Underground service detection · GPR · Electromagnetic locating
Find the services before your excavator does.
Inside your site there is usually no reliable record of what is buried. We locate electrical cables, telecoms, fibre, gas, water, stormwater and sewer with ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic locating, mark them on the ground and give you a plan before you dig.
082 773 4868
- Electrical
- Fibre
- Water
- Stormwater
- Sewer
The drawings won't tell you what's under your site
- Often there are no drawings at all. Services laid years ago, by people long gone, were never recorded. The result is guesswork beneath the ground, where one wrong assumption can sever a critical service.
- Where drawings exist, they are out of date. Additions and repairs are rarely drawn back onto the plan. Digging from outdated information can be just as dangerous as digging with no information at all.
- Municipal records are incomplete. Municipalities no longer keep reliable records of their own services, and they do not record what lies inside private property. The result is a gap in the information about what is underground, and that gap is where the danger lies.
Hit a service and work stops. You pay to repair it, and the programme slips.
Two instruments, because one is not enough
Ground-penetrating radar
Sends radar pulses into the ground and records the echoes. It finds metal and non-metal services alike, including plastic pipes and concrete stormwater and sewer lines.
Electromagnetic locating
Traces metal cables and pipes, and any service carrying a current or a signal. We use it as a second, independent check on what the radar finds.
Eighteen years of experience has taught us that using the two together is the most efficient way to find services. Each confirms what the other finds and covers the other's blind spots. Few firms work this way. We locate services up to 8 m deep, depending on ground conditions.
What happens on your site
We scan the site
Our team works across the area to be excavated with both instruments.
We mark the services on the ground
Your excavation team can see where every located line runs before they start.
You get a photographic report, and a survey plan if you need one
Every job comes with a photographic report of the located services. Where required, we also survey them and give you a plan to overlay on your existing site plan.
What our clients say
We thought we knew what was underground. The GPR survey picked up services that weren't on our drawings. That could have been an expensive surprise.
Getting the services located upfront saved us a lot of guesswork on site. We could plan the excavation properly instead of stopping every time something unexpected turned up.
We found services on site that weren't on the plans. Better to know before you dig.
Questions we are asked
What is a GPR service survey?
A GPR service survey finds the cables, pipes and ducts buried on a site before anyone digs. Ground-penetrating radar sends pulses into the ground and records the echoes from buried objects, metal or not. An electromagnetic locator then traces the metal services and any carrying a current or signal, as a second check. We mark what we find on the ground and give you a photographic report and, where required, a survey plan.
Can you tell us how deep the services are, not just where they run?
Yes. We give the depth of each located service, and we can locate services up to 8 m deep, depending on ground conditions.
Can you find services that aren't on any plan?
Yes. That is why we use ground-penetrating radar and electromagnetic locating together: they find what is in the ground, whether or not anyone recorded it. Old plans, or plans that were never updated, miss services, sometimes exactly where you need to dig.
What happens if something is missed?
The survey removes most of the risk. Some ground conditions, such as wet clay or deep fill, make services harder to detect, so we tell you where the results are less certain. Where a service is critical, we recommend hand trenching to expose it before machines work nearby.
Will this delay the job?
No. The survey can be done while excavation permits and planning are under way. It works best alongside the detailed site survey, so you have one full picture of the site.
Is it worth paying for a survey now rather than taking our chances?
It's probably cheaper to pay us to find the services than to let your excavator find them for you. A survey gives you better information for planning the work, fewer surprises on site and a lower risk of damaging existing services. The Construction Regulations also require the contractor to establish where services are before excavating.
Ask us for a quote
Phone Chris on 082 773 4868, or send a message and we will contact you.
We have located underground services for 18 years.
We work across Gauteng and further afield on request.
Registered office: Halifax Road, Bryanston