Are You Planning to Dig?

Are you putting in fenceposts, planting a tree, excavating for a pool, deck or a new addition? Before you dig, think about what services might be buried in the ground, because…

What you can't see, can hurt you!!!

It's getting pretty crowded underground. There could be gas pipelines, electrical services, telephone and cable TV as well as water and sewer connections. In addition to these types of buried services to your home, there could be distribution networks for utilities that serve your neighbourhood and community. In some cases, such as pipelines and fiber optic cables, they may even be part of a national feeder route.

  What is the risk?

Damaging underground services can have serious consequences:

Personal injury Loss of essential services, creating a safety risk for others. Expensive restoration costs and potential legal actions.

  What can you do?

You will have two choices, a phone call or an online form in the very near future.

Contact Ontario One Call Utility notification service

Call Toll Free: 1-800-400-2255

Call at least one week before you dig.

We recommend that you be ready to answer the questions you will be asked, by printing the "Homeowner Locate Form" and filling in the information before you call. Please have a pen ready when you call as you will be given some information at the end of the call. You should write down this information on your form, for future reference.

Visit our soon to be released Web ticket section, fill in the required information on the form and submit it to the centre. You must provide a minimum of one week's notice from the time you submit your request until the day you plan to begin digging. Otherwise your request will be rejected.

This is a free service for excavators and homeowners.

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  What is Ontario One Call?

We are a call centre that accepts requests from excavators (including home owners) for locates of underground utility services throughout the the province of Ontario. Ontario One Call will take the information about your planned digging activity and communicate it to our members who have buried facilities in your area. Our members will then contact you and, if necessary, arrange to send a locator to identify and mark the location of their buried facilities.

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  How do we operate?

The call centre is open 7 days a week and is ready to receive your requests 24 hours a day. The centre is funded by its members. Their goal is to reduce damages to buried facilities by making it convenient to excavators to call and obtain locates before they dig.

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  How Much Notice?

Members require at least one week in order to complete their locates. Don't take the risk. Obtain locates or clearances from utility owners before you dig.

Note: The Spring digging season is the busiest time of the year. Our members work hard to satisfy their customers; nevertheless, you may experience some delays in obtaining your locates at that time of the year.

Ontario One Call advises callers that most of our members "Require One Week To Complete a Locate". This should not be interpreted as a committed date, as we do not make appointments for locates on behalf of our members. We are communicating the normal interval. As you might expect during peak workload periods, it will likely take longer to complete your locate and you should wait to hear from a member representative directly to negotiate scheduled completion date for your locate request.

Please provide as much lead time as possible (as much as 30 days before your planned start date) in communicating your locate request(s) to Ontario One Call. You will be helping yourself and permitting our members to plan their workload effectively and to server your needs in a timely manner.

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  What Information We Need

The centre needs to know who is digging, also where, when, why and how you plan to dig. The operators at the centre will ask you questions to obtain this information. They will create a locate request notification and they will forward a "ticket" or notification with this information to the appropriate members with underground facilities in your area. The centre must identify which members to notify and in order to do this they must first determine where your dig site is located. Please view sample of Ontario One Call Script.
To accomplish this they use a computerized GIS basemap for the Province of Ontario. It is important that you provide complete and accurate address information including, where appropriate, the number, the street name, the type (street, avenue, crescent etc.) and if it has a north, south, east or west designation. In addition you will be asked to provide the name of the nearest intersecting street. This is necessary to validate the address given is correctly identified on our mapping database. If the street is not in our database the search to confirm your location can sometimes take longer. Please be patient as we need to take other steps to ensure our members are given correct information. We will also ask you for the home telephone number (not a cell phone number) for the address where the excavation will take place.

We recommend that you be ready to answer the questions you will be asked, by printing the "Homeowner Locate Form" and filling in the information before you call. Please have a pen ready when you call as you will be given some information at the end of the call. You should write down this information on your form, for future reference.

If you will be submitting a Web request please ensure all the required information is provided and there is a minimum interval of one week before you plan to dig.

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  Who We Will Notify

When you call the centre, the operator will create a locate request notification and forward a "ticket" or notification with your dig site information to the appropriate members with underground facilities in your area.

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  Who We Will Not Notify

Not all underground utilities are members of Ontario One Call. Non-members will not be notified by the centre. You must contact non-members directly yourself. (Please refer to your utility bill if you are not sure.)

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  What Our Members Will Do

Our members will contact you and, if necessary, arrange to send a locator to identify and mark the location of their buried facilities.

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  Thank You for Using Ontario One Call

It is the first step in planning for a safe project wherever excavation work is planned. Our members can now take steps to mark out their facilities with paint, stakes and flags whenever your excavation work is near their facilities.

Remember you must carefully hand dig to the depth of your excavation within one meter of utility markings, unless instructed differently by the utility. If you damage a utility service, please call the utility directly. Even a sheath or coating nick can cause corrosion which may lead to a future problem. Leave the excavation open until it has been inspected by a utility representative.


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