Locating — What to Expect

 

	Universal Location Colour Code

By Kassi Zaba

When a locate technician arrives on your property, they will locate and mark the buried utilities relative to your proposed excavation project with paint, stakes or flags. Those markings will be in accordance with the universal colour code and should be in sufficient quantity, and close enough together, to clearly identify the horizontal alignment of the buried facilities.

While locating equipment is quite sophisticated and accurate, parallel facilities, overhead facilities and nearby reinforced concrete structures can interfere with the equipment’s technology and affect accuracy. 

Locators should identify and mark the locations of abandoned facilities whenever possible. They should also identify the number of facilities the ground disturber can expect to find whenever that information can be determined.

Locators will not give depth, but should warn the ground disturber if they suspect a particular facility is deeper or shallower than might normally be expected.

Locators will provide documentation once the locate is completed. This documentation will include a map of the work area and where the located facilities are within that work area. It will also include any requirements from the utility owner should the ground disturber need to work in close proximity to the located lines.