At a local factory here, I recently installed 3 x 630mm2 Al conductors in PVC conduit and laid it nicely in fine sand (called crusher dust here), laid a heavy duty warning strip over the top of it at half trench depth, all well and good I thought when it was back-filled.
I now find out this morning that the guy excavating a trench for the storm-water drains, dredged up my warning strip and conduit in one fowl swoop, even when told by one of the builders on site there were cables buried in the area where he was digging.
Luckily, these cables (singles actually) haven't been livened yet, as they aren't required, as the 2nd stage of the factory hasn't taken place yet and I am still waiting on the switchboard to be fabricated.
But, I was supposed to be going on holiday today for 3 weeks, something tells me that won't be happening.
I got there this afternoon and all I saw was a big orange curve sticking out of the ground and stripped aluminium cables sticking out of the conduit.
Believe me guys, I was nearly in tears, I put a LOT of work into that pull and to see it like that was devastating.
What do I do from here though?, do I get the lot dug up and start again?.
The conduit (glued PVC) has obviously come apart further down the trench.
With the size of conductor involved, I don't feel comfortable with jointing it either, considering it will be carrying something like 400-700A per core.
What would you do?.
