how easy is it to use a CAT tool?

[Rich2484]

Grad a spade and start digging. If the handle starts to get hot quick you have found power. If it hisses. You have found gas and if you get wet but its now raining you have hit water.

 

And if the bloke next door hits you on the nose you have hit the tv/phone cable.:lol::lol::lol:

[arbmark]

cheers for all the replies.....i just need to avoid by 6m for planting some standard trees - i hope that this will make it simpler......

i better just hope the hire company can explain the lights and buttons to mr thicky here

might print out your advice and take it with me!!!!

[arbmark]

Grad a spade and start digging. If the handle starts to get hot quick you have found power. If it hisses. You have found gas and if you get wet but its now raining you have hit water.

 

And if the bloke next door hits you on the nose you have hit the tv/phone cable.:lol::lol::lol:

 

love it! lets just say i wont be making pilot holes for the stakes with an iron bar!!!!!!

[stuartyg]

you can get cat testers on ebay used for around £100, verry easy to use just take a bit of getting used to,

[eggsarascal]

A CAt tool is easy to use. The big thing is how accurate or effective are they. They will help find charged cables below the surface - they will not find every service, plastic water or gas pipes street lighting when its not on. The basic ones won't tell you what depth the service is at either. You can induce a charge for detection into dead cables and metal pipes with a the addition of a "Gen" and what we find very useful for locating drains where we can get access from an adjacent manhole or gully is a "sonde" which is a little torpedo blob thingy you switch on and screw onto a sewer rod and then push and follow it from above ground with the CAT. They assist but do not give a definitive guarantee that there an area is service free - they help with cable avoidance

 

^^^^ What he said......If in doubt "hand dig"

[likeitorlumpit]

Get a CAT and Genny

Plug the genny in a nearby house and switch it on - you will hear a noise.

Go into the garden and follow the trace on genny

You get maximum noise at right angles to the cable- thats why you do a chequer board scan. When you get a noise, reduce the setting and then spin the CAT until there is no sound. That is the line of the cable.

Use all the settings if you are unsure. You will get a general better picture.

Modern ones can detect depth.

You will NOT be able to detect a pot end which could be fatal- you find these on old industrial sites.

Often a high voltage line is harder to detect as it tends to be better balanced.

You won't detect plastic and without a genny you will not detect a cable that hasn't a current running so top tip= get the customer to put the kettle on.

Knowledge is power. And from physics ' power is current x resistance and as we all know. resistance is............................................futile

[difflock]

We have one in work.

I whilst understanding the principle/knowing how it works, find it a bit of a blunt instrument, being an older type.

But then quite often where we would be using it there is/are a whole clutter of cables.

I simply rationalize that the serious high voltage buried cables will proper SCREAM out.

BT are good at locating their own cables and I understand this is the only way to locate the very expensive to replace fibre optic cables as they generate NO SIGNAL.

That combined with a sensible handy excavator operator and a bucket sans teeth, excavating in 50mm incremental layers is a big help.

And yes, switch on as many heavy load electrical appliences as poss to "excite" any cables.

PS

A proper filthy habit apparently beloved of electricans is to discard cable cuttings randomly about the cable track.

Find the first, excavate super cautious.

Oh its only a cutting.

Repeat a few more times with the same time consuming end result.

Then dig up the live cable cos hey its only another cutting:blushing:

Edited February 14, 2013 by difflock

[Yorkshireman]

love it! lets just say i wont be making pilot holes for the stakes with an iron bar!!!!!!

 

 

 

A very wise idea an operator working to plant trees has been zapped by Electric

 

In one such case an employer gave their operator an Iron bar , and got told to dig holes near a sub station

but didnt use a Cat device or signal generator , nor used any utility maps for underground services

 

Worker injured by thirteen foot electrical flame

 

. It was fined £8,000 and was ordered to pay costs of £2,939.20.

 

Cats dont find all buried services especially , water & gas being the worst , but I have found live electric lines in 4 inches of soil before now..

 

Be careful utilites are required to bury cables at given depths , But in My experience they dont , well the bloke on the shovel / digger doesnt despite what he's told to do ,

[swinny]

Have to use a cat scanner to find the bt main feed cable going down the back of 4 big stumps to grind out. Not looking forwards to that!

[difflock]

Swinny,

As I mentioned BT are very good at sending an engineer out to locate their cables, at least in NI.

A "dial before you dig" number being provided.

And yes!

Re electric cables being other than where they are supposed to be.

we demolished a derlict toilet block some years ago.

Along a main St loads of NIE cables thereabouts.

The NIE engineer came out with a beautiful bound note book lovingly detailing cable locations "as constructed"

we had had the supply to the building isolated and removed.

No other cables extant per engineer after carefully consulting his book.

the Excavators first swipe pulled away a 3" thick step, lying in the quarry dust below step, but at surface level was a pot-end on a HEAVY LIVE NIE cable.

Erm!

I could not keep from smirking:lol: