I will need to have the electricity supply cable moved on my latest project at some stage as the planned extension will be in the way. Who is responsible for this and how do I go about getting it done?
If anyone has had this done what was the cost and lead times as well.
Cheers
Martin
Phone your billing company, and they will tell you who to contact - in my case EDF.
Only the "wires" company can do work on the suppliers side of the meter (though you, or whoever, can do the excavations if it's an underground cable).
Lead times not too bad in my case, 1 week or so to get the proposed work assessed, 1 more to get it done. (I had to pay upfront after the assessment).
Expect to be robbed. And I mean robbed, far worse than you can possibly imagine.
Mine was estimated at =A3400 - and even after pressing them about it twice, I only got it down to =A3300 - for literally 25 leisurely minutes work to move the supply termination just 1.5m by shortening the cables.
I hear that sort of daylight robbery is not uncommon.
My experience was good, in the end! The utility company were useless but I just asked the builder, who has it done all the time. He had the mobile number of the actual bloke in the van who does the work, who came sorted all the office paperwork out as well. Trust the builder first! They ran mine in a pipe up through the roof of the extension and back out to join its old run.
The cable is owned by whoever the REC is, not necessarily the supplier (the one you pay the bill to).
It varies - in the Manweb area you're looking at ~6-8 weeks from start to finish for a domestic service alt if there are no problems like wayleaves, the cost depending on what work is involved.
Payment is pretty much always up-front, as there was a ruling by OFGEM that a supply can't be removed for non-payment.
In article , snipped-for-privacy@gglz.com writes
Thanks for all the replies.
I will also need the telephone connection moving, are they similarly overpriced?
Cheers
Martin
I would just diy that. Electricity supply side is live working and unfused - if something did go wrong it could be serious - simply moving telephone wiring isn't such a big deal.
Likewise, and I was in the industry for 30+ years and knew exactly how they'd do it, but I was still told to pay upfront for work I knew wouldn't be done. All right the paying upfront bit I can go with, but being asked to pay for work I knew wouldn't happen.....
1) Ask for a breakdown of the costs. They should tell you in very basic terms what they're doing, and what you're paying for. 2) Keep an eye on the guys when they turn up to do the work, and sort of ask all innocent like 'I'm interested, how do you go about the work? Mind if I watch?'. 3) Go back to the 'wires' company after the job and demand a refund for the work that wasn't done.My quote was for £600+, which included digging out for a joint hole, cutting the existing cable, laying a short piece of new cable and joint it onto the existing, as well as the main fuse termination, of course.
When the guys turned up, the did exactly what I had told their office would happen, temporarily make the end of the cable safe with tape, pull the cable back and feed it up a pipe installed by the builder to the new meter position.
I got a very grudging refund of about £350 odd.
Out of curiosity, what is the correct way to safely cut a live cable like that?
Well done!
Delegation dear chap, definitely delegation
AWEM
DIY? Do it properly and they'll never know.
A neighbour had a quote of near 200 quid just to fit an earth clamp to the incoming supply - so I shudder to think how much they'd charge for doing real work.
Assuming you mean lv cables....
If it's concentric, it's just a case of taking the layers back one at a time, leaving inner layers slightly longer than outer layers, IYSWIM. The live is the innermost conductor. As a temporary measure, the end of the live can be wrapped with a few turns of pvc tape, although there are heat-shrink caps for a more permanent job. Jointers also tend to keep the fingers from electrical safety gloves when they get condemned for human use (usually because of pinhole or abraiding) and stick those over the ends of live conductors when they're actually jointing cables. A lot of the time, however, it's just a case of separating out the cores - familiarity and all that!
If it's an older paper insulated lead sheathed cable, usually with steel tape armouring, then it's more detailed, and the cable has to be stripped down to the cores following a set procedure and in an approved manner.
Whilst passing over the marigolds and wellies. B-)
Only having one conductor at a time exposed eliminates any possibility of phase to phase or phase to neutral short. Leaving just phase to earth which isn't going to go with quite such a big bang as the other two, though still not to be recommended.
Don't you get through apprentices rather quickly though? ;-)
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