Dig Work in Nanaimo

How does the locate actually work?

Every dig starts with a locate request, and the timing of it will move your start date. The request is free, and members respond within three working days — five where the project is large. Those are working days, so a request filed Thursday might not clear until the following Wednesday. File it as early as you can, so those days don't cost you at the start of the job. Working days don't count weekends or stat holidays, so a long weekend adds another day. Count them on a calendar when you pick your start date.

The ticket has a start window and an expiry, and we plan the dig around both. Miss either one and we request the locate again. Builds slip all the time, and if your foundation date moves by three weeks the locate you had ready is no good for the new date. So we file the request against the date you are actually digging.

The locate only marks the lines belonging to the utility companies. Nothing private shows up on it: the line running out to a shop or a barn, an old septic field, a well feed, an irrigation loop a previous owner put in and never drew on a plan. Those are the ones we ask you about directly, because you or your neighbours are usually the only people who know they are there. If you have a plan of the property, a septic drawing or an old survey in a drawer, send it over — a private line will often show up on one of those and nowhere else.

We dig by hand where we are working close to something marked and keep the machine off it until we can see it, because the paint is only ever close, not exact, and on grass it shifts around in the weather. If we hit something the locate did not show, we stop, look at what it is, and talk it through with you before anything else happens. We build the locate window into the schedule and work around it.

How the four fit together

On a new build we always work in the same order. We clear and strip the lot, dig and backfill the foundation, put the drainage in against the wall before the backfill goes on, and build the driveway last so it isn't chewed up by the trucks that came before it. On an existing property the work is usually standalone — a drive that's failed, a perimeter drain that's stopped running, a shop pad that needs cutting into a slope. Either way we file the BC 1 Call locate before a machine moves, and anything past 1.2 metres that someone has to enter gets sloped, benched or shored to WorkSafeBC's rules.

What should you move before we arrive?

Move the cars off the driveway the night before, and leave us room to swing the gate wide. Take the bins, the planters and anything breakable well back from where we are working. If you have a hose, a light or a cable running across the ground, lift it or tell us where it runs. We will not see it once the machine is moving. Bring in the kids' gear and the pet runs too. We do not want anything soft near a machine that swings. If you have got a spot in mind for the pile, say so before the day, and we will use it if it works. Anything you cannot move yourself, tell us and we will shift it with the machine.