What services are not locatable?

 

Non-conductive service lines that cannot be fished with a sonde (miniature transmitter) or fish wire cannot be located. Lines that can not conduct electricity such as plastic sewer and drain lines, asbestos-concrete water lines, clay drainage tiles, plastic irrigation or service pipes, etc., are not locatable by conventional means.

If a line is accessible to be fished with a fish line and miniature transmitter (sonde), detection and location is possible. This requires access into the line, and a clear path by which to feed the sondes and fish line into the pipe.

Steel or cast iron lines are not locatable by this manner. Cast iron lines, and other lines similar, while conductive in material, may not propagate signal well between pipe sections due to insulating gaskets, corrosion, missing bonding straps, and the like.

Therefore, even steel line of such nature are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to locate. The technician will do his best to use every technique available to find such lines, but non-conductive, non-accessible lines are not locatable.

 

Contact Kevin Doyle, Frontier Utility Locating
(905) 548-7643
Utility Locates & Subsurface Mapping in Ontario, Canada