Are you purchasing a new property? Planning on renovating or landscaping? Perhaps you’re a trades person or a commercial contractor? Before you begin any work on the job site, you should think about your underground services and engaging a professional locator to ensure your job is free from costly mistakes.
A locator like any other trade’s professionals, are specialists in their field with many years of training under their belt and armed with equipment to find and locate underground services in and around your property. A professional locator often called a “utility locator” or “underground services mapper” is an integral part of any build.
If you are digging or penetrating the ground in any way, you are responsible for the underground services such as gas, water and electricity lines. Telephone lines often referred to as Telstra Cables are also cause for concern and account for a large number of rural call outs each year. Often public services may flow through your property or job site and relying on a site map’s accuracy could be the difference between success and disaster. Any damage to public services has the ability to impact many others so its important to map these out.
A professional locator is trained to use a variety of specialist tools such as a “Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)” and “Electromagnetic Pipe Locator” to find these very services. A ground penetrating radar, most often mounted on a cart sends pulse radar waves into the sub surface and upon return (after hitting in ground items such as rocks, tree roots and pipes) will map any utilities underground. This technique is typically used where non-conductive pipes such as PVC and polyurethane pipes are located.
Another frequently used piece of equipment is the electromagnetic pipe locator. This is comprised of a transmitter and receiver. The transmitter will send an electromagnetic signal into any conductive structure. The receiver is used to pick up the electromagnetic signals being transmitted along the utility line. There are a number of natural interferences that a locator is trained to identify, to accurately locate any services on the property.
Serious skills are required to be able to use these bits gear and interpret the information received to accurately map all services underground. Have you ever seen the coloured lines on a nature strip with various dots and arrows and wondered what it is or what it means? Well, this is a professional locator at work, utilising their years of training and gear.
“Okay I get it, a locator has some specialist skills and equipment, but why should I hire one”. For the sake of a couple of hundred dollars (often less) hiring a locator could save you tens of thousands of dollars and even your life. Anytime you dig you run the risk of hitting underground services. If you hit a data cable, you may experience some issues connecting with the rest of the world, however hitting a high voltage electricity line, or mains water line, has the potential for a repair bill in the thousands and could even spell death.
Be it on public or private land, hiring a professional locator to find all of your underground services will ensure your project gets off on the right foot. Here at STS Locating Services, we provide all of the skills and experiences needed to find whatever it may be that’s hiding under your property. Servicing the Greater Geelong, Bellarine, Ballarat and Melbourne areas for all planned and emergency utility mapping.
