The locate comes before the machine
A basement excavation, a new driveway, a grading cut, or a trench for power or water all open the ground. Gas, power, phone, cable, and the water and sewer services from the street can all sit under an Airdrie lawn that looks empty.
Call before you dig means asking for those lines to be located before any equipment arrives. In Alberta the request goes to Utility Safety Partners. The organization replaced Alberta One-Call in 2022, and the step is still one call: a single request notifies the member utilities that have buried lines in the area you map. Utility Safety Partners passes the request on. The utility owners mark their own lines, and the notification itself has no charge. We arrange that locate before we bring a machine out for excavation in Airdrie.
How the one call request works
Place the request online through Click Before You Dig, which Utility Safety Partners keeps open every day, or by phone at 1-800-242-3447 on weekdays between 8:00 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. Have a contact, the kind of work, the day you want to start, and a map outline that covers the whole dig. Locates and clearances apply inside that outline.
Allow at least three full working days for a routine request. Those days are the notice period for a response. Marks can take longer, especially from May through September. Stay out of the ground until every notified utility has answered with a written clearance, with marks and paperwork, or with a time to meet if a locked gate or a dog blocks the yard. The person doing the digging stays responsible for protecting the lines after the request is filed. Utility Safety Partners states that buried utilities have to be located before a ground disturbance begins.
What the marks show
Marks show the approximate path of a line. Depth still has to be confirmed in the ground. If the work comes within one metre of a mark on either side, or within five metres of a high-pressure pipeline, expose the line by hand and find its exact location. A basement excavation is deep enough that the hole has to be laid out around those marks.
A one call ticket lists the member utilities notified for the mapped area. Water and sewer service lines, sprinklers, and lines running between buildings are customer-owned, and Utility Safety Partners does not have them on file. A private locator can mark those lines, separate from the free member notification. Most utility owners are registered. The ticket names the ones notified for your map, and that list is what to read before the dig.
How a locate sits inside the excavation cost
Excavation cost follows the work, and the locate request is a separate step. The notification has no charge. What changes the price is the hole: how deep it is, whether soil has to leave the lot, how tight the access is, and whether a marked line has to be exposed by hand. A basement excavation, a driveway, and a shallow grading pass are different jobs. Knowing what is buried before the quote keeps the number attached to the dig that will actually happen.
A wet yard is a different problem from a new hole, and cutting the ground for a swale or a drain still starts with a locate. We covered why Calgary clay holds spring melt for lots where water sits against the house. If you are planning a dig in Airdrie, send the address, what you want done, and whether a locate ticket is already open. Call or text 368-210-1135 and we will look at the site before anyone prices it.