Pre-Engineering and Design Locates
Find Potential Conflicts - Before The Project Starts
What Are Pre-Engineering Design Locates? Pre-engineering design locates involve identifying, mapping, and documenting all public and private underground utilities before project design begins. Unlike standard pre-construction call-before-you-dig locates—which provide temporary surface paint marks for active excavation—design locates capture high-precision spatial data to produce comprehensive subterranean maps for civil engineers, planners, and project managers.
Why They Are Essential for Your Project Unforeseen utility conflicts lead to costly redesigns, change orders, construction delays, and hazardous utility strikes during excavation. Investing in design locates during the planning phase allows engineering teams to:
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Eliminate costly surprises and route around existing infrastructure early.
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Minimize utility relocation expenses and structural redesigns mid-construction.
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Avoid utility damage, project downtime, safety incidents, and municipal liability.
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Streamline municipal permitting and easement approvals with verifiable subsurface data.
What We Do We provide end-to-end subsurface utility mapping that bridges the gap between raw field data and actionable files that your engineers can use in your current workflows:
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Subsurface Investigation: Pinpointing active, abandoned, and unknown metallic and non-metallic utilities.
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Public & Private Utility Mapping: Locating mainline municipal infrastructure alongside private on-site distribution lines (power, gas, comms, water, storm, and sewer).
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Direct CAD & GIS Deliverables: Translating underground findings into digital formats ready for immediate import into your design software.
How We Do It Our process integrates non-destructive subsurface detection technologies with centimetre-grade spatial capture:
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Multi-Frequency Electromagnetic Induction (EMI): Locates conductive metallic pipes and traced communication lines with signal transmission.
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Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR): Scans for non-metallic targets, including PVC, concrete storm lines, transite pipes, buried structures, and unknown obstructions.
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High-Accuracy RTK GPS & Total Station Mapping: Captures the precise horizontal and vertical coordinates of every detected utility line, valve, chamber, and handhole.
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CAD/GIS Integration: Produces layered, clean, and georeferenced AutoCAD (
.dwg), Civil 3D, and GIS deliverables aligned with your project’s local coordinate system. - Hydro Vac: We utilize vacuum excavation when and where needed to expose and verify utility depth, size, condition, material. This helps the client address potential conflict areas before the project reaches dull excavation, mitigating issues at the design stage.
Who Needs Pre-Engineering & Design Locates? Pre-engineering design locates are designed for project stakeholders who need to eliminate underground risk, prevent costly mid-construction redesigns, and streamline municipal approvals before breaking ground.
Key Industry Sectors We Support
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Civil & Structural Engineers: Obtain verifiable 2D subsurface spatial data to design conflict-free road alignments, storm/sanitary networks, watermain extensions, and bridge or building foundations.
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Municipalities & Transportation Agencies: Establish comprehensive utility baselines within public rights-of-way to de-risk capital works programs, highway expansions, and infrastructure renewal projects.
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Landscape Architects & Urban Planners: Map existing utility corridors early to optimize site layout, tree planting schemes, grading plans, and structural elements without encountering buried infrastructure.
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Utility Owners & Infrastructure Developers: Protect existing plant, identify utility congestion along proposed servicing corridors, and coordinate joint-use utility alignments with adjacent service providers.
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General Contractors & Project Managers: Reduce project schedule delays, eliminate unexpected utility conflicts, and mitigate costly change orders or downtime claims before mobilizing heavy equipment.
QL-D
Gather all available utility records, cross reference historical records with new records to gather information of utilities within the area.
QL-C
Visit project area and survey all surface utility features, such as pedestals, valves, poles, maholes etc. This helps with the QL-B investigation by using the QL-D records and QL-C survey points to accuratly give field techs more information of what to expect.
QL-B
Using QL-D and QL-C data, field techs will be on-site physically locating and marking all underground utilities, identifying potential conflict areas and verifying the available records and making note of any discrepancies that may cause conflicts in the design process.
QL-A
Using non-destructive vacuum excavation, expose and verify utilities within conflict areas. We verify depth, material, condition, size and the horizontal position.
Your safety is out top priority.
We're committed to providing you with the most accurate and effective service possible.
Contact Us
(289) 271 -1721
info@onulocates.ca
3483 Portage Rd, Unit 2, Niagara Falls, ON, L2j 2K5
Quick Links
Hours of Operation
Monday - Friday
7am to 5pm
Saturday - Sunday
By Appointment
24-Hour Emergency Service Available