Extending near underground electrical cables

[fridaynightdinnerandbaileys]

Hi, I have been wondering if we should extend our house (love the area, good schools, but too small for us).

We have some underground electrical cables on the edge of our boundary, which leads to a substation. I've had a look at the documents from when we bought the house, but can't see anything about how far we would have to be away to extend, or what the voltage is (though I feel like it must be high voltage if it leads to a substation?).

I was just wondering if anyone had ever extended near underground cables and if there was a certain distance you had to be away from them, any difficulties etc?

Many thanks for any help and advice!

Little bump on the off chance

Have you asked the utility company?

Hi @MarieG10 I've found it a bit hard to find the right place to ask, if that makes sense, but I night give the generic phone line a call tomorrow and see if they can put me through the right department.

It might be that we can't afford to extend etc anyway, but I don't want to get my heart set on it if it's futile anyway

I think the rules are a lot less stringent than building over a water main due to the risk of collapsed drains.

We haven't done anything like this for a while but I do t know anyone that notified the utility company and a friend was within a couple of feet of it...I wouldn't build over it though!

write a short letter. Include the plan from the Land Registry if you have it.

A letter to a utility company has a good chance of being logged and passed along until it knows someone who knows how to deal with it. phone calls, not so much.

The company will have plans and copies of wayleaves, but they are likely to be inaccurate, out of date, muddled, misfiled or lost, so will want to survey to find out where the cables really are before you put your digger through them.

You need to contact the dno for your area.
They will be able to map and mark cables for you and will have general advice available for this process.
The dno is not the same as your energy supplier.
Do not start work until you speak with them.