I am building a new home on subdivided property. There is an existing home in front of ours. The gas supply line from the meter , to the existing house runs under a common property driveway. Heavy vehicle movement over the unpaved common property driveway caused the gas line to rupture. I had the plumber repair the gas line but he has advised that the house in front needs to move the meter box so that the gas line no longer runs under the CP driveway. I approached the owner and informed her of the plumbers advice and offered to pay for half of the relocation. Now she is threatening to call worksafe and have the site shut down because of the risk of her gas line being ruptured again. The gas line is not up to code ( buried less than 600mm deep) What should I do?
Welcome. I'm not a lawyer, so this is not advice. This plumber has said that whilst he has fixed it, it is not legally installed. Is this correct? I've no idea if that is the correct thing to do, but if the gas line is not up to code, then I would think the plumber who fixed it should report it? If he will not, perhaps call whoever looks after the delivery of the gas from the street. I'm sure they would be interested in ensuring this is fixed.
common property as in strata scheme or an easement for services. ? minimum depth guidelines may vary between states authorities, In NSW it is typically 750 under road - 600 under pathways - 450 private property (or less) either way, lay down steel road plates to protect it before you damage any more services. regardless of depth where in the contract is your neighbour liable for any damage caused to common property / services whilst you are constructing ?
If it is indeed at a depth that is legal, then perhaps if you have no option but to fix it again if your builder's heavy vehicles damage it. Do you need to run your own gas supply? Where will you run it?
When did the plumber become the property expert? The service is fine in it's current location but may require protection from damage. You have noted that it was located in the common driveway, so it possibly occupies an easement or sits in a Right Of Way which you may traverse. Will you be putting in a paved driveway?
From what I can see gas lines can be from 200mm to 600mm deep. Can you place sleepers across the driveway so that the weight of the heavy vehicles can be spread out and not onto the buried pipes? (photo is for illustration purposes only)
I don’t know the depth the line should be but it sounds like it might be ok. What I do know is that for our development we paid extra to have a deeper driveway laid in the hope the heavy vehicles would not damage the civil works laid under it and hopefully we didn’t have to renew it after construction (which was a risk if we didn’t beef up the depth). But we owned the house at the front as well so we had extra incentive to protect the civil works going to that house as well.
