Short, original explainers for clients who need to name a quality level, a methodology type and a file format — without copying another surveyor’s wording or inventing project stories.
Request a quote
2026-02-12
PAS 128:2022 is the current UK specification for detecting, verifying and locating underground utilities, and it is the edition a client should name if they want Type B work that includes both electromagnetic locating and ground penetrating radar.
Read the note
2026-03-04
PAS 128 quality levels tell you how a buried service was evidenced — records, reconnaissance, detection or exposure — so a UK designer can treat two lines of the same colour as different facts.
Read the note
2026-03-18
PAS 128:2022 Type B detection requires electromagnetic locating and ground penetrating radar together because each method is blind to services the other can see, and a UK survey that drops one of them is not a complete Type B product.
Read the note
2026-04-02
HSG47 is the HSE’s guidance on avoiding danger from underground services; PAS 128 is the specification language UK teams use to document the “locate and identify” step that HSG47 expects before excavation.
Read the note2026-04-16
A PAS 128 deliverable is a coordinated CAD or GIS dataset with quality levels on every segment, not a PDF overlay, and UK civils teams should say so in the brief before a surveyor leaves site.
Read the note
2026-05-07
A desktop utility study is the PAS 128 Type D, QL-D records search you should commission before a UK detection crew mobilises, unless you already hold current, accepted returns plotted in the project grid.
Read the note
2026-05-21
A trial hole is PAS 128 Type A verification: you expose and measure a service when Type B detection cannot carry the remaining risk, which on a UK site should be a short list of crossings rather than a default for every recorded line.
Read the note
2026-06-09
Planning a utility survey for UK construction means naming a boundary, a quality-level mix, an access regime and a deliverable format before a surveyor arrives, so PAS 128:2022 work can start without a week of clarification emails.
Read the note
2026-06-25
UK city streets typically hide live water, gas, electricity and telecoms beside abandoned and private apparatus, which is why a PAS 128 survey treats records as a hypothesis and detection as the test.
Read the note2026-07-14
A usable PAS 128 specification names the 2022 edition, the quality levels by zone, the Type B requirement for EML and GPR, the methodology type, the markings and the CAD or GIS files — which is enough for a UK surveyor to price without a week of questions.
Read the note