Friend sawed into armoured electricity cable leading to garage.

[HappydaysArehere]

My widowed friend was trying to dispose of a non working garden watering system. She encountered this very thick and strong piping down the side of her detached house. Its not the normal walkway so not normally noticed. She got a saw and started to saw into it. She didn’t get far before there was a flash that tripped electricity in the house. I went over to see her and she was frightened and really shaken. She pushed the fuse back up again and all was well with the electrics. She later turned electrics off and bound the damage with insulating tape to protect against rain. She is now worried and thinks she will be showing it to her son in law who is not an electrician or builder. I mentioned this to my son in law who is a builder and he said she needs an electrician and talked about some form of connector where something is poured into it to seal everything. I don’t want to worry her as she is in a fragile state and the cut doesn’t appear to have gone very far into it. Has anyone a view on this?

I would totally recommend she gets an electrician to sort this out. My friend's husband was killed cutting through an electrical cable. I would want the person dealing with it to know exactly what they are doing.

Well from what you have said she is already worried so telling her you have asked someone and know how to get it fixed is going to be less worrying for her?

I'd be getting an electrician out to look at it. The insulating tape sounds like a temporary solution, but I'd be worried about the fire risk if water got into the cable.

Emergency electrician to fix. It sounds as if she has cut the cable that joins the electricity from the mains to the house. Each times it rains she will be at risk of electrocution. She needs to turn her mains off and knock at the neighbours to ensure their supply is not disrupted as well.

If she cut into it far enough to make a flash and trip the electrics then it's dangerous - she needs it looking at urgently by a professional. Can you son in law recommend someone if she's worried about being ripped off?

If it's the mains supply in it could be worth speaking with the local supplier - it's Electricity North West for us - and checking whether it's a job for them or an electrician. She's lucky she didn't kill herself.

It’s not the mains...the OP said it’s from the house to the garage.
We had the same last year, except our ps was under concrete and DH drilled through it. We had to get an electrician in to seal it up. Insulation tape is nowhere near enough.

If there was a flash then she went through the sheath, earthed armour through, and the primary insulation right through to the live conductors.
The circuit was correctly installed and tripped as it was designed within the required tripping time.
That means there are damaged and exposed conductors only covered by tape, so the circuit should not be energised until the cable has been repaired.
Being nervous is one thing, but energising a known damaged cable is good reason to be nervous

Electrician, no question.

Definitely electrician, can be fatal and think (though could be wrong) its illegal not to use electrician. I would also tell a relative of hers as well with a view to ensuring she's safe as she could have killed herself.

Thank you so much. I will now tell her what has been said. I didn’t want to scare her unnecessarily. She has been going through a terrible time and is very vulnerable. However, this obviously needs sorting. Thank you again.

No need to scare her at all, the circuit disconnected as it should due to the fault protection and now as long as the circuit is isolated it is safe. It just needs repairing correctly before it is reenergised.