We’re going to give you a brief description of underground utilities. Why? Simply put, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you might start digging into your property without knowing what lurks beneath it. The consequences could damage your property at best, and be life-threatening, at worst. 

Underground utilities are color-coded. In fact, when you know about these color codes, you’ll start seeing them everywhere throughout your city – just look for spray paint on the sidewalks and in other areas: 

  • Red Power lines and other Electrical Infrastructure
  • Orange Telecommunications
  • Yellow Gas, Petroleum, etc.
  • Green Sewers and Drain Lines
  • Blue Drinking Water
  • Purple Irrigation and Slurry Lines (this one is rare)
  • Pink Temporary Survey Markings
  • White Proposed Excavation

While you might see these colors painted on your property for some time, eventually that paint fades. That means you can’t rely on them to know where, say, a gas line is running through your property. As you can imagine, hitting a gas line with your shovel is a very bad thing.

Avoiding the Dangers of Underground Utilities

Underground utilities are found almost everywhere. Consequently, there’s no safe place to simply start digging without checking first. The real question is – how do you find out where utilities are? It would be very inconvenient to have to call every public utility in Albuquerque in order to find out if there’s an underground utility at the point you want to dig.

You’ve probably seen “Call Before You Dig” signs around – if you’re paying very close attention, you may have noticed the number “811” on some of those signs. You can simply call the 811 phone number, or you can go on the 811 website and follow the instructions there. Either way, 811 connects homeowners and businesses with all of the public utilities in New Mexico. 

Now, you might be wondering – why would I need to call my utility? Outside of gardening, there’s not a lot of reason to be churning up the yard. This goes double for businesses, who will have almost all of their work done by contractors.

Well, unless you’re going the DIY route, you probably won’t need to call 811. Your contractor should do that for you. When it comes to plumbing, a call to 811 is sometimes necessary if excavation is required for sewer repair. In those circumstances, the plumber should call 811 for you – they’ll take care of everything.

At least, that’s what we do! We’re commercial utility contractors in Albuquerque, and we do residential plumbing as well. We always make sure to get the proper information to avoid underground utilities, so your property is definitely in good hands when you hire our plumbing experts.