What to do if you have utilities on your job site.

• When you arrive onsite pay attention to any markings done by utilities company.

  • Look for flags and paint and verify all utilities that are on your ticket have been marked. Private utilities such as irrigation or power running to a garage will not be marked by gopher one but you still need to pay attention to them and may need to ask customer about location of them.

  • Check at the house for locations where utilities enter the house and verify they have been located and marked properly.

  • If you notice utilities have not been marked contact your designer asap and discuss what you can do to get utilities marked asap. Let your landscape manager know if you need to pull off job site or cannot get utilities marked. In most circumstances, you will be able to proceed based on the scope of work and homeowners approval.

  • No digging/excavating should start unless you have verified utilities have been properly located and marked in your work areas.

What to do if you hit a utility

• First, identify what was damaged. Be Safe!

  • Use caution if what was hit was a live electric wire.

  • If you hit a gas line clear all workers from the work site and call 911.

  • If you hit irrigation main turn off the water quickly, locate the main shut off on house to turn off. This will prevent further damage and to prevent erosion and washing out around the area.

  • Use caution to not run sod cutter over the top of irrigation heads.

• Once identified and all are safe call your designer or manager to let them know and they can better advise you on what to do.

  • Determine if the utility was properly marked.

  • Leave damaged utility/irrigation exposed and mark area with flags.

  • Let your customer know you have hit their utility and ask if they can verify their service is not working if it was the phone or cable/internet.

  • Check the Gopher One paperwork with the ticket number attached to your work order and find the number of the utility and call them with your ticket number and let them know so they can schedule to have it repaired.

  • Never attempt to repair a broken utility without prior speaking with your manager.