The cheapest damage prevention tool on the job is a can of white paint, and it is the one most often left in the truck.
Nearly every locate dispute we hear about at council meetings comes down to the same disagreement: the excavator believes the area wasn't marked, and the locator believes it wasn't part of the ticket.
White lining resolves that argument before it starts.
## What it is
Before you call in the ticket, you mark the perimeter of your intended excavation in white paint, white flags or white stakes. When the locator arrives, there is no ambiguity about where you plan to dig.
## Why it works
A locate ticket describes the dig area in words. "North side of the building, from the alley to the loading dock" is perfectly clear to the person who wrote it and genuinely ambiguous to someone standing on site three days later trying to decide whether to include the parking area.
White lining replaces that paragraph with a line on the ground.
## When it matters most
- Large or irregularly shaped excavation areas - Sites where the address on the ticket doesn't obviously correspond to the work location - Anywhere the dig area is a portion of a much larger parcel - Boring and directional drilling, where entry and exit pits tell only part of the story - Any site where you would struggle to describe the area in one sentence
## The economics
White lining a typical residential service install takes about ten minutes and costs a few dollars of paint. A single damaged gas service costs the repair, the crew's downtime, the emergency response, potential fines from the Underground Damage Prevention Safety Commission, and — if it goes badly — a great deal more than that.
It is the highest-return ten minutes on the job.
- white lining
- locating
- excavation