BURLINGTON, N.C. – Warm weather means new home improvement projects, and Jonathan Anders is planting flowers at his Burlington home on a sunny day.

But that’s not the only thing he wants do in his yard – he also wants to put up a screen and a fence.

“A screen for the trash bins, so blocking the road so the actual fence panel and gate and all that stuff,” Anders said. “I don’t want to hit any gas lines.”

What You Need To Know

  • It's important to know where underground utility lines are before doing any digging, technicians say

  • 811 is the national call-before-you-dig line to request location of any buried lines

  • Homeowners and builders shouldn’t try to locate utility lines on their own, technicians say

Anders called 811 — the national digging safety line — so a crew could mark his yard and help him know where he shouldn’t put up the fence.

That’s what Collin McCauley, a contractor with Duke Energy, was called out to do.

“At first we dot it out,” McCauley said. “I do it about every five feet in a small yard. And that's where we're getting the signal for where the line is buried.”

McCauley said it’s important to know where the underground utility line is.                                             

“When you're doing work, you really don't want to cut a line,” he said. “It's basically for safety. You cut a gas line and you've got gas spewing everywhere. It’s not a good day for anybody.”“When you're doing work, you really don't want to cut a line,” he said. “It's basically for safety. You cut a gas line and you've got gas spewing everywhere. It’s not a good day for anybody.”

He says he has been working in this job for five years and has been amazed at what he finds underground.

McCauley said it’s digging season, so he is getting more calls.

“Usually during spring and summertime is when everyone decides to go out and either plant trees or do a lot of grading and everything,” he said. “We call it dig season, and it pretty much lasts up till about fall when it starts cooling down.”

He says he’s seen it all.

“They'll do stuff right on top of gas lines – I’ve seen houses built on top of gas lines,” he said. “It's more of just making them aware of where it is. So, I mean, just to be very careful around these lines, but it's a good idea to stay away from them.”

Homeowners and builders shouldn’t try to locate utility lines on their own, technicians say.

Identifying underground lines can be tricky, says Caleb Overton, who has led a Piedmont Natural Gas crew for five years.

At a call for service at 251 S. Elm St., he turned off gas service before probing to find a gas line.

“Most time, will just try to knock the first layer off about a foot and then try to I guess probe, and if we feel something we’ll try to spot something to see if it’s the gas line or just a root or whatnot in the ground,” he said.

He finds what he was looking for – a steel gas main.

“This right here, the bobbing gas service where I'm pointing with sharpshooter and then this is our steel main coating. On it is like wrapped with some epoxy coding. This to protect the pipe,” he said. “This is this black plastic I was telling you about. It was around back before my time and now we got yellow plastic now on the ground.”

Because an untrained homeowner or worker might not know how to properly probe and identify lines, Overton recommends calling 811 before doing any digging.

“They’ll mark the lines for you,” he said. “Best thing to do is call in and give it three working days because they don’t work on the weekends.”