When to Hire a Private Utility Locator
One-call is free, required, and incomplete. Here is how to tell whether it covers your job or stops short of it.
The Boundary That Decides It
A one-call ticket notifies the member facility owners, and each one marks the lines it owns. Ownership almost always ends at the meter, the pedestal, or the edge of the right-of-way. Everything past that point belongs to the property owner.
So the question is simple: is the ground you are about to open on the utility's side of that boundary, or on yours? If it is on yours, the ticket will come back with little or nothing marked, and the lines are still there.
Digs That Almost Always Need a Private Locate
- Anything on private property past the meter — footings, additions, fence and sign posts, tree planting, pool excavation
- Campuses, plants, airports, and industrial sites, where the owner owns the entire distribution network
- Agricultural land, where drain tile and irrigation belong to nobody a one-call member represents
- Older parcels and redevelopment sites, where abandoned runs are likely and records are not
- Pre-demolition work, where you need to know what is live before anything comes down
- Pre-purchase due diligence on a site whose buried infrastructure is undocumented
- After a strike, before work resumes on the same ground
Digs Where the Ticket May Be Enough
Work entirely inside the public right-of-way, on a corridor whose member utilities are all registered, with no private services crossing, can be adequately covered by the one-call marks alone. That describes fewer jobs than people expect, because service laterals cross the right-of-way to reach every building on the street, and those laterals are frequently the property owner's past the curb stop.
Even here, private locating buys something the ticket does not: a depth, a mapped record, and a sweep for anything the member utilities do not know about.
Signals That You Need More Than Marks
- The work is a design, not a dig. You need quality levels and a surveyed drawing, which is SUE, not a marking job.
- The site is bigger than paint. On acreage there is no practical way to re-find a mark, so capture coordinates.
- The job runs for months. Paint does not last a construction season; budget re-marks or buy a map.
- The depth matters. A bore path or a foundation elevation needs a measured depth, which means a test hole.
What to Do First, Regardless
File the one-call ticket. It is free, it is required by law before excavation across the United States and in most of Canada, and it is the only way the public facility owners are obliged to come out. Wait for every member to post a response before you dig. Then bring in a private locator for the rest of the site. The two are complements and neither replaces the other.
Frequently asked questions
Can a private locator file the one-call ticket for me?
Many will as a courtesy, and some include it in their scope, but the legal obligation to notify sits with the excavator and the project owner. Confirm in writing who is filing, and confirm that every notified member has posted a positive response before ground is opened. Assuming the other party handled it is a recurring cause of strikes.
How long before the dig should I book a private locate?
Earlier than you think, and earlier than the one-call notice period, because a private locate is scheduled work rather than a statutory obligation and companies book out. Booking early also lets you white line the dig area before the ticket goes in, which materially improves the public marks that come back. Timelines are set by the individual locating company; ask when you request quotes.
Is a private locate valid for a set period?
Private marks carry no statutory validity window at all, unlike one-call marks, which have a period set by each program. In practice a private locate is good for as long as you can read it and nothing has changed on the site. If work is phased, plan re-marks. If the answer has to last, buy coordinates rather than paint.
Is hand digging an alternative to locating?
It is a complement, not a substitute. Careful hand or vacuum digging is what you do inside the tolerance zone after the lines are marked, and it is required there by law in most jurisdictions. Hand digging without a locate means finding utilities by encountering them, which works until the one you encounter is an energized service.
Related guides
View all811 Call Before You Dig: What It Covers and What It Misses
Call 811 — or your provincial one-call centre in Canada — before every dig. Then understand precisely what the ticket did and did not cover, because that gap is where most private-property strikes happen.
What Private Utility Locating Costs, and What Moves the Price
Nobody publishes a rate card for locating, and the ones you find online are guesses. Here is what a locating company is actually pricing when it quotes your site.
Utility Strike Prevention: A Working Playbook
Strikes are overwhelmingly preventable, and the causes are boringly consistent. Here is the sequence that removes them.
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