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A customer last year asked for an estimate for a double set of gates, i said we would fix one post to house and use an existing post as the other.
For some reason she then decided to have a double set of gates and a side gate, so 3 posts and got somebody else to do the work, he dug down and put in 3 x 9 inch square posts in cuting through the cable to her garage and as she told me a large flash and bang.
So the question is, is the cable still live if somebody replaces the fuse, and the cable is still in the ground, and will it make the ground area live in heavy rain.
Finally she now cant get her car in the garage as the posts and side gate now make the opening that was there to small, thats why i suggested two double gates.
I take it that the cable is 3/4 core armoured (Live, Neutral, Earth & Supplimentary Earth), and the Armourings (Supplimentary Earth) will are earthed at source.
If the system has an RCD (Residual Current Device)it will be unlikey that the cable will become live if reset, it would just keep tripping (However each trip causes some degredation on an RCD, they ideally shoud be changed / tested after a "pressured" trip). If there was no RCD then it would be very dangerous to reset / re-fuse as this would only have over current protection (high circuit resistance) and potentially could kill someone (Especially if the post / gates were touched).
Either way the system needs to be repaired (Cable Joint) or replaced before doing anything else.
The cable will become live if the breaker is turned back on but will no doubt immediately "go to earth" and trip out the breaker again. Even the most old fashioned consumer type unit would blow a fuse before electrifying a large area of ground!! And as for the opening size wtf????
tut tut women.