Subsurface Utility Partners Utility Locating services

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According to Federal Highway Administration estimates there are over 35 million miles of underground utilities in the United States. Additional studies have estimated that over 65% of all buried utilities in the United States are privately owned. 

State One Call (811) centers are a central distribution service for Public Utility locating contractors to receive locate requests. These notifications and the locating contractors that respond to them are hired to locate Public utilities only, not privately owned utilities. Individual property owners are responsible for the maintenance and locating of the private utilities on their property.

Subsurface Utility Partners specializes in identifying and locating private utilities to ensure contractors are safe to complete their excavation.

Subsurface Utility Partners employs Electromagnetic and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) while conducting our utility investigations. Our comprehensive approach relies on multiple technologies and a multi-layered approach that takes advantage of each technology’s strength. Our locate process involves Direct Connection, Induction, Passive frequency sweeps, and Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) scans to identify utilities in conflict with your projects excavation. 

Our specialized approach while conducting utility investigations combined with taking the time to communicate with all parties involved, ensures your team is protected and there are no surprises.

Subsurface Utility Investigation combines Public and Private utility locating to provide an understanding of utility conflicts related to preliminary design planning. This approach provides the opportunity to make design adjustments before construction projects start. 

Studies have shown a savings of 4.50 to over 11.00 dollars saved for every dollar spent on Subsurface Utility Investigation efforts. The savings realized are determined by the size and complexity of the subject project. 

These savings are a result of reduced design costs, reduction in change orders, less down time, more accurate sub-contractor bidding, and advanced utility relocations.

Based on over 30 years in the Public, Private, and Subsurface Utility Engineering markets Subsurface Utility Partners specializes in providing a comprehensive approach to Subsurface Utility Investigations for your projects. 

Subsurface Utility Partners combines records research and utility locating to provide utility location and attribute information for design purposes. The documentation of our findings can be GPS mapped by Subsurface Utility Partners, or we can work with your survey team to provide survey quality deliverables. Following a review of utility conflicts Subsurface Utility Partners will manage any potholing activities to further confirm key utility conflict location and attributes, and work with your survey team to update the conflict matrix.  

Subsurface Utility Partners offers GIS mapping of Utility Investigation findings for documentation and future use as reference prints. While not survey quality, Subsurface Utility Partners utilizes the latest GIS equipment providing an accurate depiction of utility placement. Along with GIS utility coordinates, Subsurface Utility Partners also collects utility attributes as requested by our client with data delivered in the format requested. Data formats include Shape Files, Arc GIS, CAD, PDF, and KMZ. 

Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) is a utility investigation process defined by the ASCE 38-22 guidelines. While many of the procedures are the same as a Subsurface Utility Investigation there are more stringent workflows and requirements to enable defining of the confidence level of investigation findings, accuracy of the utility mapping, and the resulting deliverable is reviewed and stamped by a licensed Engineer. The thoroughness of the investigation is categorized by defined quality levels D through A. 

Quality Level D: Record Research/Data Collection. Information is derived from records research or oral history. Quality Level D can provide an overall view for the congestion of utilities, rather than a comprehensive solution. 

Quality Level C: Visible Surface Feature Utility Survey. Utility surface feature data is obtained from surveying above-ground utility features and using professional judgment in correlating survey information to plot utility data. Level C supplements Level D data and identifies omissions and errors in record information.  

Quality Level B: Utility Designation. Information obtained through the application of appropriate surface geophysical methods to determine the existence and approximate horizontal position of subsurface utilities. Quality Level B data should be reproducible by surface geophysics at any point of their depiction. This horizontal information is surveyed to applicable tolerances defined by the project control and reduced onto plan documents. 

Quality Level A: Precise horizontal and vertical location of utilities obtained by the actual exposure (or verification of previously exposed and surveyed utilities) and subsequent measurement of subsurface utilities, at a specific point. Minimally intrusive excavation equipment is typically used to minimize the potential for utility damage. Vacuum Excavation is the preferred method. A precise horizontal and vertical location, as well as utility attributes is shown on plan documents. 

Subsurface Utility Partners will work with your team to provide comprehensive records research and utility designating in-house according to defined procedures to ensure your survey and engineering teams can confidently utilize the data to provide an ASCE 38-22 compliant deliverable. In addition, we will work with a quality subcontractor to manage the performance of Quality Level A Test Holes to achieve the highest level of confidence in the utilities location and attributes.