You’ve spent weeks planning your garden redesign. You’ve compared paving slabs, researched soil types, and measured the patio area more times than you can count. But there’s one thing you probably haven’t checked: what’s buried beneath the soil.
Gas pipes, water mains, electric cables, and fibre optic lines sit just inches below the surface of most properties. A single misplaced shovel can turn a weekend project into a serious emergency. In the UK, the safe digging industry handled 3.9 million underground asset searches in 2024, or one every 21 seconds during the working day. More homeowners are catching on to the risks, but many still don’t realise how close they are to a costly mistake.
This article covers why knowing what’s underground should be the very first step in any garden or renovation project, and how to check before you dig.
Why Property Owners Need to Know What’s Underground
Every property sits on a hidden network of service lines. Your gas pipe enters the house from a main buried somewhere beneath the street. Electric cables feed your home from the same underground grid. Water pipes, sewer connections, and fibre broadband cables all share the same shallow band of soil.
Most homeowners have no real idea where these lines are. A common assumption is that utilities are buried several feet down, safe from any surface-level digging. The reality is different. Many service lines sit just 15 to 30 centimetres below ground. A garden spade can reach that depth in one push.
If you’re planning a major landscaping project or a home extension, you need a clear picture of what’s underground before any earthmoving starts. For homeowners who need more detail than basic utility markings provide, working with utility locating services Phoenix AZ can fill in the gaps by mapping private lines, older infrastructure, and everything between the meter and your property.
The scale of what sits beneath our feet is hard to grasp. The LSBUD network in the UK maps over 1.6 million kilometres of gas pipes and electricity cables, according to their Digging Up Britain 2025 report. That’s enough pipe and cable to wrap around the Earth 40 times. A record 3.9 million proactive searches were submitted in 2024 alone, with 44,273 new users registering, a 38.1 percent rise over four years, as reported by Electrical Times.
Common Projects That Hit Buried Utilities
Certain garden and home improvement projects carry a much higher risk of hitting underground utilities than others. Industry data from the Common Ground Alliance DIRT Report (2025) shows that fence installation accounts for 23 percent of residential utility strikes, making it the single most common cause. Landscaping and general gardening work comes next at 19 percent, followed by tree planting, deck and patio construction, and sprinkler system installation.
In the United States, underground utilities are damaged roughly once every three minutes. That adds up to nearly 190,000 incidents each year and costs an estimated $30 billion annually, according to the Common Ground Alliance. Across the border in Ontario, homeowners reported striking underground infrastructure 3,900 times per year, or about 17 incidents every workday, based on 2025 research from Ontario One Call.
These are not abstract numbers. A sprinkler trench dug through a buried cable or a fence post driven into a gas line can stop a project cold. If you’re upgrading your garden irrigation system, check what lies beneath before you trench. The same goes for planting a tree, installing a pergola, or laying a new path.
The Real Cost of Skipping This Step
The financial consequences of hitting a buried utility line are severe. According to a PG&E press release from April 2026, the average repair cost for a damaged line is $3,500. In 89 percent of homeowner incidents where underground lines were damaged, no locate request had been made beforehand.
The human cost is higher. In the UK, 70 people per year suffer serious injuries from contact with underground electricity cables. The Energy Networks Association reports that electric cable strikes have increased 46 percent since the end of lockdown, a trend that safety organisations find deeply worrying.
Beyond repair bills and injury, there are consequences many homeowners never consider. A gas line strike can force an entire neighbourhood to evacuate. A severed fibre cable can knock out internet service for blocks. Your home insurance may not cover damage caused by digging without a locate request, leaving you to foot the full bill. And any project that hits a utility line faces significant delays while emergency repairs are made.
The official HSG47 safety guidance from the UK Health and Safety Executive sets out the standards for avoiding underground services during excavation. Anyone planning work that involves digging should read it.
A Safer Approach for Property Owners
The universal colour code helps homeowners identify which utilities lie beneath marked areas before they dig
The good news is that checking what’s underground is straightforward. Every homeowner should follow these steps.
Request a locate. In the UK, submit a free asset search through LSBUD (Linesearch BeforeUdig). In the US, dialling 811 connects you to your local one-call centre. Submit your request at least two to five working days before you plan to dig.
Understand what gets marked. The locate service marks public utility lines from the street to your meter or property boundary. Private lines beyond that point, such as irrigation pipes, outdoor lighting cables, or old septic systems, are not covered. For those, you may need to hire a private locator.
Learn the colour code. Utility markings use a standardised system: red means electric, yellow means gas, blue means water, green means sewer, and orange means communications. White marks outline the planned excavation area.
Dig by hand near marked lines. Always hand-dig within 60 centimetres of any marked utility. Power tools or machinery near buried lines cause the majority of serious strikes.
If you’re new to home renovation, these steps fit naturally alongside other safety checks for your renovation. The same caution you apply to structural walls and electrical systems should extend to the ground beneath your property.
Making Underground Checks Part of Your Project Planning
Underground checks should sit alongside the other planning steps that responsible homeowners already take. When you plan a garden or renovation, you set a budget, assess the space, and choose materials. Checking the ground beneath should be part of that same process.
Planning your garden layout and design naturally includes site assessment. Understanding the ground is a fundamental part of garden design, and what lies under the soil matters just as much as what grows in it.
The Royal Horticultural Society offers soil and drainage guidance that reminds us of this core principle: a successful garden starts with understanding the ground itself.
Adding utility locating to your pre-project checklist protects every other part of the job. A new patio is only as good as the ground it sits on. A tree planted without checking for cables can’t be moved once it’s in. A fence post driven through a gas line becomes a disaster that no amount of careful design can fix.
Think of it as four planning stages for any garden or renovation project: design, safety checks, waste management, and underground checks. Skip the last one and you risk undoing everything you put into the first three.
Planning Starts with the Ground Beneath Your Feet
The best garden or renovation project doesn’t start with a mood board or a trip to the garden centre. It starts with knowing what’s already underground.
A free asset search or a quick call to your local one-call service takes minutes. It prevents damage that costs thousands of pounds to repair and can cause serious injury. Planning is not just about design and materials. It’s about understanding the ground you’re working with. Make the underground check your first step, and everything else gets easier.
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