Ticket life

Definition

How long a utility's paint and flags stay legally good before you call again.

Why It Matters

Utility locates are the wait and this is the shelf life of what the wait buys. Washington gives an excavator forty-five calendar days from the notice, or the length of the excavation, whichever is less, and says outright that the markings expire on that day and that work after it needs a fresh notice. Florida gives thirty calendar days and counts them by a stated rule that skips a weekend or a holiday at the end. Ohio sets no clock at all: it caps how far ahead you may call at sixteen calendar days and requires a re-mark only if the markings are destroyed or removed. So the unit is calendar days and not working days, and in one state the concept does not exist. For a fencing crew this is a scheduling problem that turns into a liability. A job staged, weathered out and resumed after the clock has run is digging on expired marks, and the re-notify restarts the waiting period. Washington also lets an operator bill an excavator that keeps re-requesting locates.