What is minimum depth for water, gas, electric pipes/cables?

[carryoncamping]

I've just been digging over my garden and stuck a spade into my 1" water main. It was only 8" under the ground or about a spades length!

Please does anyone know the minimum depth for gas, water and electric?

 

[bill webster]

I've just been digging over my garden and stuck a spade into my 1" water main. It was only 8" under the ground or about a spades length!

Please does anyone know the minimum depth for gas, water and electric?[

The depth for your supply is a minimum of 24" 2 feet

 

[carryoncamping]

Thanks!

I can't belieive the person who dug only 8" to lay a water pipe! n What makes it worse is the stop cock in the street is ceased open so Balfour Beatty are coming to dig up the road. In the mean time my lawn is getting a healthy drink.

 

[JC_Derby]

There is no minimum depth requirement. Companies do like to lay there cables and pipes to a certain depth though (See HSG - 47)
Also how long has your pipe been there? is it possible ground has been taken away (garden landscaped) effectively decreasing the depth of the pipe.

Just wondering if the water board have said if they are going to charge you for this?

 

[carryoncamping]

There is no minimum depth requirement. Companies do like to lay there cables and pipes to a certain depth though (See HSG - 47)
Also how long has your pipe been there? is it possible ground has been taken away (garden landscaped) effectively decreasing the depth of the pipe.

Just wondering if the water board have said if they are going to charge you for this?

The water main runs parallel to the garden path and is approximately 8" lower than the path. No landscaping has been done. As far as I know the main was relaid in the 1970s

The water board said they would charge to fix my pipe (though all it needed was a compression joint). Luckily, Balfour Beatty took pity on me when they came to fit the new stop cock. They found that at one point the pipe was a mere 4" under the ground!

If they had charged me things would have been said. The Water board made it a priority one incident and promised the leak would be fixed before midnight Friday. They finally turned up 9am Sunday.

 

[fitz1]

water main should be approx 30 inch deep.

 

[carryoncamping]

As a matter of interest, can electric cable and water pipes be laid together in the same trench? I see no reason why not assuming relevant warning tape is used and perhaps covering the pipe with something like old clay tiles as an added precaution.

Reason: My electric cable that runs to the garage needs relocating and was thinking of adding a water supply while the trench was open.

 

[JC_Derby]

Yes it can. But if one goes wrong theres obviously an increased likelyhood that it will affect the other

 

[Moz]

carryoncamping

glad to see your in Yorkie porkie land if in Manc land I would of been sweating ,
I remember years ago with the water board laying a 4in main 12in deep lol
(the service saddle were put on upside down or else they would of poked out of the tarmac !!!!)
around one housing estate,

after coming down from a long drunken/pills weekender with my gang lads ,teehee

 

[carryoncamping]

Yes it can. But if one goes wrong theres obviously an increased likelyhood that it will affect the other

The electricity supply to the garage is fed via an RCD so hopefuly if there was a problem the power would shut off before too much harm.

Thanks

 

[Moz]

they need to be 18in apart

 

[carryoncamping]

they need to be 18in apart

Thanks

Just found out from an Old-timer in the village that it was a disreputable local builder who modernised all the drains and pipework on the street in the early 1970s. The council never asked them to do work for them again.

 

[mavlyn3]

My disabled cousin paid to have a new fence put up the side of the house, the person who put it up continued with my next doors fencing, after my cousins, he fundamentally went through the gas pipe as he was removing the old fence post. (This was not my cousins fencing but my neighbours, but it was my cousins gas pipe)
My cousin was at this point sitting in her house. she has now received a bill for damage to gas service, Labour- £266.83, Materials- £1.19 and purge and relight- £27.86.
The hole was already dug "obviously", so all he had to do was fit the part and he didn't have to touch the boiler as he said it was OK, surely this is a ridiculous amount for what he did! Also we were wondering the gas pipes should be a certain depth down and also away from things like fence posts etc! What should we do, any suggestions?

 

[OwainDIYer]

I've just been digging over my garden and stuck a spade into my 1" water main.

Photo please

 

[noseall]

I've just been digging over my garden and stuck a spade into my 1" water main.

Photo please

They have probably moved house by now. Check the date bro'.