Every pool starts with a hole, and every backyard in the Piedmont has something running under it. Most of the time it is a water service, a sewer lateral, a power line to the house and some cable. Sometimes it is a gas line to a grill nobody remembers installing, or an irrigation main that was never drawn on anything. Finding all of it before the excavator shows up is part of the job, and it is worth understanding what the process does and does not cover.
What 811 does
North Carolina law requires a locate request before digging. The request goes to NC 811, which notifies the member utilities. Over the following days their locators come out and mark the approximate path of their lines with paint and flags: red for electric, yellow for gas, blue for water, green for sewer, orange for communications. The marks are the reference for where the crew has to hand-dig instead of using the machine.
The locate covers the utility's side of the meter. For the power company that usually means the line from the street to the meter; for the water utility, the line to the meter box. It is accurate but not to the inch, and the marks fade, so the locate is timed to the actual excavation date rather than done weeks early.
What 811 does not do
Anything on the homeowner's side of the meter is a private line, and no one comes to mark it. In a typical Triad backyard that can include:
- The gas line from the meter to a grill, fire pit, outdoor kitchen or standby generator.
- Irrigation mains, laterals and valve wiring.
- Low-voltage landscape lighting cable.
- A well line or a septic tank, drain field and the lines between them.
- Downspout drains, French drains and sump discharge lines.
- Power to a detached garage, shed, dock or well pump.
- Invisible dog fence wire.
We ask about all of these on the first visit, and if the answers are uncertain, a private locating service can trace most metallic lines and many plastic ones with a tracer wire. Septic systems are the big one; building a pool on a lot with a septic system is its own topic because the drain field usually decides where the pool can go.
Easements
The survey shows recorded easements: strips along a property line or across the back of the lot where a utility has the right to run and maintain its lines. A pool, and often the deck and the equipment pad, cannot be built inside one. This matters on many newer subdivision lots around Greensboro, Kernersville and Burlington where a drainage or utility easement takes a surprising share of the backyard. It is one of the first things we check, alongside the setbacks covered in our permits and setbacks post.
Lines that have to move
Sometimes a line runs exactly where the pool wants to be. The options, roughly in order of preference:
- Move the pool. Usually the cheapest answer if the yard allows it, and often the design is better for the change.
- Reroute a private line. Irrigation, landscape lighting, a downspout drain or a gas line to a grill can be rerouted around the pool at a modest cost by the right trade.
- Reroute a utility service. Moving the power or water service to the house is possible but involves the utility company, scheduling and a real cost. It happens, but it is planned for early.
- Leave it and build around it. Not an option for anything under the shell. For a line under a planned deck, a sleeve or access point is sometimes acceptable.
Overhead lines count too
Power lines over the yard affect where a pool can go, because there are required clearances between the water and any overhead conductor. They also affect the crane for a fiberglass shell and the concrete pump boom for a gunite shell. We look up as well as down.
Why this happens before design, not after
A drawing that ignores utilities is a drawing that will change. Locating everything first means the design you approve is the one that gets built. If you want to see how the whole sequence fits together, the pool build timeline lays out where utilities fall in the process.
We handle the 811 request, the survey review and the private-line questions for every pool we build in the Triad, whether the yard is in Greensboro, Winston-Salem or out in the county. Request a free consultation and we will start with what is under the ground.