Subsurface Utility Engineering

Back in the old days, almost all utility lines were located above ground and that the concept of non destructive excavation was found nowhere in the vocabulary of contractors and utility engineers. After all, who will need the service if all of utility lines were exposed and that building new lines and repairing existing ones were reachable anytime? A few decades later, utility engineers started to bury lines underground, and the practice is more gaining ground as it has shifted from just being a trend into becoming a norm.

Burying utilities underground have numerous advantages aside from helping a place improve their aesthetic appeal through the elimination of unsightly and messy web-like connections of cables overhead. Utilities are also more protected from destruction by man-made errors and natural calamities, thereby contributing to more consistent and stable utility services as disruption and repairs will be significantly reduced. However, burying utility lines underground is not a foolproof method, as they are also open to destruction due to improper notification, poor underground asset location techniques and ineffective excavation equipment and practices. In order to avoid dangers to subsurface assets and contractors, the concept of subsurface utility engineering or SUE was created.

Subsurface utility engineering encompasses modern line electronic tracking techniques for accurate identification and designation of buried lines, non destructive digging for the exposure of utilities, and survey mapping techniques for data management into one discipline. All of these processes will give property owners and contractors a three dimensional approach that will help document the existence, design, position and interconnection of underground assets for future project use.

Tighter budgets have prompted many utility companies to find ways to minimize their operating costs and performance delays at all stages of their projects. Without an accurate blueprint of the situation and location of underground lines, risk for their accidental damage will be increased, further delaying the completion of their jobs and increasing costs. What’s worse is that past information obtained by utility companies are rarely accurate enough to really depict their exact locations and become useful for design purposes. In addition to that, past work that has been done on them may have never been documented, making it difficult to trace contractors responsible for the work and ask them some necessary work-related queries.

Fortunately, with the advent of subsurface utility engineering, it is now possible for underground utilities to be mapped precisely. Aside from assisting contractors with the exact location and conditions of underground assets, dreaded unknown variables and contingencies faced by them daily will be avoided. If you want to make sure that you will be able to save time, costs and avoid accidents related to your projects’ underground activities, it will be very helpful to hire a subsurface utility engineer to assist you in your project’s planning stages.

Although there are newer technologies that are utilized in subsurface utility engineering like trenchless methods, contractors cannot deny the fact that potholing using non destructive excavation is still an indispensable method and will never run out of fashion as certain buried utilities may not be known to the driller. You know the drill when a contractor works blindly: time and resources are lost while the subsurface utilities and contractor’s safety are put at high risk.

Yunz Contracting is a trusted civil contractor company that has fleets of vacuum excavators to assist you with your projects’ non destructive excavation requirements. If you are looking for a contractor who provides cost-efficient, quick and safe excavation services, visit our website to know how to hire us.

Three Things Civil Contractors Can Do To Improve Safety at Site

The civil construction industry has been fraught with many accidents taking place due to the lack of safety among the workforce. There are three ways that the industry needs to do to prevent further accidents:

Employ the Right Personnel

So your builders are licensed, registered and insured? Good, but are they trained for occupational safety? The civil construction industry does not only need workers with license and insurance coverage but also with the adequate occupational safety training. The industry should pay attention to safety training as much as it pays attention to equipment upgrade and job generation as its survival lies in workers who emphasise safety in their work functions.

It is bad publicity for construction firms if they encounter accidents and word goes out that workers were not following safety rules, that contractors ignore signs of possible risks, and that management was being lax in implementing stricter safety rules and penalties. Smooth work flow all boils down to workers who perform safe and efficient work at all costs and never resorting to shortcuts.

Implement Safety Rules and Regulations at the Work Site

Accidents at work happen because the safety rules are not in place. It is not that hard enough to implement them, but workers get negligent at times and contractors don’t seem to bother about it as long as the workers can do their works. This is a blatant disregard for workers’ safety and a fodder for work delay and financial losses.

Some of the important safety rules that should be implemented in construction sites include:

·         The wearing of protective gear when inside the work premise

·         Workers should always have safe access to working grounds.

·         Equipment and tools should only be operated by competent workers. Workers should be taught how to use tools and equipment properly. They should not also leave tools lying around at the site.

·         Installing barrier guards, guard rails, flashing lights or caution sites in the area and around areas of safety concerns like deep trenches.

·         Spoil pile should be disposed according to avoid impeding work flow and prevent pollution.

·         Vehicles should be parked at designated parking sites, not near deep excavations and not even to be left at areas of safety concern after work.

·         Management should inform and educate workers on the site’s evacuation plan.

Management should also look to employ adequate medical personnel at the site to attend to injured workers immediately and provide first aid care. They should also employ professional safety inspectors and regularly train their workers to observe occupational safety and penalise them for any violations.

Provide Options for Safe and Non-Destructive Work

Construction works can be dangerous or annoying because of the methods that contractors and workers use. For instance, it is dangerous to excavate using sharp tools and drills when the ground happens to have live electric cables. It is also disturbing to conduct drilling operations near hospitals and schools. In both instances, the contractors can utilise vacuum excavation, a non-destructive excavation method. Vacuum excavation can help protect the electric cables while it digs up the ground and it can also be used as an alternative to drilling.

There are many technologies today that can replace the destructive methods long used in the civil construction industry. Contractors and management should invest in new technologies or equipment that will allow workers to perform their tasks in a safe and efficient way.

Safety, not profit, should always be the most important concern in the civil construction industry. This they can ensure by hiring safety-minded labourers, implement safety rules and providing work alternatives like non-destructive excavation in place of traditional digging methods.

Yunz Contracting provides a variety of level 1ASP civil constructing services including non-destructive excavation, traffic management, land clearing and electrical and industrial types of works.