What is a private utility?
A utility is private in this locating context when responsibility for the specific facility belongs to the property side, the site operator, or another party that is not the operator expected to respond to the one-call ticket. Tennessee 811 puts it as facilities that extend beyond the public utility network and are typically the responsibility of the property owner. Ownership, operation, maintenance, and locating responsibility can be divided differently from one another, so contracts, easements, utility records, and confirmation from the operator all matter.
Where the boundary sits varies by utility type, utility company, property configuration, jurisdiction, service agreement, and installation history. There is no national rule that everything past the meter is private, and there is no national rule that everything on private property is private. Both are oversimplifications that produce unmarked lines and struck facilities.
This page is not about publicly owned versus investor-owned utility companies. That is a different meaning of “public vs. private utilities.” Here, the question is who is responsible for the particular underground line at the project site.
Examples of private utilities
The same utility type usually includes both operator-owned and private segments, so the examples below are common possibilities rather than automatic classifications. State one-call centers publish their own lists, and they overlap heavily: Virginia 811 names lines running from a home to a detached garage or shed, invisible pet fences, satellite and dish television lines, and septic and propane tanks with their associated lines. Colorado 811 names sprinkler systems, gas lines to backyard grills, invisible fences, septic systems, and buried water tanks and service lines.
| Utility type | Potential private example | Common site |
|---|---|---|
| Electric | Feed to a detached garage, sign, gate, pump, or parking-lot lighting circuit | Residential and commercial |
| Water | Service piping past a defined point, irrigation supply, well systems, campus distribution | Residential, commercial, and institutional |
| Sewer and drainage | Sewer laterals, internal site sewer, privately maintained storm drainage | Residential and commercial |
| Gas and propane | Propane tank piping, or downstream gas distribution depending on system ownership | Residential and commercial |
| Communications | Privately installed fiber, data, intercom, CCTV, and security cabling between buildings | Commercial and campus |
| Irrigation | Sprinkler mains, lateral lines, valve boxes, and control wiring | Residential and commercial |
| Site lighting | Parking-lot and pathway lighting circuits and pole feeds | Commercial |
| Institutional and campus systems | Facility-owned electric, water, steam, chilled water, and communications between buildings | Campus, healthcare, and industrial |
Public vs. private utilities
The useful comparison is between a facility the responding operator owns and locates, and a facility that falls outside that response. It is not a comparison between government-owned and investor-owned companies: an investor-owned utility can own and operate the public distribution network for an entire region, and its facilities are still the ones marked through the one-call process.
| Factor | Utility-owned or participating facility | Private facility |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership | The utility or facility operator serving the area | Property owner, facility, association, or other private party |
| Maintenance responsibility | The operator, under its own standards and tariffs | The owner, usually through its own contractors |
| Typical location | Distribution corridors, easements, and service runs to a defined point | Within a site, between buildings, and past the defined point |
| One-call response | Often included where the operator is a participating member | May fall outside the responding operators' locating responsibility |
| Records | Operator GIS, plats, and facility records | Site plans and as-builts where they exist, often incomplete |
| Locating responsibility | The operator, directly or through a contract locating firm | The owner, typically by hiring a private locator |
| Typical examples | Distribution mains and operator-owned service infrastructure | Site lighting, irrigation, private laterals, campus distribution |
A utility can be on private property without being a private utility
This is the misconception that causes the most trouble on real sites. A utility-owned line can cross private property, or run to and through it, while remaining owned, maintained, and located by the utility company. Easements exist precisely so that operator facilities can occupy ground the operator does not own.
A generalized example makes the point: an electric service may be utility-owned up to a defined point on a property, while a feed running from that point out to parking-lot lighting is owned by the property. Both lines are on private property. Only one of them is a private utility, and the specific defined point differs by operator and jurisdiction.
How utility ownership boundaries are established
Possible boundary evidence includes service agreements, tariffs, recorded easements, utility standards, meters, valves, transformers, demarcation points, cleanouts, building connections, as-builts, and communications from the operator. None of those features creates the same ownership rule for every system or jurisdiction, which is why the boundary has to be established for the site rather than assumed from a photograph of a meter.
Ask the facility operator
Confirm which assets it owns or operates and what it will respond for on the specific one-call ticket.
Review property records
Check construction plans, maintenance records, utility bills, easements, leases, and prior locate or repair documentation.
Inspect site appurtenances
Meters, valves, panels, pull boxes, cleanouts, heads, manholes, and building entries can constrain the likely system layout.
Record uncertainty
Conflicting or missing evidence should become part of the locating scope rather than being resolved by assumption.
Who is responsible for private utility lines?
Responsibility generally follows ownership and any maintenance agreement attached to the facility, but the specific answer varies and cannot be read off the physical location alone. Depending on the site, the responsible party may be a homeowner, a property owner, a commercial building owner, a facility or campus operator, a homeowners association, an industrial operator, a tenant under particular lease terms, or a private utility operator.
Sewer laterals illustrate how far the answers diverge. Los Angeles County Public Works describes the lateral as the property owner's responsibility including the portion in the public right of way, while the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District describes responsibility as varying by community. Both are accurate for their own jurisdictions, which is exactly why a national rule cannot be stated.
Service agreements, tariffs, property records, as-builts, and facility documentation are the evidence that settles it for a given line. This page is general information about how these facilities are located and is not legal advice about a particular property.
Does 811 locate private utilities?
The accurate answer is that it depends on ownership, membership, state rules, and the facility operator's locating responsibility. The one-call system is a notification process: PHMSA describes the center collecting information about the intended dig and contacting the companies that may operate underground facilities at that location, after which those companies must determine whether their facilities could be affected and mark them. A facility outside a responding operator's ownership or locating responsibility is not covered by that response.
State centers describe the consequence in their own terms. Virginia 811 states that private utilities will not be marked when you contact Virginia 811, because member utilities mark to the point of consumption. Colorado 811 states that private utilities are not registered with Colorado 811, are not part of an 811 locate request, and must be located at the owner's expense by a private locating company. Tennessee 811 states that underground facility operators did not install these lines and therefore cannot locate them. Indiana 811 states that some utilities are privately owned and are not marked by Indiana 811 members.
What none of those statements supports is a universal claim in either direction. It is not correct to say 811 never locates private utilities, and it is not correct to say the response stops at the meter or at the property line everywhere. Notify as required, read what came back, and treat what the response did not cover as the scope of the private work.
That remaining scope is what a private utility locator is hired to investigate, at the property owner's expense rather than the operator's. The difference between the two processes is worth reading before assuming either one covers the whole site.
What private utilities might 811 not mark?
The facilities below commonly fall outside a one-call response, though whether they do at a given site depends on ownership, membership, and jurisdiction. None of them is universally excluded, and the point of the list is to prompt a question rather than to answer it in advance.
Site electric and lighting
Feeds between buildings, parking-lot and pathway lighting circuits, sign power, gate and pump circuits.
Irrigation
Sprinkler mains and laterals, valve wiring, and landscape drainage installed for the property.
Water and sewer
Privately owned service piping and sewer laterals, where responsibility falls to the owner.
Propane and private gas
Tank piping and downstream distribution that no participating operator installed.
Communications and security
Private fiber and data, CCTV, access control, alarm, and intercom cabling between structures.
Site systems
Pool equipment lines, pet fences, well lines, process piping, and networks installed during site construction.
How do you know if a utility is private?
Work from evidence rather than from where the line happens to be. The sequence below moves from the cheapest sources of information to the most definitive, and it is normal for a site to end with some facilities still unresolved.
Do not open, probe, or interfere with electrical or gas equipment to answer an ownership question. Meters, pedestals, transformers, and pressure equipment are not inspection points, and identifying a demarcation is a question for the operator.
1. Identify the utility type
Different systems have different customary boundaries, so start by naming what the line is.
2. Review the one-call responses
What was marked, what was cleared, and what no operator claimed are three different answers.
3. Check agreements and bills
Service agreements and utility accounts can indicate what the operator considers its facility.
4. Review site plans and as-builts
Construction drawings often show private site distribution that operator records never had.
5. Check property and easement records
Recorded easements show where operator facilities were granted the right to run.
6. Note demarcation features
Meters, valve boxes, panels, and cleanouts constrain the likely layout without settling ownership.
7. Ask the operator directly
Confirm what it owns, what it maintains, and what it will respond for on the specific ticket.
8. Bring in a private locator
Facilities that remain unresolved after the above are exactly what a private locate is for.
How are private utilities located?
The methods are the same ones used on any buried utility, applied to lines that usually have worse records. Private utility locating works from records, owner knowledge, visible features, and the one-call responses, then applies electromagnetic tracing to conductive lines and tracer wires, a sonde or camera in accessible pipe, radar where conditions support it, and physical exposure where position has to be certain. Findings may be marked in paint and flags or captured as recorded positions and drawings.
Private water systems may call for water line locating, accessible laterals for sewer line locating, and unrecorded or nonmetallic targets for ground penetrating radar. For what each method detects and where it stops, see how to locate underground utilities, and for who does this work, see what a utility locator is.
Common private utility scenarios
The scenarios below recur often enough to be worth recognizing, but none of them is universal. Each describes what is commonly private at that kind of site, not what is necessarily private at yours.
Detached garage or outbuilding
Electric, water, gas, communications, or sewer running from the main structure may be owner-installed.
Commercial parking lot
Lighting circuits, sign power, irrigation, private storm systems, and communications are frequently the property's.
Apartment or multifamily complex
Internal distribution between buildings may differ from what the serving operator owns at the site entrance.
School, hospital, or campus
Large sites often operate extensive private networks with several generations of plans behind them.
Industrial facility
Process water, private electric, control and communications lines, gas, and sewer can extend well past any operator demarcation.
Residential yard
Irrigation, pool lines, septic, well and private water lines commonly need separate locating.
Private utility lines between buildings
Anything running from one structure to another on the same property is a strong candidate for being private, because someone on the property side normally installed it. Typical examples are power to detached structures, fiber and data links between buildings, private water, gas or propane, sewer connections, site lighting circuits, access-control wiring, and security systems.
These lines are also the ones least likely to appear on utility-company records, for a simple reason: the utility company did not install them, does not maintain them, and has no reason to hold a record of them. Where the site's own as-builts are missing or were never updated after a renovation, no records exist anywhere, and the line has to be found in the field rather than looked up.
Private utilities on commercial and industrial sites
Warehouses, industrial plants, hospitals, campuses, apartment complexes, retail centers, airports, and other large facilities frequently contain more privately owned underground infrastructure than operator-owned infrastructure. On a site like that, the one-call response may legitimately cover a small fraction of what is actually buried within the property boundary.
Deliverables scale with that complexity. Depending on the provider and the scope, work may produce field markings, recorded GNSS positions, GIS data, CAD drawings, utility maps, or a written report. Not every provider offers every deliverable, and mapping is a distinct capability from field marking. Utility mapping covers what those outputs involve.
Private utility locating vs. subsurface utility engineering
Private utility locating identifies and marks privately owned facilities so work can proceed. Subsurface utility engineering is a broader engineering process used on design and infrastructure projects, and FHWA characterizes it as a process rather than a technology, incorporating records research, designating, locating, surveying, and physical exposure.
SUE classifies the resulting information by quality level rather than by the instrument used: FHWA describes Quality Level D from records or oral recollections, C from surveyed above-ground features correlated to D, B from surface geophysical methods establishing existence and approximate horizontal position, and A from actual exposure and measurement. A private locate is not automatically a SUE deliverable. Subsurface utility engineering covers the distinction in more detail.
How deep are private utility lines?
There is no universal depth, and private facilities are less predictable than operator-owned ones because they were installed to a wider range of standards. Depth depends on the utility type, local code at the time of installation, how the original construction was carried out, frost considerations, subsequent site grading, repairs and replacements, and whatever standard the installer applied.
Irrigation and low-voltage lighting are often shallow enough that ordinary landscaping reaches them. Private sewer and water can be considerably deeper. Because none of that is a rule, no depth figure from a web page should be used to decide that a dig is safe. How deep are sewer lines works through what actually sets burial depth on one utility type and the difference between design, recorded, indicated, and verified depth.
When do you need a private utility locator?
Use the required 811 process before excavation, then assess the responses against what the site actually contains. A private scope is worth considering when the marks do not cover known site utilities, when private lines are suspected, when work runs between buildings, when irrigation or site lighting is present, when plans are incomplete or contradict the ground, when abandoned facilities may exist, or when the project needs mapping and documentation that outlasts paint.
Because the property owner pays for that scope, it helps to understand private utility locating cost before requesting proposals, including how search area, utility material, methods, and deliverables change the price. The private utility locating service guide covers what a scope should include and what to confirm with a provider before hiring one.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
What is a private utility?
An underground or site utility owned, operated, or maintained by a property owner, business, facility, association, or institution rather than by the utility owner responsible for the broader distribution network.
What are examples of private utilities?
Common examples include site lighting and feeds to detached structures, irrigation, private water service piping, sewer laterals, propane, private fiber and security cabling, pet fences, and campus distribution between buildings.
What is the difference between public and private utilities?
In locating, the difference is who owns and is responsible for the specific facility, and therefore who locates it. It is not a distinction between government-owned and investor-owned companies; an investor-owned utility can own the public network for an entire region.
Are utilities on private property always private?
No. Operator-owned lines routinely cross private property under easements while remaining the operator's to maintain and locate, and privately owned lines can cross ground belonging to someone else. Property ownership and utility ownership are separate questions.
Are all lines after a meter private utilities?
No universal rule makes every post-meter line private. The meter can be relevant, but ownership and responsibility depend on the utility, facility, agreement, property, and jurisdiction.
Who is responsible for private utility lines?
Generally the owner, which may be a homeowner, property or building owner, facility or campus operator, association, industrial operator, or a tenant under particular lease terms. Service agreements, property records, and as-builts are the evidence, and responsibility cannot be determined from physical location alone.
Does 811 locate private utilities?
It depends on ownership, membership, state rules, and the responding operator's locating responsibility. Virginia 811 states private utilities will not be marked when you contact them, and Colorado 811 states they are not part of an 811 locate request and must be located at the owner's expense.
Does 811 mark private water or sewer lines?
It varies by jurisdiction and by who owns the segment in question. Do not assume the response covers a service line or a lateral, and do not assume it never does. See 811 vs. private utility locating.
How are private utility lines located?
With the same methods used on any buried utility: records and site investigation, electromagnetic tracing of conductive lines and tracer wires, a sonde in accessible pipe, radar where conditions support it, and physical exposure where position must be certain. See how to locate underground utilities.
How deep are private utility lines?
There is no universal depth. It varies with utility type, local code at the time of installation, original construction, frost considerations, later grading, and repairs, and private installations follow a wider range of standards than operator-owned facilities.
When should I hire a private utility locator?
After notifying 811 as required, when the responses do not cover known site utilities, when lines run between buildings, when irrigation or site lighting is present, when records are incomplete, or when the project needs mapping beyond temporary field marks.
How do I prepare for a private utility locate?
Gather one-call responses, plans, repair records, owner knowledge, utility bills, access details, visible features, target systems, excavation limits, and required field marks or mapping deliverables.
Official and technical references
- Common Ground Alliance: Best Practices Guide
- U.S. DOT PHMSA: Call Before You Dig
- Virginia 811: private utilities explained
- Colorado 811: private underground utility information
- Tennessee 811: private locating information
- Indiana 811: homeowner FAQs (private facilities and the tolerance zone)
- Los Angeles County Public Works: sewer laterals and homeowner responsibility
- Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District: what is a lateral pipe
- FHWA: Subsurface Utility Engineering