Do I Have to Call 811 Before Digging Fence Posts?

The short version

Before anyone digs a post hole in Idaho, the dig has to be reported to the state’s one-call service, Digline — reachable by dialling 811.

• It is free.
• It is required by law, and applies to fence post holes.
• It takes two to three business days, which cannot be compressed.
• Whoever digs is responsible for making the call.

If we are setting your posts, we file it. If you are doing it yourself, you file it.

Why a fence counts

People assume one-call is for excavators and trenching crews. It is not — the requirement attaches to excavation, and depth is what matters. A fence post hole is comfortably deep enough to reach buried gas, electric, water, telecom, and fiber.

Post holes are also, awkwardly, dug in exactly the places utilities run: along property lines, across the front of lots, and beside driveways.

What actually happens

You or your contractor files the locate, giving the address and marking the dig area.

Member utilities are notified and each sends a locator, or confirms they have nothing in the area.

Marks appear on the ground in paint and flags, color-coded by utility type:

Color	Utility
Yellow	Gas, oil, steam
Red	Electric
Blue	Potable water
Green	Sewer, drain
Orange	Telecom, fiber, cable TV
White	The proposed dig area
Pink	Survey markings

You dig, respecting the marks. Near a marked line, hand-dig rather than auger. Marks indicate the approximate location — treat them as a zone, not a line on a map.

The two-to-three day wait is real

This is the part that surprises people, so plan around it.

A contractor who offers to start digging tomorrow on a job with no locate on file is telling you something about how they work. There is no expedited option for ordinary residential fencing, and there is no version of this where the wait is optional.

Build it into the schedule up front and it costs you nothing — the locate runs while material is being ordered anyway. See how long a fence installation takes.

The gap: private lines

Locators mark utility-owned lines up to the meter. Everything the property owner installed beyond that point is private and does not get marked:

• Gas line running to a shop, garage, or fire pit
• Power to a well, barn, pump house, or detached garage
• Sprinkler mains and irrigation lines
• Septic tank and drain field lines
• Invisible pet fence wire
• Low-voltage landscape lighting

On rural and acreage properties around Filer and Wendell this is where most strikes actually happen. If you know where yours run, say so before the auger starts. If you do not know, say that too — we will hand-dig in the likely areas rather than guess.

What it costs to skip it

Direct costs of striking a line: the repair bill, and the utility will pursue it. An outage affecting neighbors multiplies that fast.

Then the parts people forget. A fiber strike can take out service for a neighborhood. A gas strike is an evacuation and a fire risk. And if no valid locate was on file, the liability position is very different from a strike that happened despite following the marks.

All of that to avoid a free phone call and a two-day wait.

How we handle it

We file the locate on every job that involves digging, and we schedule around the wait rather than pretending it does not exist. Where a customer knows about private lines, we hand-dig those areas. Where nobody knows, we probe rather than assume.

It is unglamorous and it is one of the more reliable signals of whether a contractor takes the work seriously — which is why it is on our list of questions to ask before signing.

Estimates are free across Jerome and the Magic Valley.