In Oregon, as well as many other western states, the number to call for a utility locate, prior to excavation, is 503-246-6699. This number actually handles the distribution of calls to many states.
Do not call the utilities in your area individually.
A faster way to go is to enter your information on www.callbeforeyoudig.org which is more tech productive for everyone. The utility locate company will take around 3 days for the completion of their marking process, which will be a color coded spray painted system of marks, under which the utilities are located.
I advise also to ask the utility locate folks, when you call in the utility locate order, to not spray paint any paved or permanent surfaces around the home. Sidewalks, exposed aggregate driveways and other masonry around the home does not need to be color sprayed, turning your homes exposed aggregate sidewalk into some one elses idea of industrial art.
The locator can spray the grass edge next to it on both sides of the sidewalk, rather than the concrete for example.
When you are contemplating the installation of hand excavated french drains, a utility locate is always required prior to installing your groundwater removal system whether it is hand excavated or a machine attempt at home drainage is planned.
Ditch witch excavators and operators can’t engineer a grade on a flat surface. That means they are worthless at doing french drains, period.
That is where the rubber meets the road in the test of home drainage success.
Ditching machines make a rough cut at the same depth, busting out the sides of the excavation in rocky soils, and still creating the need for hand excavated removal of the loose dirt and rocks, and what ever. Ditching machines can get stuck in roots anyway and become worthless for your investment. Using ditch machines will bust up everything it touches.
Trenchers cut the same depth, and depending on what they are cutting, this can mean a nightmare for everyone. If using the machine really goes wrong, it can cost you your life, if a gas or high voltage electric line is hit and a fire results or you are electrocuted.
Ditch witch excavation can not safely cut around electric and gas lines. Those are the two that can fry you. While cutting communication lines will ruin your day and shut down your computer, breaking one won’t put out your lights for good.
Ditch witch operators at best are like the bull in the china shop.
Trenching machines are made for utility line laying, not drainage. They are made for excavating trenches for underground utilities.
Ditches are not excavated to enough of a degree of precision to call them french drains.
Groundwater runs on the bottom of properly engineered the hand excavated french drains. It does not take much groundwater at all to get it running. That is why the hand excavated french drain is always removing it so it does not stand there and saturate the area.
During hard rains only, groundwater will build up in the french drain aqua duct, and the 3″ ads perforated pipe installed on the bottom of a hand excavated french drain will function like an overflow to speed the flow of groundwater away from your home when it is really coming fast.
Utility color codes are a must to understand for homeowner or contractor. Learn them here and protect yourself and your workers from accidents involving utilities and underground cable communication wiring. Always hand excavate french drains for quality and safety. Do it right. Read about it in this website.
1. Yellow spray paint markings indicate a gas line is located under the marking, or very close to it. While the gas line is supposed to be installed at a two foot depth coming to the home from the street, and come straight up at the gas meter, which is installed at the foundation wall, this may vary.
On a job a few years ago a homeowner had rented a back hoe and grading machine and dug away some of the dirt bank in an area where he was going to excavate for foundation footings and build an addition.
The homeowner removed about 18″ worth of soil over the top of the soil grade, skimming over the top of the gas line. That left the gas line down only 6″ from the soil surface in that location, and a good potential for a major breakage and gas leak in the future, if cut that gas line is ever cut with a machine. Even a roto-tiller would have taken it out probably. If someone is smoking at the time, boom.
Boom. In short, what you think you know about the depth of the utilities is only that.
If someone had proceeded to start up a ditch witch machine, like a ditch witch trencher, in that area, they would certainly have broken the gas line and could have wound up with a really big fire super quickly. Total loss of the home before the fire department can even get there in a bad case in a rural area.
We hand excavated around that same gas line and had no problem. After discovering it, the homeowner had it put deeper in the ground. That is what ditch witches are made for. Ditching underground pipes and utilities. Ditch witches are not advanced home drainage tools at all. They are the bull in the china shop.
2. Blue is the utility code for a drinking water supply line to the home. Perhaps pvc plastic attached to cpvc plastic pipe under the home and for service lines, perhaps even galvanized steel or copper pipe may have been used. A water supply line, perhaps around 1″-2″ in diameter, coming from the street to the home, is marked in blue.
The water line is usually below your hand excavation grade which is most often no deeper that 18″, if you stay with the depths and lineal footage requirements that I observe for professional results. I share all that good information in this site in other articles.
Be aware that utility locate services do not always find and mark utilities at all, or correctly with respect to position, and they never mark depth at all.
If you were standing right there with the locator and he had the machine on, sounding the ground, he could perhaps give you an idea of how deep they are located, but he would tell you it was a guess and to not record it anywhere.
As I explained in the example above, the utility, like a major electrical supply conduit, a gas line, or not so bad but not so good if broken either, a communication line of some sort, which may not even be marketed on the locate. Most are located and they are orange or tan markings. That explosion causing gas leak could be right under your proposed excavation. Get the locate. Go slow and feel for objects.
3. A sewer line is marked in green, and it is likely installed below grade to your excavation as well, provided that the original depth of the soil depth and grade has not been reduced substantially, which you never know, as I stated above.
The sewer line will be old cast iron pipe, clay tiles, concrete tiles, or abs pipe, at best.
I find every combination of different pipe types sold at Home Depot, for example, installed around homes, that have been used in the wrong way or in the wrong place which made the problem worse.
4. Red spray paint markings on the ground indicates that the electric conduit of some diameter. Perhaps even the main underground power to the home, coming probably from the street, but not necessarily. It may be directly in your proposed excavation path. It should also be 2 feet deep, coming straight up at the side of the home to the meter.
Low voltage electricity lines such as path lighting will never be marked.
Pvc sprinkler systems are easy to break, and gardeners as well as homeowners do it all the time. These areas stay wet all the time. Check those systems first before calling your home drainage contractor, or call if you need help with that one too.
Many contractors have in the past, and still do, bury 110 volt 3 strand romex electric wire in the ground without protecting it with a conduit.
What for underground electric lines, not marked located under side walks, entry areas and porches.
5. Orange or tan markings indicate the presence of tv, phone, or communication cable lines of some sort under the color coded spray painted markings. It could be a computer line, television cable, phone, fiber optic line or others as well. Most often these communication lines are fragile, and are not installed in conduit. Computer companies will probably use conduit, as this is currently required of them in many areas. It is in mine.
If you cut these communications wires, you must call the utility to have them repaired at no cost to you. If you have called the utility locate in as required, and you do do hit a communication line, you will not be found at fault for anything but bad judgement in using that trencher most likely, as well as probably the cost of the repairs to your property and home.
6. White spray paint markings are used by the homeowners or contractor calling in the utility locate to show the utility locate person where your proposed excavation will take place. If you do not mark the area with white paint it is alright too. Tell the utility call in locate number person that there will be no white markings out there and to mark the entire property.
Be safe. Hand excavate french drains for safety as well as the functional groundwater removal engineering considerations that need to be met. It’s all good when everything goes right and the work is done safely to code standards that protect you and your workers. No deeper that 4 feet in the dry well excavation without shoring the sides to prevent the dry well from caving in hurting workers.
Call the utility hotline that you called for the locate if you have an accident. 503-246-6699 in Oregon.
Remember that sprinkler systems are not marked by a utility locates and will be ruined all together, or damaged at best, by trenching machines. The occasional broken sprinkler line from hand excavation can be repaired by your professional home drainage contractor in minutes as compared to being stuck with monetary outlays to fix your lawn irrigation system.
Use schedule 40 pvc pipe and always use a pvc primer and pvc glue.
Shut off all sprinkler systems prior to the hand excavation of french drains.