Determining Who and When to Call Diggers Hotline

Wisconsin Statute 182.0175 requires everyone who is responsible for the preparation of plans and specifications for non-emergency excavation and every excavator to provide advance notice of at least three business days to the one-call system. See the state statute in the back of this manual for a definition of excavation.

Diggers Hotline is Wisconsin’s statewide one-call notification system that was developed in order to provide excavators and the general public the ability to inform multiple owners of underground facilities of intended non-emergency excavation with a single telephone call.

Diggers Hotline should be contacted prior to excavation and planning an excavation in order to comply with the state statute. Diggers Hotline should also be used to obtain information on safe working clearances from overhead lines. Most facility owners are required to be a member of Diggers Hotline and will receive messages of intent to dig.

In any of the following situations, the caller should contact the facility owner(s) directly.

• To report damage to any type of facility.

• To report any type of service outage.

• To resolve any type of billing problem.

• To request any type of facility removal or relocation. (Including meter removals prior to demolition of a building.)

• To request any type of utility service.

If an excavation occurs outside the state of Wisconsin, that state’s one-call center should be contacted directly, instead of Diggers Hotline.

All types of locate requests are accepted by Diggers Hotline 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.