potholing utilities – Page 2

Reasons to Hire an Underground Utility Locating Equipment Company

In new construction, underground utility mapping is required by code, but there are situations where this is not the case. In some cases, property owners and developers perform their digging for buried utility lines.

This may be a strategy to save money on construction. However, the long-term cost of a failed dig may ultimately increase expenses by failing to identify underground utility lines. Although most of us take them for granted, underground utility lines are often unmarked.

They can be just feet below the surface or buried beneath structural footings. Knowing where these lines are is critical to protecting your family, crew, home, and investment.

Property owners and developers should understand the purpose and process of a project’s utility locating program.

What is Utility Lines

Underground utility lines are all the buried facilities that deliver or carry utilities to homes and businesses. This includes:

Water lines
Gas lines
Primary electrical lines
Secondary electrical lines
Telephone lines
Fiber optic lines
Septic pipes
Storm drains

Underground utility lines are typically encased in large steel or plastic pipes.

When to Call a Private Utility Locator

A certified utility location professional is also known as a locator should be called before you begin digging or building. The professional utility locator will examine the topographic maps to determine the best locations for locating all utility lines.

Inspect roads, street curbs and sidewalks, driveways, and trails for buried utility lines. The private utility locator will also dig at specific points to locate utility lines and mark their location on your maps.

By knowing the depth of the utilities you will be able to place footings or foundations in deep enough locations so that they do not contact them.

Here is a list of situations when you should call a professional:

You Need to Demarcate Underground Utility Lines

An Underground Utility Locating Equipment Company is a proactive resource when locating, mapping, and marking underground utilities before excavation.

When confronted with a utility project, companies often dig into their archives to provide a detailed examination of previously marked underground utilities in a given area.

Therefore, reducing the duration and complexity of the project and avoiding costly re-routing. Utility locating is a critical phase of any construction project that ensures that construction materials, labor, and effort are not wasted.

You Want to Avoid Damaging Existing Lines

The right utility company should provide services to mark any buried utilities, tanks, or private lines if they own them. Still, it’s hard to miss all the utility-marking flags and spray-painted markings in your yard.

Digging into an unmarked service can cause severe damage and cost you a lot of money to repair. Utilities can be expensive to repair and replacing them isn’t always the right choice.

That’s why it’s helpful to pay for a professional and save yourself time and money in the long run.

You Want to Prevent Accidents and Injuries

To prevent accidents from happening below the surface, you should dig with a private utility locating company. This way, your crew will dig without any worries about hitting underground wires or any other kinds of buried lines.

After being marked out and fully understood, you can move forward to the latter stages of the project.

You Need Dependable Information

The most cost-effective and dependable way to locate underground utilities is to let a utility locating service provider do the work for you.

A professional utility locating service provider employs one of the most effective methods for determining where your lines may be located. First, information regarding the lot’s construction and ownership is obtained.

This information must coincide with the ownership records on file with the appropriate governing authorities. With access to these records, any unknown utility lines or service connections can easily be determined.

Thus, plans can then be made for the locating service provider to complete the actual fieldwork and locate and mark underground utility lines. Helping to alleviate and take the guesswork out of the process, therefore, lending peace of mind and accuracy when excavation projects begin!

What Equipment is Used for Potholing Utilities?

State-of-the-art equipment such as electronic or radio frequency (RF) pipes, electromagnetic devices, cable locating tools, and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) is used for potholing utilities in order to perform a thorough investigation of the area.

In the end, this procedure can produce complete, high-quality utility maps of where current and abandoned lines run.

Levels of Utility Location

Since the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) guidelines were developed in 2003, many agencies have adopted these standards for obtaining utility information.

The four levels of utility information are D, C, B, and A. Level D is the least accurate and represents unknowing or unsubstantiated attribute data that is not suitable for use in design or construction activities.

Level A provides a complete and efficient collection of multiple attribute data points using the highest accuracy-producing attribute probing equipment available.

Level D

A level D site plan is the most basic level of information for utility locations. It includes information obtained from on-site observation inclusive of templates and layout of existing utilities.

Level C

The Level C report is intended for utility asset owners who require a thorough examination of the site to identify utilities. It incorporates the Level D research and adds field examinations, typically at a much-reduced distance from the existing facilities.

Thus, capture any exposure that remains hidden from a distance.

Level B

The Level B survey depicts the utility layout in the vicinity of a facility and is used in conjunction with geographic information system (GIS) mapping and utility information to assist in assessments and readiness.

Level B represents a basic horizontal and vertical picture of utility coverage in a vicinity, based on available public records and site-specific knowledge obtained from hiring a private utility company with level C and D information.

Level A

In Level A, conclusions are drawn from Level D, C, and B investigations, where the locations were deemed suitable for a utility company to install a service.

Then a letter of notification from a professional land surveyor is sent to a landowner indicating the utility company’s intent to apply for a permit to have access to their property.

Get the Help You Need Today

At Util-Locate, we specialize in underground utility locating utilizing the latest equipment and technology to make sure you know the location of every utility before any excavation work.

Whether it be a water service line, fiber optics, natural gas line, or other utilities on your property, we have the experience and expertise to locate them with GPS precision.

All of our locating technicians are motivated and knowledgeable with years of experience using multiple technologies. We have a diverse fleet of modern equipment that allows us to perform efficient locations over a vast area. For any utility location services, call us at Util-Locate today.

Potholing Machines for Utilities 101

Digging on the ground without knowing the exact location of underground utility lines is undeniably dangerous for work crews. Sure, there are utility locators such as electromagnetic location and ground-penetrating radar (GPR) that can identify and locate utility infrastructure underground, but there are instances where these are not enough to get the job done and you’ll need the help of private utility locating services.

In these cases, there’s a need to do potholing and excavating, which are the surest ways to know the exact location, size, and depth of some utilities. Utility locating services use several techniques like potholing, hydro excavation, and vacuum excavation—in order to find utilities underground, such as water lines, and see their features.

Why these Techniques are Needed to Expose Utilities

The first reason is to follow local or state regulations which prohibit mechanical excavating within 18-36 inches of a marked utility line. This is necessary for the safety of the workers and other people on the job sites and the surrounding area.

There’s an incredibly high risk involved with working around utilities even when the excavators themselves have information on the location of the line.

Drawings and maps can become inaccurate, incomplete, or outdated and this is why safety regulations are kept in place. Workers’ safety is compromised when removing dirt and rock debris manually if they are using metal tools. They also have to deal with the possibility of unstable ground material that can collapse overhead.

The increased use of horizontal directional drilling (HDD) is also a factor. HDD reduces the number of road closures for utility installation projects and thus it’s being used increasingly to lay cables and pipes.

This drilling method also has less impact on the environment. But the downside is that HDD makes it harder for the GPR to locate utilities because of the process’s decrease in soil disturbance and the absence of traceable ditch lines, which are two features that GPR depend on.

So for areas where HDD was used, utility locators will have to resort to potholing and daylighting to locate underground lines.

What is Potholing?

Also called daylighting, potholing is the process of digging a test hole in order to locate and expose existing underground utilities while keeping the surrounding soil undisturbed.

This involves the potholing machine making a series of holes through soil, concrete, or asphalt. The workers will then use a vacuum or hydro excavation to remove the soil.

Potholing utilities can expose the positions and orientations—both vertical and horizontal—of the utilities and enable workers to check for damages such as cracks and punctures. Excavation potholing is also effective as a digging method for installing signs, utility poles, fences, and other jobs that would require setting posts in the ground.

Kinds of Excavation Process

As mentioned above, contractors use excavation to remove the dirt between the hole and the utility. Traditionally, workers would use hydraulic excavators on construction sites.

Nowadays, workers prefer daylighting excavation where utility lines are exposed through soft excavation techniques such as vacuum excavation or hydro excavation.

Hydro Excavation

This excavation technique uses pressurized water to move soil debris as well as rock debris out of the way. This entails the use of a long hose for suctioning the displaced dirt, water, and debris to a holding tank attached to a truck.

The workers will then haul the wet spoils away for disposal. This use of hydro excavators adds to the time and expense needed to complete the job.

Vacuum Excavation

This involves the use of pressurized air to break up compressed soil around the utility. The workers will then vacuum the dry spoils and reused them as backfill. The vacuum mechanism may be able to utilize high-speed suction in light soils to remove the soil straight down until the utility is exposed partially.

Workers usually prefer using vacuum excavators, but they have to use hydro excavation machines in dealing with heavily compacted soils. The suction hose cleaner, with the help of water, can prevent the soil and excavated debris from gathering.

Equipment Used for Hydro and Vacuum Excavation

These two excavation types are usually worked on by a vacuum excavator or hydrovac truck. This one truck has high-pressure water and air excavation system, plus a water supply tank and a large tank that is designated to hold spoils vacuumed up from the site, as well as the drilling fluids. Some of the excavators are mounted on a trailer.

The hydrovac truck or trailer injects water under pressure into the soil using a wand or hose. The water pressure is strong enough to break up the soil but not strong enough to cause damage to the utility lines.

The soil is liquefied by the water and produces slurry. This slurry is carried by the vacuum to a tank attached to the truck. It’s the truck’s job to remove the slurry from the work site in order to keep it clean and orderly.

Benefits of Potholing and Daylighting Using Hydro or Vacuum Extraction

There are multiple benefits involved with using hydro or vacuum extraction for potholing and daylighting utility locations. First, they allow utility locators to ‘daylight’ utilities without the risk of damaging them because compared to mechanical excavating, they are less disruptive, less destructive, and less invasive. Also, these techniques have a less environmental impact and the site is easier to restore or repair after the job.

Since these two leave a smaller footprint compared to mechanical excavating, they reduce the time needed to complete a job. They can also be used in locations that cannot be accessed by traditional excavation machinery, plus the compact truck or trailer can operate easily in urban areas.

Hydro or vacuum extraction also eliminates life-threatening accidents and keeps projects progressing by minimizing delays. And most importantly, these two techniques won’t cut a utility line or other underground feature accidentally.

Choose the Right Utility Locating Services for Your Needs

If you’re looking for the best private utility locating services and mapping services in Southern California, you can’t go wrong with Util-Locate.

We are the No. 1 utility locating service and underground utility locator in Los Angeles, San Diego, Imperial, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara, Kern, Riverside, Orange, Ventura County, and all major Southern California cities.

To schedule a service with us, contact us at Util-Locate at (866)638-1075 today.

Expose Underground Utilities with Vacuum Excavation

Underground utilities are particularly susceptible to damage, especially when worked upon in more traditional ways such as manual digging and using a backhoe.

Manual Digging is the most labor-intensive method of exposing underground utilities, requiring significant worker numbers to accomplish the job. This kind of work can also take days to complete, requiring both the removal and replacement of soil, meaning that projects can fall behind schedule. Another significant risk encountered when manually digging is that hand tools can come into contact with electrical wiring beneath the surface, which can pose a significant threat to human life, causing either severe injury or even death. Due to these reasons, other modern methods have become more commonly used.

A backhoe requires the use of machinery in order to dig up the ground and expose buried underground utilities. This piece of machinery has a large bucket which digs into the ground, in much the same way as a hand shovel. Additionally, due to the larger size of these machines, this means that the job can be completed more quickly. The problem with this method, much like with hand digging, is the lack of vision that the machine operator has underground. This lack of visual information means that underground cabling can be damaged during the excavation process, incurring significant costs and project delays while repairs are made to the existing infrastructure.

These older methods of potholing utilities have been replaced by a quicker, more cost-effective method called Vacuum Excavation.

What is Vacuum Excavation?

As the name suggests, vacuum excavation involves the removal of ground materials through suction. This method of excavation can be done in two different ways.

The first type of vacuum excavator uses water; highly-pressurized water is used to dislodge and remove soil. A vacuum is then applied over the area to suck up and store debris. Water excavation can be useful in situations where the ground would otherwise be too hard to simply vacuum. The high-pressure water helps to increase the moisture of the soil and make it easier to break up. Water vacuum excavation is suitable as it is non-destructive and allows for more accurate excavation of underground utilities.

The second method is simply air vacuum excavation. This method is suited to areas with loose soil and ground materials, which are quickly drawn up through an intake nozzle into a dry debris container. From here, you can unearth the underground utilities that you need to work on without causing any damage, similarly to the water excavation process. Once the work has been completed, a driver will dump the dry soil back into the hole you’ve created.

Overall, both of these methods are hugely useful at increasing safety on the worksite. Hand Digging is labor and time intensive, but it is also dangerous as workers can come into contact with live electrical wiring. The same can occur when using a backhoe. This danger is why you will now commonly find a Vacuum Excavator being used to expose underground utilities.

Potholing Utilities for a Cost Efficient and Safer Excavation

Potholing for utilities is a method that construction site workers can use to obtain a wealth of visual information regarding piping and other subsurface construction. Utility potholing has increasing importance in the construction industry, as a method that can help to make excavation safer and more cost-effective to do.

In the past, it was commonplace for contractors to use a backhoe. This piece of equipment is highly recognizable to the general population as a typical piece of machinery you would find on a construction site. However, it does not have the precision or maneuverability of more modern excavation machinery, meaning it has the potential to cause immense damage to existing subsurface infrastructure.

Vacuum excavation is a process in which water is pushed through the earth creating a hole that allows the crew to visually confirm the location of the utility lines. As the earth is removed to create the hole, it goes into a special storage truck that can easily be removed from the construction site and dumped elsewhere.

Not only is potholing the most accurate way of learning the location of utility lines, but it is also time and cost-efficient. Keep reading to find out the many other benefits of using vacuum excavation on your construction site. Know more about pothole utilities.

Increased Safety using Vacuum Excavation

Nowadays, you are much more likely to find a vacuum excavator being used. These highly portable pieces of machinery use air to displace soil. Since the air and water are only vacuuming at low pressures, this means that other utilities in the ground will not be damaged, which makes vacuum excavation the preferred method compared to using a backhoe.

While vacuum excavation is an extremely safe process, there are still a number of precautions that should be taken to keep your crew and members of the public safe. Before utility potholing can take place, you should reach out to third parties who have knowledge of the construction site. They might be able to provide you with recent utility line maps or estimations for how deep the holes will need to be.

It is also always recommended that you hire an experienced team that specializes in vacuum excavation They will have the training and expertise necessary to do the job safely and efficiently. A professional team will also understand the importance of preliminary work such as using RADAR or digital technology to gather estimates for locations and depths.

By hiring specialists, you will minimize the risk of damage to the utility lines as well as the expensive excavation equipment. You will also save money by avoiding the possibility of a utility strike which can cause expensive repairs or fines if it affects the local community.

Vacuum excavation also has a wealth of other benefits compared to using a backhoe. When excavating, a backhoe will displace a considerably larger amount of soil compared to a vacuum excavator. A vacuum excavator simply stores the displaced soil inside the machinery, meaning there is no need for a dumping ground.

Increased cost efficiency using Vacuum Excavation

The next important benefit of using vacuum excavation, compared to backhoeing and manual labor, is the reduction in costs.

Manual digging is an outdated method of excavating that requires a significant number of man-hours to accomplish the same thing as backhoeing and vacuum excavation. In comparison, vacuum excavation would be much quicker while also causing much less disruption to the ground. Once work is complete, workmen would also have to refill the holes they had made, doubling the time taken.

Considering the amount of manpower required to excavate utility lines as well as the extended time frame to get the work done, relying on hand tools is a very costly option in the long run.

The cost implications for backhoeing are different from manual labor. This piece of machinery can be a great tool when displacing ground is clear of subsurface infrastructure. It can accomplish what multiple workmen would do in hours, in mere minutes. When used in an area containing subsurface infrastructure, the damage that can be caused by the metal bucket on a backhoe hitting existing piping and cabling could be disastrous. This would most likely result in the project being put on hold, whilst repairs to the infrastructure are completed by those who caused the damage. As you can see, the risks of using a backhoe are very real, meaning it is a good idea to consider using a vacuum excavator instead when potholing utilities. Know more potholing companies.

Summary

In summary, vacuum excavation is a new and improved method of potholing utilities.

A professional excavation team will understand the needs of your construction project and will also work diligently and efficiently. This means your crew and the land itself are kept protected throughout the excavation process.

The use of low-pressure water and air by this system means that existing subsurface infrastructure is less likely to get damaged, versus other methods such as backhoeing and manual digging. The cost savings and improvement to site safety can also be immense through this mitigation of risk. You can find out more information regarding vacuum excavation and potholing utilities by visiting Util-locate.com.

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