Services

Public Utility Locating

The most common service that True-Spot offers is public utility locating services. This service is used by public utility providers to accurately identify existing underground utilities. The most common types of utilites located by True-Spot is electrical, communications, fiber optic cable and gas lines. While these are the most common, they are certainly not the only types of lines that True-Spot locates. Locating public utilities is most commonly used when an excavation contractor is about to begin working in an area. When an excavation is planned, the excavation company must call in a locate ticket. This locate ticket, once processed, is then passed on to the utility owner. It is the responsibility of the utility owner to protect its facilities from damage. Utility owners partner with tility locating companies to provide this service. Once a locate ticket is passed along from the owner, the locating company is then responsible for the correct marking of the facility. The locating company then either marks the ticket as all clear or visits the work area to mark the utility in question. This is typically accomplished with either paint or flags that match the type of the utility with the color of the paint according to a universal color code. By contracting with a quality utility locating service, the utility provider has done everything in his or her power to protect their infrastructure. As keeping downtime to a minimum is paramount to a utility provider’s operations, partnering with a dependable utility locating company is the best way to accomplish this goal. While there are several utility lcoating services availiable, True-Spot has truly revolutionized the industry. We are so sure of it, that if a public utility provider wants to try us out and see what all of the hype is about, they can try our service absolutely risk free for the first month completely for free.

 

Private Utility Locating

Private utility locating is one of the other more common services that True-Spot offers. Where public utility locating is typically more of a long-term, contract actility, private utility locating tends to be more focused on one off, situation specific jobs. Many industrial plants and facilities, private home & business owners and commercial property owners and managers rely on True-Spot to avoid damage to their existing infrastructure. Here are a few examples of when and where private utility locating services would be utilized. 1 – A commercial property owner is trying to build an add on to his or her existing facility and does not know where the existing utilities are located. Since they want to avoid an outage to their tenants, they call a company such as True-Spot to come out and mark everything that is under the ground. 2 – A business owner has expanded their operations and purchased the property across the street from their existing facility. They wanted to share data back and forth from facility to facility and so they had an underground utility contractor come in and install via horizontal directional drill a new conduit under the street. A few weeks later, the city is cleaning out the bar ditches and calls for a locate in the area. Since the business owner registered their utility with the local One-Call system, they are notified when a utility locate is called in their area. The owner is responsible for protecting his or her line and so they call their preferred utility locator to identify the location to avoid damage. Most of the damages to private lines are simply due to the owner simply not knowing where the existing lines are lcoated. This can all be preventable with the proper precautions.

Ground Penetrating Radar

Ground penetrating radar is a cutting edge technology utilized by True-Spot to identify underground lines and obstacles using radar. Ground penetrating radar or GPR as it is sometimes referred by is the use of specialized equipment to effectively x-ray the ground to identify anything that is existing without excavation. As excavation can introduce the possibility of damaging an underground facility, ground penetrating radar is a non-destructive method of identifying what is existing. Even hydro excavation carries some risk of damaging underground objects and utilities. Hydro excavation utilizes high pressure water and high capacity vacuum to excavate an area. While this method is significantly less invasinve than traditional excvation methods, water at extremely high pressures can also run the risk of damaging most underground facilities. While water is much less abrasive than contact with a trencher or excavator, taking into consideration that most hydro-excavation pumps are capable of pressures upwards of 7,500 pounds per square inch, there is a distinct possility of damage even utilizing this method. Another example, amoung many, where ground penetrating radar can be useful in preventing damage is concrete cutting. Many of today’s concrete slabs are costructed as post tension concrete slabs. Post tension slabs come in all shapes and sizes but the one thing they all have in common is the use of extremely tight steel cables known as tendons that are placed inside the concrete. Once the concrete is cured, the tendons are pulled tight, effectively squeezing the concrete to prevent cracking and separation. These Utility Locating Services tendons are stressed at up 33,000 pounds. Other reasons to utilize ground penetrating radar for concrete cutting would be for slabs with radiant floor heating. Radiant floor heating is a method in which heated water is circluated through the concrete in the floor to heat a space from the floor up, rather than heating a space with heated air. Whether the concrete being cut is a post tension slab, contains radiant floor heating piping or for a multitude of other reasons, knowing exacly what is what and where everything is located before the saw touches the concrete is paramount for a safe cutting operation and to minimize damages.

 

Damage Prevention

Whether you are a land owner trying to locate a private utility, an oil lease operator needing to locate a production line to avoid accidental damage, a public utility provider wanting to ensure the safety and continuity of your product and service, a business owner needing to identify the lcoation of a conduit running between 2 of your facilities, a concrete cutting company needind to ensure post tension cables are not damaged, a remodel contractor needing to avoid cutting a radiant floor heating line when adding a drain to an existing room, a data center trying to ensure that their conduits and cables on facility are properly protected or any other of a multitude of reasons you would need to protect or identify an existing underground condition, True-Spot is the go to Utility Locating Services. True-Spot’s expert level of experience in the utility construction and damage prevention fields enure all of its customer’s receive the highest level of satisfaction. Our job is quite literally to protect what you cannot see and we take that job very seriously.