Cost Analysis: The True Costs Saved by Utility Locating
Locating underground utilities is one of the most important steps to making sure you don’t damage existing infrastructure when starting a project. Determining the locations of underground utilities and knowing where to avoid digging can save you money in the long run. But how? Let’s discuss the money saved by locating and mapping out existing utilities.
First thing’s first, subsurface infrastructure can be unpredictable. You may have some idea of where a utility line is, but that doesn’t mean that the site is entirely clear of utilities. A number of utilities fall outside of existing data records for lack of tracking, mismarkings, and age of the utilities. You may even have a plan outlining where lines have been located previously, but it’s not a guarantee that everything has been mapped. With the idea that you’ll never hit anything under the assumption everything’s been recorded and mapped properly, utility locating may seem like an expensive or time-consuming endeavor. Devil’s advocate here: when the service looks like a combination of metal detecting (electromagnetic locating), mowing a lawn without any blades (ground penetrating radar) and sucking up dirt (vacuum excavation / potholing), how can anyone take locating seriously? It’s a service that takes additional time out of starting a project, and nobody wants that.
However, if you make these assumptions and brush off locating before you dig, you only have existing plans to trust for avoiding damages and their associated costs. For a quick rundown of SUE data levels, ground penetrating radar will give you horizontal locations of utilities (level B data) and vacuum excavation will give you exact vertical depth and sight of utilities (level A data). Utility strikes happen as a result of unpredictability, inaccurate plans, and not taking possibilities of existing subsurface infrastructure at various points throughout a project.
The Common Ground Alliance’s 2022 DIRT Report reported 204,504 unique utility damages and 1,973 total near miss reports called in. Each strike can lead to thousands of dollars in repairs to the line itself and surrounding property, with dollar amounts being estimated around $56,000 per strike. Hitting a line is usually more than just a repair: a water main is damaged and floods areas, power goes out from electrical strikes, gas leaks cause environmental concerns, closures, and explosions. There’s an impact on the public with each of these scenarios that may affect day-to-day lives and business operations, and each strike adds up.
It’s estimated that utility strikes cause billions of dollars in damages over all each year, reported to be around $30 billion annually in societal costs. Damages on public utilities can lead to fines that can vary from hundreds to thousands of dollars. For obvious reasons, hitting a utility line is also bad for the reputation of a company and can have an effect on their current and future projects. Hitting a utility can also lead to injuries and deaths in the worst circumstances, leaving a long lasting impact that makes the other costs seem trivial. The delays and damages caused by hitting a utility line and the costs associated with it will far outweigh the costs and time spent locating lines prior to starting a project.
With utility locating and vacuum excavation, you’ll not only save money. You’ll also save time and prevent damages that impact the people who utilize utility systems in the long-run. Our team at Trinity Subsurface can provide you with subsurface utility engineering services that help you avoid costs in the long run. Visit our website to find out more information on how you can safely determine what’s underneath the surface of your next project.
