Find out what’s under your property before you start digging.
Planning a pool, shed, driveway extension, landscaping project or any other work that involves digging on your property? Orbital can map the underground services beneath your land before you start — power, water, sewer, stormwater, gas, telecommunications — so the project doesn’t turn into an emergency repair call.
Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast. Twenty-three years doing this. Fast turnaround. Sensibly priced.
Why a homeowner needs this
Most Australian suburban blocks have more underground services running through them than the owner realises. Power and water are obvious. Then there’s the gas main, the sewer, the stormwater pipes, the telecommunications line, possibly recycled water — and on top of all that, anything previous owners installed and didn’t document. Irrigation, hydronic heating, garden lighting cables, pool plumbing from earlier pools, sub-meters, private electrical runs.
If you hit any of these with an excavator, a post-hole digger, or even a shovel in the wrong place, you can be looking at:
- A repair bill that costs more than the original project (a damaged power cable or gas main runs into thousands).
- A safety incident — electrical strikes and gas leaks are serious.
- Days or weeks of project delay while the asset owner repairs and re-energises the service.
- In some cases, an insurance claim and council notification with consequences.
The locate costs a fraction of what one of those scenarios costs. It’s the cheapest insurance policy on a home excavation project.
Where homeowners use Orbital
Pool installations
Pool excavation goes deeper than most homeowner projects and is one of the most common contexts where services get struck. We locate everything across the proposed pool footprint and the access path the excavator will use, so the installer knows exactly where they can safely dig.
Sheds and carports
Slab pour, footings, post holes. We check the area where the slab is going and the route any new plumbing or electrical service will follow into the new structure.
Driveway and pathway works
New driveway extensions, repair of existing concrete, sub-base preparation. The cuts here are shallower than a pool excavation but the services running under driveways are often denser — water meters, gas runs, telco lines.
Landscaping and retaining walls
Tree planting (deeper roots than expected), retaining wall footings, garden bed installation, irrigation systems. Particularly important if the property has had multiple owners — irrigation and recycled water runs accumulate.
Renovation excavation
New extensions, subfloor access, underpinning, retaining wall installation around the house. Services that were originally clear when the house was built may now run under or through the new excavation zone.
Fence post installation
Looks small but a post-hole digger can comfortably damage a gas main or telecommunications cable. Quick locate prevents the embarrassing call to the neighbours.
What happens when you book Orbital
1. Quick scoping conversation
Tell us the property address and what you’re planning — the kind of project, where on the property it’s happening, when you want the work done. We come back with a fixed-price quote, usually within a few hours.
2. We attend the site
Typically within 3–5 business days. We sweep the relevant area of your property with EMF (for power, water, gas, telecommunications) and GPR (for the non-conductive services). We mark everything found in the standard AS/NZS paint colours so your contractor reads it immediately.
3. You get the records
Photos of the marked services, a simple plan view sketch, and a written summary of what’s where. If a service is suspected but not confidently located (occasionally GPR doesn’t get a clear response in saturated clay or noisy soils), we say so — and we’ll suggest the next step if the project needs more certainty.
4. Your contractor uses the locate
Pool builder, fencer, landscaper, electrician — they read the AS/NZS colours and excavate around them. If anything unexpected comes up during the dig, we can return for a second visit. Most projects don’t need it; some do.
Frequently asked questions
Doesn’t Dial Before You Dig cover this?
Dial Before You Dig (DBYD) is a free service that returns the asset owners’ indicative records of their services on your property. It’s a useful starting point — but the records are often missing private services (irrigation, hydronic, recycled water, services installed by previous owners), the depths and positions can be wrong, and the records don’t show what you have on your property. A professional locate confirms what’s actually there.
How much does a typical residential locate cost?
Most residential locates fall in a fixed-price range — the variables are the size of the area to locate, the access conditions, and how many services we expect to find. Send us the address and a sentence about the project; we’ll come back with a fixed quote, usually within a few hours. It’s less than the cost of one repair bill for a struck service.
How quickly can you come out?
Most residential bookings in the Brisbane, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast catchment are attended within 3–5 business days of confirming the quote. Urgent jobs sometimes accommodated faster — call us first thing in the morning if you need it.
Do I need to be home when you locate?
Not necessarily. As long as we have access to the property — gate open, or a key arrangement with you — we can complete the locate and brief you afterwards by phone or email. For more complex jobs it’s helpful to be there, but most residential scopes don’t need it.
What if you can’t find something?
We tell you. EMF and GPR cover most situations but not all — saturated clay, salt-affected soils, deeply buried non-conductive services. If we suspect something is there but can’t confirm it confidently, we say so and recommend the next step (sometimes vacuum excavation through our Vac2U alliance) so the project doesn’t proceed blind on a critical service.
Is this just for big projects, or worth it for a small job too?
Worth it for any project where you’d rather not personally pay for a damaged service. Small jobs (fence post holes, garden bed installation, single tree planting) sometimes get the lighter scope — a focused locate of the area without the full property sweep. We scope it sensibly to what the project actually needs.
Related services
- Underground service locating
- CCTV pipe inspection (if you have blocked drains)
- Vacuum excavation through Vac2U alliance
Get a quote.
Send us your address and a sentence about the project — pool, shed, driveway, landscaping or anything else involving excavation. We’ll come back with a fixed-price quote, usually within a few hours.