EM Utility Locating - Serving the Edmonton areas' underground locating needs.

AB1Call is a call center notification system that utility owners pay into to let them know when someone is conducting ground disturbance work around their facility. The utility owners are then required to locate their underground utility if it is conflict on their own dime as it is their property and responsibility to ensure its safety.

A common rule of thumb is that anything installed by the utility company itself will usually be covered by a AB1Call notification, this may not always be the case though. Facilities installed by a property owner, developer, or private contractor would not be covered as the property owner does not pay into the AB1Call system. These facilities are commonly referred to as “Private Utilities”.

Private locate companies, such as EM Utility Locating, are brought in by property owners, contractors, and developers to ensure that these private facilities are located as well as getting a second verification of AB1Call response locates. An AB1Call notification will only mark facilities when ground disturbance work is taking place in the next 14 days.

Yes, EM Utility Locating recommends if you plan to start excavation within the next 14 days you are still required to contact AB1Call. We do not represent the underground facility owners  who subscribe to AB1Call and therefore cannot give permissions to work around their facilities. This is a service we hope to offer in the near future but cannot at this time. There are some facilities that can only be located by the facility owners using proprietary prints and GPS locations, therefore we recommend that AB1Call be contacted and all responses be completed prior to our arrival to ensure the most accurate results, however we realize this is not always possible.

Yes and no. EM supplies our clients with information, that is our product. For damage prevention we place marking paints and flags on the ground to indicate where the facilities reside and supply a drawing to help interpret these marks. It is up to our client to decide based on their safety standards what is appropriate to have a locate recertified. Most source recommend every 14 days to 30 days to recertify a locate but EM would recommend that if the markings and flags are no longer visible or easy to interpret that a recertification be necessary. We also recommend all prints provided be turned over and filed with the property owner for future use and records.

There are several different technologies out there. Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR), Concrete Scanning, Infrared Imaging (IR), Magnetometry, GPR Surveying are just a couple of the technologies used out there and the list is ever growing. Not every technology works for every situation however. EM will ensure to recommend the best option to our clients and provide the answers you are looking for. If we cannot provide the service you require in house we have several sources that we can either mediate with for our clients or refer them to. Our goal is our clients safety and to make sure our clients have the best quality service even if its not through EM. Make us your first call.