Landscape Buried Service Questions Checklist

Note where each meter and supply enters the building, including electricity, water, gas and telecoms, and photograph every position.

The entry point is the one fixed fact about a buried run, and it is the first thing anybody investigating will ask about.

Note where the main stop tap is indoors and whether there is an outdoor chamber for it near the boundary or the pavement.

The line between an outdoor chamber and the indoor tap indicates roughly where a supply crosses the plot.

Record which direction each supply appears to arrive from, while treating the route between boundary and meter as unknown rather than as a straight line.

Runs are frequently direct but never reliably so, and assuming a straight line is a common cause of damage.

Note whether the property is served from the front, the side or the rear, since this often differs from what the household assumes.

Older properties are sometimes fed from an unexpected direction, particularly where plots have been divided at some point.

Record whether the property has a shared drive or access strip, because supplies serving other properties frequently cross ground like that.

Work on shared ground can affect somebody else supply entirely, which changes who needs to be involved before anything starts.

Photograph any marker, plate or painted mark in the pavement or verge outside the property and note exactly where it sits.

Marks outside the boundary often relate to what crosses it, and they are removed or repainted without notice.

A marker shows that something exists, not what it is or where it runs; only the relevant provider or a qualified specialist can establish that.

Go through the purchase paperwork for anything mentioning drainage, supplies, easements or rights crossing the plot.

These documents are read once at purchase and then forgotten, yet they often carry the earliest warning of a constraint.

Ask what process applies locally for requesting service records from each provider, and write down what each one tells you.

Processes vary by provider and by location, so the answer has to come from them rather than from any general assumption.

Ask the previous owner, if you can reach them, what was buried and roughly when, and write the reply down in their words.

Garden runs are usually added by an occupant, so the person who added them is often the only record that exists.

Ask neighbours whether anybody has dug here before and what was found, keeping their answers clearly marked as recollection.

Neighbours remember excavations vividly, particularly the ones that went wrong, and their recollection points at where to check.

Check whether earlier work on the house left drawings showing a trench, a run or a connection point in the garden.

Extension and alteration drawings frequently record connections that nobody has thought about since the work finished.

Ask what the local authority and the drainage provider hold for this address, and how a request for it is made.

Drainage records are held separately from other services, and the process for reaching them is not obvious.

Whatever a record shows is indicative only; ask a qualified professional what on-site checking is appropriate before ground is opened.

Trace where a cable or pipe visibly enters any shed, garage, greenhouse or garden building, and photograph each entry point.

The entry point tells you a run exists and roughly which direction it comes from, which is as far as an owner should take it.

Note every outdoor light, socket, pump or gate motor, and consider where the supply to each one must be coming from.

Each fitting outdoors implies a buried run somewhere, and listing the fittings is the simplest way to find the forgotten ones.

Never open, cut into or test an outdoor electrical fitting; establishing what any supply is belongs with a qualified electrician.

Record where an outside tap is fed from and whether the pipe disappears into the ground or runs along a wall to get there.

A tap fed underground implies a buried run between the house and wherever it emerges, often across the middle of a lawn.

Note any pond, water feature or irrigation line and where its water and power appear to run from.

Pond supplies are commonly laid shallow by whoever built the feature, which makes them particularly easy to strike.

Look for a hose, cable or duct that was buried under a lawn and shows as a line in the grass during a dry spell.

Dry weather is the one period when shallow buried runs advertise themselves, and it is worth photographing when it happens.

Record anything that was disconnected but left in the ground, since abandoned runs are still struck and still cause a stoppage.

Being told something is dead is not the same as it having been made safe or removed, and the distinction matters on site.

Ask who is responsible for establishing what lies beneath the plot before ground is opened, and record the answer in writing.

Responsibility for this is assumed by everybody and confirmed by nobody, which is exactly how services get damaged.

Ask what method the contractor or professional proposes for locating services here, and what that method cannot detect.

Every locating approach has limits, and knowing them beforehand sets a realistic expectation of what will still be unknown.

Ask what happens where a record or a scan is inconclusive, and who decides how the work then proceeds.

The inconclusive case is the normal case in older gardens, so the plan for it matters more than the plan for a clear result.

Ask how anything found is marked on site, how long that marking survives outdoors and who is responsible for refreshing it.

Marks fade, wash off and get dug through, and the assumption that they are still visible causes avoidable damage.

Ask whether ground near anything known will be opened by hand, and who makes that call on the site.

How ground is opened near a service is a decision with real consequences, and the owner needs to know who owns it.

How excavation proceeds near a known service is a safety judgement for the qualified professional in charge, never an owner instruction.

Ask what the arrangement is for machinery tracking across ground where a shallow run may sit.

Damage from weight passing overhead is easy to overlook because nobody was digging when it happened.

List every access cover, gully and grating on the plot and photograph each one with something recognisable beside it.

A complete list built up over time is usually better than one assembled in a single visit, because planting hides them seasonally.

Ask how it is established what each chamber serves, and whether any run beneath the plot carries flow from another property.

Shared runs are common and they change who has to be involved before anything is built, planted or paved above them.

Ask what applies locally where a structure, surface or planting is proposed over or close to a drain.

This is one of the most frequent late discoveries in outdoor projects and it can move an entire layout.

Building over or near a drain is a regulated matter; confirm locally what applies and ask the relevant drainage provider before designing above it.

Ask what becomes of surface water once it leaves a grating or channel here, since the point where it enters the ground is where a buried run begins.

An owner can see the grating and nothing beyond it, so the underground half of the arrangement has to come from somebody qualified.

Ask who maintains any run crossing the boundary and what the arrangement is when it needs to be opened up.

Maintenance responsibility for shared runs is rarely written down anywhere the current owners can find it.

Record anything a neighbour has said about a shared drain, a soakaway or a connection, dated and in their own words.

It is a lead rather than a fact, but shared drainage is common enough that the question always deserves raising early.

Look up along the whole access route and the work area, and note every overhead line or cable crossing the plot or its approach.

Overhead services are usually spotted on the morning machinery arrives, which is far too late to plan around them.

Record where each line lands and what it is attached to, including a pole, a bracket on the house or a neighbouring building.

The attachment point matters to anything proposed nearby, including planting that will eventually reach that height.

Ask what applies to working, planting or moving machinery beneath an overhead line on this plot.

The answer comes from the network operator and a qualified professional rather than from anybody on site making a judgement.

Work near overhead lines is a matter for the network operator and a qualified professional and must be confirmed before anything is planned beneath one.

Note any meter box, cabinet, hydrant marker or utility fitting on the access route that deliveries and machinery would pass.

Access route fittings are somebody else property and damaging one turns a garden project into a different kind of problem.

Record where a service crosses above a gateway or an entrance, since the height available is decided at exactly that point.

The tightest point on the route governs what can reach the garden, and overhead constraints are part of that calculation.

Note whether planting is already growing into or around a line or a bracket, and raise it rather than dealing with it yourself.

Vegetation near a line is a matter for the operator, and an owner attempting it is a serious risk.

Never cut, pull or work on planting touching an overhead line; report it to the network operator and ask what they require.

Note where a tree is proposed and ask what would need establishing before anything is planted in that position.

Roots reach further than most people expect and a tree is the hardest element of a scheme to reposition afterwards.

Ask what applies where a post, footing or foundation is proposed near a known or suspected run.

Point loads and dug holes concentrate risk in exactly the way a spread surface does not, so they deserve a separate question.

Check that every access cover and chamber stays reachable in the layout being discussed, rather than being paved or planted over.

Reinstating access to a buried cover means taking up whatever was laid on it, which is the outcome nobody wanted.

Ask how a raised bed, base or surface above a service would be dealt with if that service later had to be reached.

Planning ahead for the moment it has to be reached takes far less effort than working the answer out under pressure.

Note where a change in levels would reduce or increase the ground above anything buried, and raise it as a question.

Level changes alter the protection over a run without anybody digging, which is easy to miss in a regrading scheme.

Altering the ground above a service is a matter for the relevant provider and a qualified professional to determine.

Ask what the plan is for reinstating a surface if a service has to be exposed after the work has finished.

Matching a surface later is rarely straightforward, and knowing that in advance can influence what is chosen.

Agree in writing who carries responsibility for locating services and who is instructing that work to be done.

Written agreement removes the most common dispute in outdoor projects, which is who was supposed to have checked.

Agree what stops work immediately if something unrecorded is found, and who is contacted first when it happens.

A clear stopping rule protects everybody, and it needs to exist before anybody is standing in an open trench.

Ask how any find is recorded, photographed and marked up, so that it is not lost again once the ground is closed.

The information gathered during excavation is valuable for decades, and almost all of it is normally thrown away.

Ask what insurance arrangements are in place for work involving excavation on this plot, and record what you are told.

It is a question to put to the professional rather than something to interpret, and the answer belongs in your file.

Agree that a marked-up record of everything found is handed to you when the work is finished.

That record is the only lasting benefit of having had the ground open, and it has to be asked for in advance.

Keep your own dated photographs of open ground before it is backfilled, since that view cannot be recreated afterwards.

Owner photographs of an open trench have settled many later questions about what is where and how deep it sat.