I imagine it varies by region, but I'd be very surprised if some records had got mistake/omissions/etc that have crept in (or got lost) over the years.
I recall reading in my union rag a few years ago about a case in the Manchester area IIRC. There were roadworks going on, and they uncovered some cables - and IIRC the details correctly there was a difference between what they found and what they knew about. I can't remember whether there were cable they didn't know about, or if their records said a cable was disused when it wasn't.
It made the union rag because the guy sent into the hole to dig out round the cables/investigate managed to put a shovel through a live cable and get killed, and the manager got prosecuted (for manslaughter I think) - the union was supporting the manager who'd done the best he could with the details available to him, and it wasn't him that stuck a shovel into a cable. I'd imagine any sensible person would assume a cable was possibly live until proven otherwise - even if the old records say it should be dead.
DIYnot Local
Staff member
If you need to find a tradesperson to get your job done, please try our local search below, or if you are doing it yourself you can find suppliers local to you.
Select the supplier or trade you require, enter your location to begin your search.
Are you a trade or supplier? You can create your listing free at DIYnot Local
Sponsored Links
