Why Utility Coordination Matters for Private Locates

Reducing Risk, Preventing Delays, and Ensuring Accurate Subsurface Utility Data

On large infrastructure projects, Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) is often used during the design phase to investigate buried infrastructure before construction begins. When performed thoroughly, SUE significantly reduces uncertainty by collecting records, identifying surface features, performing geophysical locates, and sometimes physically exposing utility lines before work starts.

Unfortunately, most smaller commercial and industrial projects never receive this level of investigation. Budget constraints, schedule pressures, or limited project scope often mean that little or no subsurface investigation occurs before field work begins. When that happens, the responsibility for interpreting buried utility infrastructure conditions shifts directly to the locate and ground disturbance phase.

One of the biggest challenges in the private locate industry occurs when projects reach the field without prior subsurface investigation. In these situations, a locator may be asked to investigate a property with no background information, no on-site support, and no utility coordination completed beforehand. When this happens, a locator is essentially working blind. The likelihood of missing buried facilities increases, the investigation takes longer, and the overall project risk climbs.

This issue is common on commercial, industrial, and institutional properties such as small to large retail developments, malls, factories, mixed-use sites, schools, and government properties. These properties often contain a complex mix of original construction buried utility infrastructure, multiple tenant feeds, abandoned or inactive lines, undocumented repairs, and decades of incremental expansions. Without proper utility coordination for private locates, none of this is known before we arrive.

What is Utility Coordination for Private Locates?

When formal Subsurface Utility Engineering has not been performed, utility coordination becomes one of the most important steps in reducing uncertainty before ground disturbance begins. Effective coordination includes:

• Collecting all existing records available for the property

• Confirming which facilities are publicly owned and which are private

• Identifying utility rooms, electrical closets, pump rooms, mechanical spaces, and similar access points

• Speaking with site personnel who understand the property’s history

• Locating past construction drawings, as-builts, and survey files

This level of preparation transforms a locate from guesswork into a controlled, efficient, and reliable investigation.

Why Utility Coordination Matters for Risk Management

When utility coordination is not completed before a locate:

• Critical buried facilities may be missed

• Time on site increases significantly

• Unknown conflicts or crossings remain hidden

• Private service lines may not be discoverable without interior access

• Existing records that could reduce risk may never be reviewed

• The client inherits avoidable exposure and uncertainty

Risk management begins long before locating equipment is turned on. Preventing damage depends on having the most accurate picture possible of the site’s buried infrastructure, and that is only achievable when utility coordination is completed in advance.

Why We Ask About Utility Coordination Before Mobilizing to a Site

For remote or large properties, arriving unprepared is not an option. Mobilizing to a site requires planning, travel time, and ensuring the right resources are available. If we arrive without utility coordination completed, we will not have the information needed to deliver a complete and dependable locate.

To perform the most accurate locate, we need:

• Access to utility rooms, electrical closets, mechanical rooms, pump vaults, and equipment pads

• The ability to speak with site personnel who understand the property and its infrastructure

• Any available drawings, as-builts, past surveys, or engineering plans

• Public locate reports so we can distinguish between public and private buried infrastructure

• Knowledge of recent expansions, renovations, or tenant changes

Without these inputs, the investigation becomes far more difficult and may require additional mobilizations, increasing both cost and project timelines.

Two Options for Your Project

Option 1: Your team completes the utility coordination before we arrive.

Your team gathers the records, confirms access locations, and speaks with site personnel to assemble all relevant information for gas, power, communication, water, sewer, and irrigation infrastructure.

Option 2: We handle the utility coordination when we arrive.

This is possible, but it adds time to the locate and depends on staff availability and record completeness. In most cases, records are not kept on the worksite and must be requested in advance. They may be stored across different offices or buried in someone’s computer folder.

This is where clients need to be assertive with property owners. Lack of records increases risk, and that risk should not be transferred to the excavator or assumed by the private locator. Private locators are risk mitigators, not insurance policies.

Either approach works as long as expectations are clear before the locate.

Takeaway

On projects where Subsurface Utility Engineering has already been completed, much of this information may already be available during design. However, on the majority of smaller commercial and private property projects, that level of investigation has not occurred. In those cases, utility coordination becomes the first meaningful step in understanding the buried utility infrastructure serving the property.

Utility coordination is not an administrative extra. It is the foundation of accurate locating and effective risk management.

On complex commercial, industrial and institutions such as malls, hospitals, petrochemical plants, schools etc, proper preparation ensures:

• More accurate results

• Less time on site

• Fewer surprises

• Reduced risk of damaging buried infrastructure

• More predictable project outcomes

By completing utility coordination before the locate, you significantly reduce project risk and create the conditions for a safer, more predictable outcome. Our team has been applying this process for more than 36 years, long before “utility coordination” became an industry term, and we continue to refine it on every project. If you need support on your next private property ground disturbance project, we are ready to help.