Locating Underground Utilities with Utility Mapping Sydney

To accomplish these results, engaging a contractor to discover all locatable utilities is a requirement. In this article, you can read about the benefits of underground utility mapping and what's needed to manage these services.

When you need to dig or build on a construction site, you need to know the location of the utilities because you can lower the risk of hitting a utility line. If you have accurate utility maps in your hands, you are able to avoid possible damages to the utility network, and therefore prevent potential expensive repair costs and lawsuits. Having accurate and reliable information about the location of utilities will create a safe environment for the workers on-site and everyone in the surrounding area. Most importantly, precise utility locating results in evading personal injury, or even worse, fatality.

A professional contractor for utility mapping is using software and generates CAD maps, which are stored on a computer for future use. The most significant advantage of having CAD maps is referencing the job site again the future easily.

Workers who locate and identify the underground utilities use Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR). Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) is a non-destructive method used to locate and identify underground utilities, such as water, sewage and storm pipes, electric cables, gas, and telecommunications. Worldwide, surveyors and civil engineers are recognising the benefits of GPR technology for locating underground utilities.

Workers mark the utilities with a corresponding paint: red for electric cables, blue for water, light green for sewer, dark green for storm, orange for telecommunications, yellow for gas, pink for unknown and white for an outside scope of work.

GPR is a preferred technique for workers and engineers because it is a safe and no-dig method. By using GPR utility mapping, they confirm the location of underground utilities by minimising and avoiding damage to underground utilities. With a high level of accuracy, GPR can detect plastic, concrete, fibre-optic and other non-metallic items.

Without accurate maps of the underground utility network, every construction project has the potential to become a disaster site. Because of the limited access to the location of underground utilities and having out-of-date information, many construction projects results with severe injuries and even fatalities.