What is the Scope of Work for a Subsurface Utility Engineer?

Engineering is a vast field that has many important branches in it. Each of these branches is responsible for a particular activity, which is why an engineer’s job is the most dynamic in the world today. One of the underrated but important branches of engineering is subsurface utility engineering. Do you want to know what subsurface utility engineering companies do? Keep reading to know more about the same.

Table of Contents

Main responsibilities of subsurface utility engineering companies

What is the role of SUE in highways?

What are the quality levels you will find in SUE?

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Main responsibilities of subsurface utility engineering companies

Companies that deal with subsurface utility engineering are mostly involved with a blend of activities from civil engineering, surveying and geophysics. Most of the subsurface utility engineering services include mapping of quality at various stages in a project apart from the coordination, design, coordination, estimation of costs and communication of utilities.

What is the role of SUE in highways?

Highway projects are considered to be one of the major projects of subsurface utility engineers. Thanks to the timely supervision and intervention of these engineers, utilities are relocated in the right proportion to the right people to start their work. Highway designers are dependent on utility information provided by the SUE department to proceed with their construction.

What are the quality levels you will find in SUE?

The underground utility engineering team classifies utilities into four quality levels at each stage. Different departments can use different quality levels as per their risk appetite. However, when there is a conflict between the design team or any other team and the SUE team, the concerned department has to maintain the highest quality level of utilities. These levels are:

Level D – lowest quality range and involves gathering of record data in physical & digital forms
Level C – SUE team surveys the visible facilities and compares the same with the data collected in the previous level
Level B – SUE team uses technical methods to understand the position of utilities that fall within the project limits
Level A – the top level of accuracy, wherein full plan of mapping all underground utilities are provided with horizontal and vertical lines

Whenever there is any construction going on, it is very important to hire the services of a subsurface utility engineer. This is because he will give you a report of all the underground utility lines in a particular location to help you plan your drainage or sewer lines. If you proceed without the go-ahead from the SUE team, you have to redo the work from scratch when you stumble upon an underground utility line, costing you a lot of time and money.