First of all we encourage everyone to dial 811 prior to any excavation to have all public utilities marked, unfortunately more than half of utilities are not covered by the 811 and are considered private we understand that sometimes it’s confusing so let us describe how it all works.
Public
Public utilities are owned and maintained utility companies or municipal services and are marked for free by using the 811 service public utilities are part of a large public infrastructure network. Some common examples of public utilities are buried electric, sewer mains, water mains, telecommunication and fiber optic, gas mains. Typically, the public utility will usually end at the meter, or the point of service.
Private
Private utilities are utilities that are not part of the public network and are the responsibility of the property owner. These pick up after the public point of service. Some examples would include power to garages, barns, site lighting, swimming pools; as well as lines to septic systems, water lines between the water meter and the home, sewer lines between the city or county sewer system and your home, well water, irrigation systems, and propane lines plus many more.
By contacting 811 and calling for a private locator you make your life easier by ensuring no one is injured, there is no service outage that could be costly to repair, your project is on time, on budget and everyone is happy.