Cables and pipes on your own land: why nobody knows where they are
Published:
Network operators are legally required to register their cables and pipes. That is why the Dutch KLIC system works. But that duty stops roughly at your meter cupboard or property boundary — and everything beyond it is registered nowhere.
Up to the meter, it is arranged
The mains in the street and the connection up to your meter are neatly registered. Request a KLIC report or orientation request and you get those networks properly mapped.
Beyond that point your land begins — and with it your responsibility. The sewer connection under the lawn, the 1998 drainage, the power cable to the shed: no institution keeps track of any of it.
How knowledge disappears
At installation time, everyone knows where everything is. The installer knows, you know, there may be photos. Ten years later the installer has retired, the photos are on an old phone, and the house may have been sold.
The new owner inherits no knowledge — only riddles. Every generation of residents digs up the same surprises, sometimes literally.
What to do about it
Record things while the knowledge still exists. A photo of an open trench beats a hundred notes. Measure distances from fixed points — facade, boundary, inspection pit — and put it on a map.
That is what ErfPlan is built for: pipes, cables, drainage, trees, and boundaries on one map of your own property, with photos and notes, stored locally, no account. When selling, hand the map over — the first owner who does saves the next one years of puzzling.
ErfPlan is a reference map for personal use — not a replacement for an official KLIC report and not a legal survey tool. Digging without a report where one is required remains at your own risk.