About Utility Hotline
Built by the team behind Hydrovac News, Utility Hotline is a free nationwide network connecting contractors and property owners with trusted private utility locating companies.
Our Story
Utility Hotline is the Nationwide Private Utility Locating Network: a completely free platform that connects contractors, property owners and facility managers who need buried lines found with local locating companies across the United States and Canada.
Any locating company can join and list its services at no cost. Customers search by location, find qualified locators in their area, and connect directly. No middlemen, no fees, and no gatekeeping.
Developed in partnership with Hydrovac News, the underground-construction industry's educational resource, Utility Hotline exists to make the locating step an easy one to take. Finding a company that can put a mark on the ground should not be the hard part of digging safely.
We built this platform to level the playing field: giving customers a way to reach locating companies near their job site, and allowing every locating company nationwide to reach customers in its service area without expensive advertising.
Our mission is to reduce preventable underground utility strikes by making it easy to find a private utility locator: the person who finds and marks water, electrical, fiber, gas, sewer and irrigation lines that no one else is going to mark for you.
What Drives Us
Safety First
A utility strike hurts people, stops the job, and costs far more than the locate would have. Every connection we make is about getting a line marked before a bucket, an auger, or a shovel finds it the hard way.
Coverage in Every Market
Our mission is not complete until every community in the US and Canada can reach a professional private utility locator. Free listings make sure no market gets left behind and no locating company gets priced out of visibility.
Built on Industry Expertise
We come out of underground damage-prevention publishing, not out of ad tech. We do not just list locating companies. We understand what a GPR cart can and cannot see, why a plastic water line is hard to trace, and what a customer is actually asking for when they say they need a locate.
Growing the Industry Together
When more people locate before they dig, everyone wins: fewer utility strikes, safer job sites, and stronger businesses. We are invested in the long-term health of this industry because we have spent our careers in it.
The Network Model
Utility Hotline operates as a free provider network open to every private utility locating company in the United States and Canada. Locators create a profile, set their service areas and radius, and start receiving customer inquiries from their coverage zones. There is no subscription, no per-lead fee, and no premium tier. The full network is free because widespread coverage is more valuable than gated access.
For customers, the process is just as simple. Search by your project location, see which qualified locating companies serve your area, and connect with them directly through the platform. Whether you need one line traced before a fence goes in, a GPR sweep of a slab before it is cored, or a full utility map for a design package, Utility Hotline helps you reach the right company.
Why We’re Free
As far as we know, Utility Hotline is the only nationwide private utility locating hotline with easy online requests that is completely free to use, built on the same principle as 811: remove every barrier between someone who needs to dig safely and the people who can help them do it.
There are plenty of directory sites that come and go in this space, and most of them are built around selling paid listings or premium placement. That is not us. Every locating company on Utility Hotline gets the same visibility in its service area regardless of company size or marketing budget. A one-technician outfit and a national firm show up side by side when they cover the same job site.
Our philosophy is simple: remove every point of friction between a contractor and their ability to find and use private utility locating. Plenty of crews still break ground on private property with nothing but a public 811 ticket, unaware that the lines past the meter were never in scope. The easier we make it to find a local locator for a job in front of them, or to request a quote on one coming up, the faster this industry grows.
That is also why we work so closely with Hydrovac News. Hydrovac News educates the industry. Utility Hotline drives adoption. Together they expand the market for every locating company on the network.
Powered by the Expertise of Hydrovac News
Utility Hotline is built by the same team behind Hydrovac News, the underground-construction industry's educational platform. Between its expert articles, its free weekly newsletter, and its mentorship resources, Hydrovac News has established itself as a go-to source for industry knowledge and professional development. That same commitment to keeping crews and buried infrastructure intact is the foundation Utility Hotline is built on.
Questions? We are Here to Help.
Whether you are a locating company looking to join or a customer trying to find out what is buried on your site, we would love to hear from you.
