Quick Verdict
The 811 locate process in Oregon is the free, legally required step before any digging: you submit a request to the Oregon Utility Notification Center, wait the required lead time, and public utility owners come out and mark their buried lines with paint and flags. The marks show you where public gas, electric, water, and telecom lines run so you do not hit them. What 811 does not cover is private lines, like the run from a meter to your shop or a private water line, which need a separate private locate. Tickets expire, so you refresh them on long jobs. It is free to the homeowner and required by law.
What 811 Is and Why It Exists
811 is the national call-before-you-dig number, and in Oregon it routes to the Oregon Utility Notification Center, the one-call system that notifies utility owners of your planned dig. The whole point is to prevent strikes: hitting a buried gas line is dangerous, and cutting electric, water, or fiber is costly and disruptive. The law requires the notification before excavation so the utilities can mark their lines and you can dig around them.
This is the foundation of safe trenching, and it sits at the front of the utility trenching guide and the Oregon excavation contractor guide. Every dig starts here.
Step 1: Submit the Request
You start by submitting a locate request to the Oregon Utility Notification Center, either by phone at 811 or online. You describe where you plan to dig, the address, the area on the property, and the kind of work. Being accurate and specific helps the locators mark the right area. You submit before you dig, not the day of, because the process needs lead time.
Step 2: Wait the Lead Time
After you submit, there is a required waiting period before you can dig, to give the utility owners time to come out and mark their lines. This lead time is set by Oregon's rules, so plan ahead rather than expecting same-day marking. The notification goes to every public utility with lines in the area, and each one is responsible for marking its own.
| Stage | What Happens |
|---|---|
| Submit request | You notify the Oregon Utility Notification Center |
| Lead time | Required waiting period for marking |
| Marking window | Utilities mark their public lines with paint and flags |
| Dig | You excavate carefully within the marked area |
| Refresh | Renew the ticket before it expires on long jobs |
Step 3: What Gets Marked and What Does Not
This is the part owners most often misunderstand. The 811 process marks public utility lines, the gas, electric, water, telecom, and similar services owned by the utility companies, up to a point. It does not mark private lines.
- Marked: public utility lines owned by the gas, electric, water, and telecom providers.
- Not marked: private lines you or a previous owner installed, like the buried run from a meter to a detached shop, a private well line, a septic line, or landscape wiring.
Those private lines are real and easy to hit, and they need a separate private locate, which is covered in private utility locates. Assuming 811 found everything is a common and dangerous mistake.
Reading the Marks and White-Lining
The locators mark lines with paint and flags in standard colors, each color meaning a different type of utility, so you can tell a gas line from a water line at a glance. What each color means is covered in locate marking colors explained.
You can help the process with white-lining: before the locate, you outline your planned dig area in white paint or with white flags or stakes. This tells the locators exactly where you intend to work so they focus their marking there, which makes the marks more useful and reduces confusion on a large property. It is a simple step that improves the whole locate.
Ticket Expiration and Refresh
A locate ticket is not good forever. The marks fade, get disturbed, or the ticket reaches its expiration under Oregon's rules, and once that happens you cannot rely on them. On a long-running job, you refresh or renew the ticket before it expires so the marks stay valid for the work you are still doing. Digging on stale or expired marks puts you right back at risk of a strike. Treat the ticket as having a shelf life and renew it as needed.
Digging Near the Marks: The Tolerance Zone
A common misunderstanding is that the paint line is the exact center of the pipe and everything an inch away is safe. It is not that precise. The marks show the approximate location of a line, and Oregon's rules treat a band on either side of the mark as a tolerance zone where you have to dig carefully -- by hand or with care, not by dropping a toothed bucket straight down. Within that zone, the safe practice is to hand-dig or soft-dig to expose the line and confirm exactly where it is and how deep, a step called potholing. The marks tell you a line is there and roughly where; potholing tells you precisely. Treating the paint as gospel and machine-digging right up to it is exactly how lines get hit even on a properly located job.
Common 811 Mistakes Homeowners Make
A free, required step still gets skipped or fumbled, and the same mistakes repeat across Oregon jobs.
- Skipping it for small digs. Planting a tree, setting a fence post, or digging a footing all disturb the ground deep enough to hit a line. Depth, not project size, is what matters.
- Assuming 811 found the private lines. The single biggest error -- the run to a shop, the well line, the septic line, and the irrigation are all yours, and 811 does not mark them.
- Letting the ticket go stale. Starting fresh on a stretch weeks later, on faded marks, instead of refreshing.
- Not white-lining a large property, so the locators guess at the work area and mark the wrong corner.
- Digging the day they call. The lead time exists for a reason; same-day digging beats the locators to the site.
Avoiding these is most of what keeps a dig safe, and none of it costs anything but a little planning.
Why This Matters and What It Costs
The 811 locate is free to the homeowner, that is the key cost fact. There is no charge to submit a request and have public utilities marked. Against that, the cost of a strike is enormous, an evacuation for a gas line, large repair and liability for cut fiber or electric. So the math is simple: a free, required step prevents a potentially catastrophic one.
Industry Baseline Range: the 811 public locate is free to the homeowner; a separate private locate, when needed, is a modest paid service, and careful potholing to verify depth runs $150 - $600+ per hole. These are industry baseline ranges for planning only -- actual pricing depends on site conditions, soil, access, depth, haul-off, and current market conditions. Get a site-specific quote.
The Bottom Line
Before you dig in Oregon, call 811 or submit online to the Oregon Utility Notification Center, wait the required lead time, let the utilities mark their public lines, white-line your area to help them, and refresh the ticket on long jobs. Then remember 811 does not find private lines. It is free and required. Cojo is CCB Licensed and Insured and always locates before digging. Start with the utility trenching guide, see our excavation services, or request a free estimate.