What an 811 Call Actually Covers
Call Tennessee 811 before any digging project and the public utility companies serving your address will send someone out to mark gas, electric, and other public lines within three working days, usually with flags or spray paint showing where not to dig. That system works well for what it's designed to do, and we ask every customer whether a ticket's been placed before we bring a grinder near ground we haven't worked before.
What catches people off guard is what an 811 locate doesn't cover. It only marks lines owned by utility companies - anything privately installed on your own property is your responsibility to know about and point out, not something a locate crew will find for you.
The Lines Acreage Owners Forget About
On a typical suburban lot, the private-line list is short. On the kind of two- and five-acre Millersville properties we work most, it gets longer. Septic laterals running out from a tank toward a drain field are the big one - we hear from homeowners regularly who genuinely didn't know exactly where their own field ran until we asked them to walk it out before we started. A low-voltage line for yard lighting or an invisible dog fence buried a few inches down is another common surprise, especially on properties that changed hands and the new owner never got a map of what's underground.
Well lines are the third big one out this way, since so many Millersville and Robertson County properties run on private wells rather than city water. A well line running from the wellhead to the house is invisible until a grinder catches it, and repairing one is a far bigger inconvenience than the stump job that caused it.
How We Walk a Property Before Starting
Before equipment comes off the trailer on any acreage job, we ask the homeowner to walk the ground with us and point out anything they know about, even if they're not sure it's relevant. A vague memory of "there's something buried out that way from the last owner" is worth mentioning, because we'd rather grind slower and more carefully around an uncertain area than assume it's clear.
For properties that have changed hands recently, we specifically ask about any paperwork from the sale that might mention a septic system layout or well location, since that's often the most reliable record available when nobody currently living there installed the lines themselves.
When It's Worth Getting a Private Locate
For a routine single stump well clear of any structure, a homeowner walk-through is usually enough. For a larger job - grinding several stumps across acreage where a septic field's exact boundary isn't clear, or ground near an older home where nobody's sure what's buried - a private utility locate service can map underground lines an 811 ticket won't touch, for a fee. It's worth the cost on a job where guessing wrong means real repair costs afterward, and we'll say so plainly if we think your specific property warrants it.
The short version
Tennessee 811 marks public utilities within three working days, but septic laterals, well lines, and invisible fencing are private and won't show up on that locate - walk the property yourself before we grind.