Gas, electric and water lines run under most Cherry Hill yards. New Jersey law says somebody calls 811 before the first shovel goes in. Here is how that works and who makes the call.
A new driveway, a patio footing or a set of front steps all start the same way. Something gets dug out. Under that ground sit gas lines, electric service, water, cable and sometimes a line the last owner put in.
New Jersey handles this with one free number. You or your contractor calls 811. Every utility with a line on the property then comes out and marks where it runs. The Board of Public Utilities asks everyone to call at least three full business days ahead. The markout itself is free.
This page covers the timing, who makes the call, what the paint and flags mean, and the hand digging rule. It is the part of the job most homeowners never see. We are a concrete contractor in Cherry Hill. We place the call on our own jobs, then work to the marks.
Permits are a separate matter with their own timing. This page from Papaneri & Sons sticks to the dig itself.
The state rule on notice timing sets both ends of the window. The One-Call center hears from you at least three business days before the dig starts. It also has to be no more than 10 business days before.
Both ends matter. Call too late and the lines are not marked. Call too early and the notice runs out before the crew shows up.
A business day is any day other than a Saturday, a Sunday or a state holiday. Call on a Friday and the clock does not really start until Monday. A holiday week pushes it further out.
Dial 811 inside New Jersey, or 1-800-272-1000, and the center takes requests around the clock. There is an online request form too, one path for homeowners and one for contractors.
A broken line or a real safety emergency does not wait three days. The rules put emergency work on a separate notice. A planned driveway or patio is not an emergency.
The duty sits with whoever does the digging. New Jersey calls that person the excavator. The word covers a homeowner, or anyone digging on a home for one.
When a Papaneri & Sons crew is the one breaking ground, we place the notice and we hold it. You do not call for the same dig twice.
Pulling out an old patio over a weekend puts the duty on you. A homeowner doing the work is treated as an excavator and gives the same notice.
Rent an operator and a machine and somebody still has to take responsibility for the notice. Settle that in writing before anyone turns up with a backhoe.
Ask any bidder on a new concrete driveway who places the 811 notice and when. A contractor who cannot answer that has not planned the dig. It is the same question to ask about the whole project calendar.
After the call goes in, each utility on the site has three business days to answer. They mark their own lines, in spray paint on grass and pavement, and flags on open ground.
We often outline the work area in white before we call. That white line tells every utility exactly where to look, so your whole yard does not get painted.
Paint and flag colors come from a national safety color standard the state adopts by name. Flags also carry the utility's initials or logo and a phone number, so you can see who marked what.
Start the dig within 10 business days and the notice stays good for 45 business days. That holds as long as the marks are kept in place. Work running past the 45 days needs a fresh notice.
If nothing is dug within 10 business days, the notice is finished. No digging until a new one is filed, and the new one waits out the same three day minimum.
Once work begins, the crew has to protect and preserve the marks. Mowing them off or pulling flags for a cleaner photo takes away the one record of where the lines run.
A mark shows roughly where a line runs, not exactly. That is why the law puts a buffer around it.
The onsite rule for excavators guards a band two feet wide on either side of a marked line. No powered equipment goes in there until the line is found by hand. That band is where most hits happen.
The state spells it out: non-mechanized tools, such as shovels, picks, probe bars and manual post-hole diggers. No mini excavator, no auger, no trencher inside that band.
A gas service often crosses a Cherry Hill driveway on its way to the house. Our crew digs that crossing out by hand and sets eyes on the pipe. The machine goes back to work on either side of it.
Footings go deeper than a slab, so the buffer matters more. A set of front steps has to reach frost depth for its footing. That can put the dig down at the depth of a service line.
Yes, if somebody is digging. The notice goes with the digging, not with how big the job is or whose property it sits on. If we are doing the work, we place the call and you do not have to.
At least three business days, and the dig has to start within 10 business days of that notice. Weekends and state holidays are not business days. A Friday call usually means a start the following week.
That is normal and it does not stop the job. We hand dig within two feet of the line, find it, then work around it. Call us at (856) 354-9338 and we will walk the layout with you before anything is dug.
Every Papaneri & Sons job starts with the 811 notice, the markout and a hand dig at the lines. Papaneri & Sons has called in that notice before every driveway, patio, sidewalk and step job across Cherry Hill, Marlton, Mount Laurel and the rest of South Jersey since 1987.