Talk:Utility location

Private Utility Location
What are private utilities? The term "private utility" refers to the portion of an underground utility that is generally located on private property between the meter and the dwelling. Some examples of private utilities are: Electric or gas lines that feed detached garages, electric or gas yard lamps, lawn sprinklers, invisible pet fencing, propane lines from the tank to the house, etc.

Under normal circumstances if a business or homeowner contacts their one call center to obtain a utility locate, the utility companies contractor will only locate lines up to the meter. Locating beyond the meter is your responsibility.

Unless the private facility owner participates with their state on call center, privately or customer owned facilities will not be notified and may not be marked. Therefore, it is imperative that special precautions be taken by excavators as part of every excavation project.

A good excavator is also a great detective. The excavator knows that private facilities will be part of almost every job. They physically inspect the jobsite prior to entering a ticket or bidding the job, they query the property owner, see what equipment or power may serve buildings they will excavate around and look for warning signs.--Asunderinc (talk) 23:11, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

There are also private utility locating companies that specialize in the location of the underground utilities that are not a part of the 811 public notification system. Excavators and homeowners should both be aware that anything after a utility meter and possibly to secondary buildings on private or commercial property need to be considered and found before any excavation would take place.17:35, 14 May 2014 (UTC)ULOC.CO (talk)

US Dig Safe pavement marking symbols
Is this minimal stub all WP has to say about Dig Safe? Where is there a list of US Dig Safe pavement marking symbols and abbreviations? -96.233.20.129 (talk) 02:52, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

More about the situation in Europe
Utility companies in some European countries, for example Germany, Hungary, Slovenia, etc. use standardized indicator signs to mark underground utility mains. And as far as I know these signs are mandatory, required by law. This could be mentioned in the article. The German Wikipedia even has a rather long article about this topic: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinweisschilder_zu_Straßeneinbauten

31.46.252.183 (talk) 22:24, 9 July 2016 (UTC)


 * I added some information about Germany. --N9713 (talk) 15:58, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

"Marking" colours c.f. "actual" duct/pipe colours
(At least in the UK), the utility pipes/ducts are themselves colour coded - but use a different colour scheme to the one described in the article (which I guess refers to surface markings). Would it be worth mentioning, warning or even elaborating on this, in the article itself?

The colours of the actual pipes/ducts themselves (in the UK) are: - electricity is black or red, - (Post office then Openreach) telecomms is grey, - CCTV/CATV (and non-Openreach fibre) is green, - gas is yellow, - (clean) water is blue, - street lighting and traffic signalling is orange (but purple in Scotland), - motorway comms is purple.

The exception seems to be sewer piping, which comes a variety of colours (including black, grey, blue-green, teracotta-orange...)

[source: my personal experience/observation, backed up by an article at https://www.jdpipes.co.uk/knowledge/ducting/ducting-different-colours.html ]

["Openreach" is the largest national telecomms distribution network company, which inherited the local network and ducting from the former monopoly provider General Post Office (GPO)] Vilĉjo Walker (talk) 16:58, 6 October 2022 (UTC)