What is Private Utility Locating?

A one-call ticket brings out the member utilities, and each marks the public lines it owns, stopping at the meter, the pedestal, or the edge of the right-of-way. Private utility locating covers everything past that boundary: the water service running to the building, the gas run out to a shop or generator, site lighting and sign circuits, irrigation mains, sewer and septic laterals, and the power and fiber feeding a second structure. A private locator is hired by the property owner rather than by the utility, works the whole site rather than one company's assets, and pairs an electromagnetic locator with a ground penetrating radar cart because neither instrument finds everything on its own.

What Chatham-Kent Clients Get Out of It

• Covers the owner-side lines that 811 and provincial one-call centers do not mark
• Finds abandoned and undocumented runs left behind by previous owners
• Electromagnetic tracing and GPR run together, so plastic and metallic targets both get a look
• Marks are laid down in the APWA uniform color code every excavator already reads
• Rebuilds site knowledge on campuses and plants where the as-builts are long gone

Private Utility Locating in Chatham-Kent Conditions

Chatham-Kent sits in a humid continental climate, with winter ground freeze reaching 36 inches — frost changes what ground penetrating radar returns, and it stops paint from bonding, so cold-season work leans on recorded offsets and coordinates. Local ground: Clay, Loam. Soil conductivity is the variable that decides how much of a locate radar can contribute, because conductive ground absorbs the radar pulse instead of reflecting it. Primary industries — agriculture, manufacturing, construction — drive steady demand for private utility locating across the Chatham-Kent County area.

Ontario One Call (1-800-400-2255) requires advance notice — confirm the exact period with them before any excavation in Ontario. That notification is free and it is separate from private utility locating: it brings out the member facility owners to mark the lines they own, and stops at the meter or the right-of-way. Wait for every member to respond before ground is opened.

When Chatham-Kent Clients Use Private Utility Locating

• Water, gas, and electrical services traced past the meter
• Site lighting, sign, and parking-lot circuit tracing
• Irrigation mainline, valve, and zone location
• Sewer and septic lateral tracing to the tank or main
• Campus and industrial distribution between buildings
• Pre-dig sweeps for footings, piles, posts, and boreholes
• Pre-demolition and pre-purchase sweeps of undocumented sites

What a Private Utility Locating Quote in Chatham-Kent Depends On

Locating is quoted per job rather than off a rate card, because the work is a search and a search scales with the site rather than with the clock. On a Chatham-Kent job, the things that move the number are how much ground has to be covered, how many targets are in play, whether there are meters, valves, risers, or panels a transmitter can be clipped to, what the lines are made of, what the local ground (clay, loam) does to the instruments, and whether you need surface marks or a record you keep.

Describe the job once through Utility Hotline. Our team reviews the request, then locating companies covering Chatham-Kent and Chatham-Kent County send you their own quotes, so you are comparing them against the same scope. It is free to request.