Excavators must give notice no less than 3 full working days before starting work. For underwater facilities, the notice period is no less than 10 to 20 working days.
Below in this example the excavator contacted 811 on the 1st. During the call or while creating the RTE or SAT ticket the work start date is noted on the ticket. Three full working days prior to the work start date, locators will be dispatched to mark your excavation area. The life of the ticket begins on the Work start date and you are clear to dig for up to 28 calendar days.
Weekends and Holiday can affect the locate process. Here are some examples. In graph 1 you see when the locate would be performed if the start date lands on a Wednesday. The locate would begin on Friday and continue thru Tuesday. In graph 2 you see what would happen if a holiday landed on a Friday during the locate process.
In order to extend the life of your ticket past the 28 calendar days you will need to submit a subsequent notice 3 full working days prior to the expiration date of your locate request. In this example you need to provide your updated no later than day 25 of your ticket. Locators then have day 26, 27 and 28 to update the locate request. When you submit your subsequent notice, do not include any areas of your excavation that have already been completed. After 11:59pm on day 28, your ticket will begin again, giving you another 28 calendar days for excavation to take place.
Weekends and Holiday can affect the update process too. Here are some examples. In Graph 1 we see that the 28th day of the ticket lands on a Wednesday. Since the update must be made on a working day, the ticket is updated on the 23rd day of the ticket, giving the locators 3 full working days to respond to the update, the 26th, 27th and 28th days of the ticket. In Graph 2 a holiday lands on a Friday so the update must now be made no later than the 22nd day of the ticket.
