Before you dig
Plans and records
10 things filed against this subject, in every format the Bureau holds.
How a Utility Network Works, and What the Plans and Marker Plates Tell You
How the supply actually gets from the power station to a house, the cable types you meet on the way including old Hessian, and how to read a stats plan and a utility marker plate for what is really under your feet.
Watch 1:48:39 →Overlaid and Compiled Plans: Why They Invite Assumptions
What a compiled or overlaid drawing hides that the individual stats plans show. Pete Ashcroft on why one tidy drawing of everything is more dangerous than several awkward ones.
Watch 8:52 →Reading Utility Plans: Loop In Loop Out, Teed Off, and Tracing HV
Getting what you need out of a utility plan before the kit comes out: how street lighting is wired either looped in and out or teed off, what the voltage tells you, and the pre-planning that decides where you connect.
Watch 27:07 →Location, Not Avoidance: A Worked Street
Location, not avoidance: building the picture of a street layer by layer with the transmitter, one service at a time, instead of one sweep and hope.
Watch 5:48 →Why You Start at the Lighting Column
Why the survey starts at the lighting column: one connection asks the whole street how it is wired, whatever the answer turns out to be.
Watch 3:22 →