EM + GPR Locating for Contractors & Pros
A struck line is your delay, your change order, your incident report. We're the locate that runs before your machine.
BC One Call clears the public lines to the property line. Everything past it — the private water, irrigation, power, and gas your crews actually strike — is yours to find and yours to answer for. We're the private dual-method locate layer: EM traces the conductive lines, GPR catches the plastic and clay, depths get marked, and it's all documented and dispatched to keep your crews moving. Ten trades, each with its own playbook.
Standing arrangements available · Free phone consult · Mon–Sat 8am–6pm PT
Dual-method, defensible
EM traces the conductive lines, GPR images the plastic and clay — the standard a strike investigation is measured against, not conductive-only.
Built into your sequence
After BC One Call, before the machine. Standing arrangements with agreed scope and rates so locating never holds up the crew.
Documented every time
Marked dig box, depths at crossings, and a dated record for the project file and your protection.
One crew, both jobs
Utility clearance in the ground and concrete scanning before you cut or core — the same subsurface partner for every dig.
Locating built for your trade
Every trade hits different lines and works a different sequence. Each playbook covers the risks, the workflow fit, and the right services:
For excavators & earthworks crews
Excavation Contractors
Every bucket you drop is a bet that nothing's in the way. BC One Call clears the public lines to the property line — but the private services beyond it (water, irrigation, private power, gas to outbuildings, septic) are yours to find, and yours to answer for if you don't. A struck line stops the job, blows the budget, and in the case of gas or power, endangers your crew.
Trade playbookFor plumbing & service-line contractors
Plumbers
You're the trade that gets called when the water service fails — and the trade that has to dig to fix it. Finding the leak and finding the line are two different jobs, and digging up a yard guessing at the route of a buried service is the slow, expensive way that turns a repair into a landscaping bill.
Trade playbookFor electrical & low-voltage contractors
Electricians
Running a new feed to a garage, a panel to a suite, or low-voltage across a property means trenching — and the line you're most qualified to respect is exactly the one you can't see from the surface. Tracing existing conductors, clearing the route, and knowing the depth before the trencher runs is the difference between a clean install and an outage you caused.
Trade playbookFor HDD & trenchless crews
Directional Drilling & Boring
Trenchless installation lives or dies on the accuracy of what's already underground. A bore path planned around bad locate data is a strike waiting to happen — and a strike on a bore is worse than on an open dig, because you find it the hard way, blind, at depth. Clearing the path and knowing the depths of every crossing before the drill turns is non-negotiable.
Trade playbookFor GCs & construction managers
General Contractors
On your site, a struck utility is your delay, your change order, and your incident report — regardless of which sub was holding the shovel. Subsurface surprises cascade into schedule and budget, and 'we didn't know it was there' is an expensive sentence on a project with a critical path.
Trade playbookFor landscape & hardscape crews
Landscapers & Hardscapers
Planting trees, setting hardscape footings, grading, installing irrigation — landscaping is constant shallow digging across exactly the zone where private services run: irrigation mains, low-voltage lighting, the gas line to the fire feature, the power to the gate. Most of it is on the homeowner's side of the meter, so no public locate covers it, and a struck line turns a planting day into a repair day.
Trade playbookFor fence, deck & post-hole crews
Fencing & Deck Contractors
A post-hole auger is a small tool that finds big problems. Fence lines and deck footings run along property edges and across yards — straight through the corridors where private water, gas, power, and irrigation are buried — and an auger doesn't stop politely when it reaches a gas line. The dig is quick; the consequence of getting it wrong isn't.
Trade playbookFor foundation, piling & shoring crews
Foundation & Piling Contractors
Piles and foundation excavations go deep and hit hard — the two qualities that turn an unknown utility into a serious incident. Deep work also reaches lines that shallow locates and assumptions miss, and on infill and redevelopment sites the ground is full of legacy services nobody documented. Clearing to depth before the rig sets up is foundational, in every sense.
Trade playbookFor civil engineers & survey firms
Engineers & Surveyors
A design is only as good as the subsurface data under it. Designing a site, a road, or a servicing plan against incomplete or assumed utility information bakes in conflicts that surface — expensively — during construction. You need locatable utilities found, mapped, and quality-rated before the drawings are stamped.
Trade playbookFor utility, telecom & energy crews
Utility & Telecom Contractors
You install and maintain the networks everyone else is trying to avoid — which means your crews dig in the most congested corridors there are, alongside live power, gas, water, and fibre, often on tight outage and restoration windows. Precise location and depth in those corridors isn't a nicety; it's how the work gets done without taking out a neighbouring service.
Trade playbookContractors ask
Why do contractors need a private locate on top of BC One Call?
BC One Call clears member utilities' PUBLIC lines to the property line only — not the private services beyond it, which is where the overwhelming majority of contractor strikes actually happen: the homeowner's water service, the irrigation, the private power to a garage, the gas to a pool heater. Those private lines are the digging party's responsibility, and a private EM + GPR locate is how you meet it. One Call plus private locate is the complete, defensible answer.
Can locating keep pace with our schedule?
Yes — that's the entire model for trade work. Clearances book promptly and slot into your job sequence (after One Call, before excavation), and for repeat-dig contractors a standing arrangement with agreed scope and rates turns locating into a dispatched routine instead of a per-job scramble. Province-wide coverage means the same rhythm works across BC.
What does dual-method (EM + GPR) get me that EM-only locators don't?
Completeness. An EM-only locate is blind to non-conductive plastic and clay — exactly the water, irrigation, and sewer lines that crews strike. GPR images those, EM traces the conductive lines precisely, and each confirms the other. When you're the one who answers for a strike, dual-method is the standard that holds up; conductive-only is a known gap.
If you locate it and we still strike something, where does that leave us?
We locate to the standard both methods allow, mark depths, and flag the critical crossings for hand-exposure or vacuum potholing — the responsible last word before machinery, which we coordinate. No locator promises zero strikes (abandoned and unmarked lines exist), but a documented dual-method survey plus potholing at the conflicts is precisely the diligence that protects you when a strike is investigated.
Do you document the locate for our project file?
Always — dated, dual-method locates with depths and a marked map are built into every survey, because that documentation is what proves diligence was done when a strike or dispute lands. For GCs and engineers, that record (and SUE-grade data where needed) is as valuable as the locate itself.
Related: EM line locating hub·Concrete scanning for contractors·Utility locating applications
Stop betting the job on what you can't see.
Free phone consult — your typical digs, your schedule, and a standing arrangement that turns locating into a routine line item. Licensed, insured, dual-method, documented.
- After One Call, before your machine
- EM + GPR dual-method
- Depths & documentation
- Standing arrangements