Private utility locates
Private utility locates in Ontario — what the public locate does not cover
You have a locate request in, there are marks on the ground, and you still cannot see the services you are about to work around. That is not a failure of the locate — a public locate answers a narrower question than most people expect. Here is how coverage is decided, what it leaves out, and what a private locate adds on projects across the GTA, Golden Horseshoe and across Ontario.
The marks are there. So why is the site still unclear?
It is the most common conversation we have. The request is in, owners have responded, and there is paint and flagging across the site. Then someone looks at the strip they are actually working in and asks why the line feeding the building is not marked, or whether the pipe coming out of the old mechanical room is still live.
The reason is that a public locate is a notification service built around ownership. You request it through the Ontario Dig Authority, and the owners with infrastructure in the area are notified so their own plant can be marked. What each one marks follows the ownership and the demarcation point that apply to that infrastructure — which differs between utilities and is not simply a property line.
Everything outside those ownership boundaries, and everything that was never owned by a responding utility, sits outside the response. That can include the private service running from a demarcation point to the building, services that run entirely inside a property, lines installed for a previous tenant or a previous use, and services that were abandoned in place.
Abandoned lines are the hardest of all. There is often no record of them, or the record describes a site that no longer exists — a service that was cut and left in the ground, a tank line, a conduit run for equipment that was removed years ago.
So the owner responses give you the utility side of the picture, as far as each owner's responsibility goes. The work you are about to do usually happens on the other side of it.
None of this is an argument against requesting a public locate. Submit the request every time, in the time required, and review the responses you get back. A private locate is what you add on top of it where the work area calls for one — and neither is a permission to dig.
Public locate vs private locate
The two are not competing services. One is the notification step every project starts with; the other is the investigation of what that step cannot see.
What a public locate covers
Requested through the Ontario Dig Authority
- A locate request in Ontario is submitted through the Ontario Dig Authority, which notifies the owners with infrastructure in the area.
- Each responding owner marks the infrastructure it is responsible for, following the ownership and the demarcation point that apply to that infrastructure.
- The boundary is therefore not the same for every utility, and it is not simply the property line — it follows who owns what.
- Owner and public responses have to be received and reviewed before the utility picture for a work area is complete.
What it does not cover
Private-side services, unknown lines and anything outside the responding owners' responsibility
- Private services and in-property infrastructure that no member utility owns.
- Services installed for a previous owner, tenant or use, which often appear on no current record.
- Abandoned or unrecorded lines, or lines recorded on drawings that no longer match the ground.
- Privately owned infrastructure outside the responding owner's responsibility may need separate investigation. An absent mark is not clearance: obtain and review every required owner response and resolve missing or unclear responses before excavation.
The short version: a public locate tells you where the responding owners' infrastructure is. A private investigation can add information about privately owned services and indications detected within the agreed work area. Access, signal and ground conditions limit what can be detected; no locate response or field-marking result establishes that every buried feature has been found or permits excavation.
What a private locate adds
Same site, same ground — a second layer of information gathered with methods that work where a utility's own locator has nothing to mark.
Electromagnetic locating
A signal is applied to a detectable conductive service and its path is traced with a receiver. That follows private hydro, gas, telecom and tracer-wire-equipped water lines where an accessible connection point exists, including services inside a building where there is no utility plant to mark.
Utility locatingGround penetrating radar
GPR scans soil, asphalt and concrete without excavation. It is what we reach for when a service is non-metallic — PVC, clay, concrete — when the records and the ground disagree, or when there may be buried structures and responses that no utility record shows. What it resolves depends on the ground conditions, the depth and the target.
Ground penetrating radarMapping and investigation for design
Where the result has to feed drawings, the work is structured as an agreed investigation scope: records review, field locating and marking, a record of visible utility features, radar where it suits, and reporting that sets out the methods used, the areas covered, the positions and depths as estimated, and what could not be confirmed.
Sub Surface Utility Mapping & Investigation
Either way, what you are left with is documented: field marks, mapping and digital files your engineer, contractor or project manager can work from. Reporting and deliverables →
When you need which
Six situations that come up most often, and the kind of work each one usually calls for.
A service replacement at one building
The owner response covers the infrastructure that owner is responsible for, which may stop at a demarcation point short of the building. Field marks and documentation can inform the project team's review of detected indications. Coverage and estimated depths depend on the method and site conditions; this is not clearance to excavate.
Utility locatingCommercial site servicing
Commercial and multi-tenant sites accumulate private services over decades: tenant feeds, site lighting, irrigation, process lines and old connections nobody has a current drawing for. We locate and map what can be detected before servicing work is planned.
Electromagnetic locatingInformation for your engineer
Design work needs a documented picture of the work area. That is a mapping and investigation scope: records review, field locating and marking, a record of visible utility features, and radar where the conditions suit it — reported with the methods used, the areas covered and the limits of the work. Professional engineering work stays with your engineer.
Sub Surface Utility Mapping & InvestigationPre-construction verification
Re-checking the utility indications in an agreed area once the drawings are done and before work begins, so a potential conflict is identified while it can still be planned for.
Pre-construction verificationSuspected abandoned lines
Abandoned services are the ones records usually miss. Electromagnetic locating and ground penetrating radar can show an indication of a line that no drawing carries — but they do not confirm whether it is connected, live, or safe to disturb.
GPR and anomaly investigationConfined space or manhole work
Sometimes the only way to see what a structure carries is to open it. Entry work is scoped individually, and accepted only once the task, access, personnel qualifications, equipment, procedures, required permits and safety and rescue arrangements are confirmed.
Manhole entry and confined space
One honest note
This page is general information about how locating works in Ontario, not legal advice. Applicable law, infrastructure-owner instructions and project requirements govern the work. What we can do is look at the site and tell you plainly what the records and the ground show — including where something could not be detected or confirmed, and what it would take to confirm it.
Still have an active public locate request on the site? Send us the address and the details. That is a useful starting point, not a wasted step.
Have a site that needs eyes under it?
Send the address and what you are planning. We will come back with a practical scope for the investigation the job actually needs — and a clear quote.