Dial Before You Dig
What is Dial Before You Dig?
Dial Before You Dig is Australia’s free referral service for information on the location of underground infrastructure. The service is designed to protect Australia’s network of underground pipes and cables and ensure the safety of those working around this infrastructure. Dial Before You Dig acts as a single point of contact between underground asset owners and excavators.
Owners of underground infrastructure, which include telecommunications carriers, are members of Dial Before You Dig. When an excavator lodges an enquiry with Dial Before You Dig, their project information is sent to the member (for example, nbn and Telstra) and the member responds to the excavator, normally in the form of plans.
People excavating should get these plans before doing any digging work to ensure they do not damage this underground infrastructure.
In 2014-2015, over 1.3 million Dial Before You Dig enquiries were lodged by people undertaking excavation activities, such as developers, commercial excavators, farmers and homeowners.
Why is it important?
If you don’t have plans or maps showing the location of underground infrastructure, you may inadvertently cut trunk cables or dig up and damage other underground conduit or cable. This may cut off essential services to homes and businesses until the cable is repaired by the owner of the asset.
If you caused the damage, you are likely to be liable for its repair and the cost can be significant. Having accurate information on the location of underground assets can help you avoid a potentially dangerous and expensive mistake.
If you are planning to subdivide land, there may be underground pipes and cables that need to be moved to another location. You may be required to pay an underground infrastructure owner, such as a telecommunications carrier, to move their equipment. Given it can be expensive to undertake this type of work, it is best to know what infrastructure is there and the possible costs before you start.
How do I contact DBYD?
You can try get in touch with the Construction Consultants here