When preparing my yard for projects often times I need to dig pretty deep, but it did make me wonder how deep I was allowed to dig? This peaked my interest momentarily until I found this.
Before you excavate to any depth within your property line it is required by federal law to call 811 utility-locate hotline so all utilities can be appropriately marked, normally at a minimum of 48 hours prior to commencing your project. Every state has also passed law concerning utility line protection.
You may have dug before and nothing bad has happened, or you are concerned that this will bring hidden costs on a project that you really can’t afford it. Lets look at if this is required in all cases and how we can protect ourselves and our homes.
Also, if you are digging in your lawn to built or fix your fence than check out our articles were we describe building fence on a corner lot or fixing your leaning fence…you will wish you had.
What Is Considered Digging?
The term normally utilized in law is not digging, but Excavation. How is that different you might ask? Well, unfortunately, it differs by the state and normally is hidden in some legal jargon that means almost nothing to most of us but certainly makes us nervous or frustrated when someone starts to speak it.
The general definition is the action or process of excavating…thanks merriam webster. Excavating means to dig out and remove. This broadly means anything you are doing to move dirt from its original location to a new one. Don’t overthink it, if you are digging up any amount of ground you have to look at your individual states laws, and that you can find in the next section.
A recent study done by the Common Ground Alliance, a group sponsored by the U.S. Department of Transportation, found that 51% of people they asked did not plan on calling 811 prior to digging. Some specifics that were asked can be seen below on some pretty common summer projects.
- Planting Shrubs – 84% did not call.
- Planting a tree – 63%
- Pole for a Basketball hoop – 61%
- Building a deck – 50%
- Installing a fence – 46%
- Digging a patio – 45%
This is not even mentioning other common things like digging for a mailbox, building a shed, a drainage system, or any other number of reasons you may find yourself digging up your lawn.
Also, if you are digging a drainage system and are looking for a guide to help you decide which one than check out this article that describes each type of drainage system.
Information is just a call away, and there is so much easily found information on the national website(link is just below). It took me less that 10 minutes to click through to see what the exact law for my state was and even the little caveats. It took about 3 minutes to get to the point that told me exactly what to do in order to get someone out there. Lets find out how its done.
Step By Step Guide to Permitting Digging
Like I mentioned it differs from state to state. You can always call up your county and they will provide you with more information and then you will go on a series of call and waits chasing that wild goose, or you can go to the national website link, click on your state and let them tell you exactly what you need to know. Lets look at an example to show you how the process is done.
Georgia: When you click on Georgia it immediately opens a popup that allows you to visit the Georgia 811 website, preform and online request dependent on whether you are a homeowner or contractor or “Explore Details”.
For those that are brave and don’t mind calling someone up on the phone visit the website and get the number because they walk you through everything. Also, my associate was actually very helpful through the whole process.
Online Guide
If human interaction is not your strong point, or you are just doing it during non-working hours follow this list below:
- Click to submit an online request
- For a single home click the online request form
- Click the Non-emergency Locate Request
- Fill out the following pages with your information
- A Georgia 811 service rep will process the request within 12 working hours
- You will get an email response with some information including the legal date you can dig
- When that day comes you have to make sure you have responses from the respective utility members(Your email has all of that information)
- If there are any questions or they have not responded you may have to call the number in the email or just email their help desk.
While this is all you need to know about how to accomplish this process I was feeling worried about the garden bed I dug up last weekend and wanted to know if I was safe so I explored the details found in the popup window when you click on your state on the 811 website map.
This immediately takes you to a quick reference page for exactly who to call, when they are open, and how far before do you have to call them. If you proceed to the website in the link and click laws and policies at the top menu it will give you the option to go to the Georgia Dig Law that is where all that legal jargon can be found. After a deep breath and putting on my big boy pants I read on.
“No person shall commence, perform, or engage in blasting or in excavating with mechanized excavating equipment on any tract or parcel of land in any county in this state unless and until the person planning the blasting or excavating has given 48 hours’ notice by submitting a locate request to the UPC, beginning the next business day after such notice is provided, excluding hours during days other than business days.”
That is the exact quote from the reference for Georgia Law
Does excavating with mechanized equipment apply to me? Well, maybe not. It also stated that the 48 hours notice was not required where you were only excavating with “minimally intrusive excavation methods were used exclusively”. Minimally intrusive excavation defined as methods that minimize the potential damage for utilities with an example of careful hand tool usage.
Wait, does this mean I won’t get arrested for digging holes to plant my garden? Ok, perhaps you won’t get arrested or fined for that, but that doesn’t mean you should go around digging trenches as long as you carefully use your hand tools. The purpose of this is not to limit individuals from normal household work by forcing them to call 811 to wait 48 hours to get permission to dig up weeds on Tuesday because they have to wait 2 working day.
Bottom line, if you are digging any part of your yard especially if it is over a wide scale(like leveling your lawn) or deep(like a trench or hole) call 811 and ask them come out to mark you lines. It will keep you safe in your work as well as financially because you won’t go spiking your spade into a sewer pipe while digging a mailbox hole. That would be smelly in and outside of your home and would take a significant chunk out of your pocket money.
Do You Own Your Property?
If you’re going to dig that you better really own the land under which you are digging. What!? You are telling me I may not own that…yes. Does this mean that you can’t dig unless you have specific permission from whoever owns it…no. If you are digging deep, like underground bunker deep, then it may be important to figure this out. Well, how do you figure this out? Lets see.
The purchase of a home does not in all cases include the purchase of the land beneath it or the mineral rights to what is contained within the land. The ownership of the land can be found in legal documents such as the deed or title.
Do you know what mineral right are? If not then you may be normal. If you do then you may just be smarter than me starting off. Mineral rights are not always sold with the property so just because you bought the house does not mean that you can dig to the core of the earth if you wanted to. If you don’t know if you do have mineral rights than here is the way to figure it out.
- Get your deed
- Does it have the fee simple title?(it means you own the air and earth in a vertical column around your property line unless the mineral rights were sold separately)
- Hire a title company to find if your title is accurate or lawyer(the ladder is definitely more expensive, but if your looking for gold than it may be worth it)
- If your looking yourself go to the Recorder of Deeds Officer and get assistance finding your homes titles as far back as you can find mineral rights
- If you see gaps, you may have to do a title search online
- Do a mineral rights search so you can find out owns them
- The rest is the classic game of bartering
Again, not owning mineral rights does not mean that you will not be allowed to dig depending on the depth. It can be safe though to understand this aspect of your home ownership. If it is relatively common to find oil in your area, it would not be illegal for an oil company to park a rig right outside your property line and start digging for oil. Is there a high likelihood of this happening, no but it depends on your scope of work.
What Will It Cost Me If I Dig Without Calling?
First, if you do call, IT IS FREE!!!!!!! How much better can it get than that? It can’t, but how much worse can it get it you damage a utility or sewer line?
The cost for replacing sections of sewer lines can range to just under a thousand too upward of tens of thousands of dollars. This is not to mention a general fine by states that can start at $500 per incident and increasing fines of $2,500 and then $5,000 dollars per incident the more often it occurs.
It can get costly to damage utility lines and it can cause a significant amount of damage to the property as well depending on what is cut. Waterlines flood basements. Loosing electricity and therefore AC in the heat of a Georgia Summer can cause home damage due to moisture and heat, sewer lines can cause massive headaches with lasting smell and are generally the most expensive to replace.
Don’t play with fire, and diffing any significant amount without calling 811 is doing just that. Don’t hesitate to plan ahead and let the men and women serving us by utilities to save us and them the heartache of damage lines. Work Safe!
