Midtown Plumbing Company provides utility potholing across Ventura County with an in-house hydrovac trailer. We vacuum a small test hole over each marked line and show you the exact depth, size, and material before your excavator, auger, or drill goes in.
Paint marks in this county sit on top of 100 years of oil, farm, and city pipe, and the records miss plenty. We hold CSLB license #1126558 and bring 15 years of underground plumbing experience. Call (805) 765-3995 to schedule potholes.
A DigAlert mark gives you an approximate horizontal position. No depth. No pipe size. No word on whether the line under the paint is the only one there. Locators read a signal from the surface, and signals drift near other metal, rebar, and wet clay.
A pothole replaces the estimate with a measurement. We cut a hole 8 to 12 inches wide with pressurized water, vacuum the spoils into the trailer tank, and put eyes on the utility. You get depth to top of pipe, diameter, material, and direction of run. Engineers call this Quality Level A under the ASCE 38 standard, the highest grade of subsurface utility data. Crews call the same thing daylighting.
The Common Ground Alliance tracks utility damage nationwide. Failure to pothole lands among the top root causes in the annual DIRT report, year after year. Every one of those strikes happened on a job where someone trusted the paint.
California Government Code 4216 sets the rules for every excavation in the state, from a fence post to a sewer main.
Hand digging satisfies the law. In August adobe clay, hand digging one pothole takes a laborer an hour or more. The hydrovac finishes the same hole in a fraction of the time, with no shovel blade near a gas line.
Color | Utility | Common owners in Ventura County |
Red | Electric power and lighting | Southern California Edison |
Yellow | Gas, oil, and petroleum | SoCalGas, oil pipeline operators |
Orange | Phone, cable, and fiber | AT&T, Spectrum, Frontier |
Blue | Drinking water | Ventura Water, City of Oxnard, Casitas Municipal Water District |
Purple | Recycled water and irrigation | City and district recycled water systems |
Green | Sewer and storm drain | City public works departments |
White | Your proposed excavation | You |
DigAlert members mark what they own. Their responsibility stops at the meter or the property line. Everything past this point belongs to the property owner, and no utility will send a locator for free.
On a commercial site or HOA, private lines outnumber public ones.
Fire service mains, domestic water loops, customer-side gas to each building, sewer laterals, parking lot lighting, irrigation mains, and storm drains all sit unmarked. As a plumbing contractor, we work on these lines every week. We know where builders ran them in each era of construction, and we trace sewer laterals from the surface with a camera and transmitter before we pothole. Gas line locating, water line locating, and sewer line locating all end the same way: a verified hole over the pipe.
Start with the age of the property. Sites developed before 1970 tend to carry clay sewer lines, galvanized water services, thin records, and abandoned lines nobody removed. Newer sites have better drawings and more utilities packed into each trench. Then look at the neighborhood.
Buildings along Main Street and Thompson Boulevard date to the early 1900s. Services were abandoned in place, replaced, and abandoned again. Sidewalk vaults and shallow gas stubs sit inches below the concrete. Pothole before every sidewalk or street cut.
Santa Paula is the birthplace of Union Oil. Old oil gathering lines, active farm irrigation, and river cobble share the same ground along the Santa Clara River.
Winter storms wash paint marks off pavement and bury flags in mud. Hillside erosion strips cover, so lines sit shallower than the as-builts show. In summer, adobe clay in Camarillo and Simi Valley bakes hard enough to bend a digging bar. Pressurized water cuts through both conditions.
Tract homes here replaced lemon and avocado orchards. Old concrete and steel irrigation mains still cross under lots and streets. They show up on no city map.
Volcanic bedrock sits close to the surface across much of the Conejo Valley. Where rock is shallow, installers laid utilities shallow. A gas line drawn at 30 inches on the plans often sits far shallower in the ground.
Fill soil, tidal groundwater, and corroded metal lines. Holes fill with water within minutes. The vacuum keeps the hole dry long enough to measure and photograph the pipe.
RiverPark and The Collection sit on former sand and gravel pits backfilled before development. Depths vary from the plans. South Oxnard and the industrial blocks near Hueneme Road pack fire mains, process piping, and fiber into shared corridors.
Send us your plans, your ticket number, and your start date. We will pothole every crossing and hand you a log your operator trusts. Found a damaged water, gas, or sewer line in the hole? Our plumbers fix the pipe on the spot. See our full hydro excavation services for trenching, bore pits, and line repairs.
Contractors, GCs, and repeat customers: preferred trade partner pricing is available. Call (805) 765-3995 and we will talk through your job and your rates.
Four factors set the hours on site:
Compare the quote against one utility strike. A damaged gas service means an evacuated site, a utility repair invoice, a possible state fine, and days of lost schedule.
Utility potholing means digging a small test hole to expose a buried line and confirm the exact position and depth. Most contractors now pothole with vacuum excavation because water and suction do not damage the pipe. The terms potholing, daylighting, and test holing describe the same task.
We charge $300 per hour with a 2-hour minimum, or $1,200 for a half day of up to 4 hours on site. Mobilization within Ventura and Oxnard is included. Contractors and repeat customers get trade partner pricing by phone at (805) 765-3995.
Locating reads a signal from the surface and paints an estimate. Potholing opens the ground and measures the real thing. Locating tells you where to pothole. Potholing tells you where to dig.
Most utilities in Ventura County sit between 18 inches and 6 feet deep. Sewer mains and some water transmission lines run deeper. Tell us the expected depth when you call, and we will confirm the trailer setup for your job.
Yes. We cut a small opening in the asphalt or concrete, pothole through the opening, backfill, and patch the surface. Street work requires an encroachment permit from the city or county, and we handle the plumbing permit side of any repair.
Midtown Plumbing Company runs a hydrovac trailer from 3800 Market St in Ventura and potholes in Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Ojai, and Carpinteria. Call (805) 765-3995 for a quote.
3800 Market St B, Ventura, CA 93003
California Contractor License #1126558. Licensed, bonded, and insured.
Related services: Hydro Excavation | Underground Utility Repair and Boring | Trenchless Water Line Replacement | Sewer Line Repair and Replacement
Service areas: Ventura | Midtown Ventura | Oxnard | Camarillo | Ojai | Santa Paula | Fillmore | Thousand Oaks | Simi Valley | Moorpark | Carpinteria
