Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE) in Vancouver, BC

Standard locates serve excavation safety; SUE serves design. The ASCE 38 framework attaches a defined quality level to every utility shown, letting engineers allocate risk contractually and decide precisely where to pay for QL-A certainty. On capital projects, SUE routinely returns multiples of its cost in avoided redesigns and claims.

We scope and supervise QL-A test holes and survey the exposed utilities; the daylighting itself is performed by partnered hydrovac crews. One contract, one deliverable, with each party doing what they're equipped for.

Sealed-format CAD with utilities attributed by quality level, a basis-of-investigation report, and test-hole logs for any QL-A points — the package engineers of record expect to reference in contract documents.

Sometimes — and we'll say so. Many sites are served perfectly by QL-B mapping without the SUE formalism. The free consult sorts which investigation level your project and its risk profile actually need.

Only partially. BC 1 Call marks registered public utilities up to your property line — free, and you should always use it. Everything inside the line is private and unmarked: irrigation, gas runs to outbuildings, landscape lighting, old septic, abandoned services. Vancouver's stock — pre-1965 oil-tank-era homes on the west side, post-tensioned towers downtown, and some of BC's oldest buried services in Strathcona and Mount Pleasant. — is exactly where those private surprises accumulate. Private locating closes that gap before you dig.

Vancouver sits on glacial till uplands with deltaic sands toward False Creek and Fraser flats. Till and sand image well — 400 MHz reaches 2–3 m across most of the city; signal shortens in fill zones around False Creek and the port lands. Where local conditions limit one technology, the survey leans on the others — EM tracing, sonde work, and acoustic methods — so the locate objective is met regardless of soil.

Vancouver is inside our standing Metro Vancouver coverage — typical scheduling is 24–72 hours, with same-day service often possible during business hours (Mon–Sat, 8am–6pm Pacific). Pricing follows our province-wide structure with no regional premium; the free phone consult produces a firm number in about five minutes: 604-239-9934.