Call 811 Before You Dig – But what do the colors mean?

We see paint and flags everywhere on the ground these days.

We don’t think about Utilities on a daily basis until the bill arrives or if we have lost service.

Just last week I noticed that my neighbor’s yard had 3 different sets of colored paint and flags in his yard.

He mentioned he called “811 Before You Dig” because he was doing a landscaping project this Fall and needed to know where the underground utilities were located.

He has Orange, Yellow and Red paint and flags on his lawn.

So what do these colors represent?

You may also ask “Why is knowing the location of these utilities important”?

Well, if a new construction project is about to occur in your city or neighborhood, knowing where these existing utilities are is crucial to avoiding disruption of a utilities service and or worse an explosion.  See this link about Risk Reduction before you dig.

At Seiler Instrument Geospatial “Mapping and Survey” we work with a variety of Utilities to assist them in choosing the proper GNSS, Traditional Survey and Emerging Technologies tools to record locations of their utilities.