EXCAVATION: UTILITY STRIKES
One bucket through a marked line and the job's margin is gone. Liability turns on the 811 locate, the tolerance zone, and hand-exposure discipline. Fines run $2,500 for a first violation in New York and up to $10,000 for a repeat inside 12 months; injury cases carry civil exposure from $50K to $5M.
This page covers one problem. The full picture for this trade, including the other places margin leaks, is on the excavation operating system page.
WHERE THE MONEY GOES.
One bucket through a marked line and the job's margin is gone. Liability turns on the 811 locate, the tolerance zone, and hand-exposure discipline. Fines run $2,500 for a first violation in New York and up to $10,000 for a repeat inside 12 months; injury cases carry civil exposure from $50K to $5M. Washington's statute now reads as strict liability, and in Titan Earthwork v. City of Federal Way the excavator had called 811 and still ended up litigating after relying on the city's assurance that lines were relocated.
THE COST, SOURCED.
general liability policies often sublimit damage to underground facilities, so the coverage a contractor thinks responds may cap out below the repair bill. (Grit Insurance, 2026)
THE SAME PROBLEM, WRITTEN UP.
The utility company calls the excavator.
Mason Private Locating, describing where the finger-pointing always lands
THE NUMBER TO MEASURE IT AGAINST.
Excavation contractors run about % net profit at $1M to $5M, rising to roughly 10% at $5M to $10M. The CFOS target at $1M to $5M is10%, set at 10 percent before taxes or 3.5 points better than your trade's average at your revenue, whichever is higher. A problem like this one lives in the distance between those two figures rather than in a loss on any single job.
Gross margin over the same bands runs % to 23%, against a CFOS target of 10%.
THE SYSTEM THAT FIXES THIS.
Cost codes built against the estimate, so a job can be read while it runs.
FREQUENTLY ASKED.
