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Do I Need to Call 811 Before Digging Fence Posts?
Idaho's 811 Digline requirement for fence post holes — how far in advance to call, what gets marked and what does not, and why private lines are your responsibility.
Yes. Digging fence post holes is excavation, and Idaho requires notification through 811 Digline before you start. Call or file online at least two full business days ahead, then wait for the locate to be completed and honour the marks. It is free.
Published 2026-08-18 · Updated 2026-08-18
Yes, and it is free
Digging fence post holes is excavation. Idaho requires notification before excavation, and the notification centre is 811 Digline — dial 811 or file online.
The process:
- File the locate at least two full business days before you dig. Weekends and holidays do not count toward that.
- Describe the dig area — the whole fence line, not “the back yard.” Marking the route with white paint or flags before the locator arrives helps a great deal.
- Wait for the locate to be completed. Members respond by marking their facilities or confirming they have none in the area.
- Honour the marks. Hand-dig within the tolerance zone either side of a marked line rather than putting an auger through it.
- Locates expire. If the job slips by a few weeks, refresh it.
On our jobs we file the locate and wait out the required period as standard — it is step two of our process on every install, and it is the main reason a fence booked today does not start tomorrow.
What the marks mean
| Colour | Facility |
|---|---|
| Red | Electric power |
| Yellow | Gas, oil, steam, petroleum |
| Orange | Communications, alarm, signal, conduit |
| Blue | Potable water |
| Green | Sewer and drain |
| Purple | Reclaimed water, irrigation, slurry |
| Pink | Temporary survey markings |
| White | Proposed excavation — what you mark before the locator arrives |
What 811 does not cover
This is the part that catches people on rural property, and Minidoka County is mostly rural property.
811 covers member utility-owned facilities, generally up to the meter or connection point. Everything on your side of that is yours to find:
- Irrigation mains and laterals, including the buried pipe from a pump or a hand line
- Sprinkler systems
- Buried feeds to a shop, barn, well, pump house, or yard light
- Invisible dog fence
- Low-voltage landscape lighting
- Septic tanks and drain fields — worth knowing precisely, because a post through a drain field lateral is an expensive afternoon
If you know where these run, tell your fence contractor at the estimate. If you do not, say that too — it changes how carefully we dig, and it is far better than finding out with an auger.
The irrigation district is a separate question entirely
811 is about buried utilities. It has nothing to do with whether you are allowed to build a fence in a particular place.
If your fence line runs along a canal, lateral, or drain, you also need the irrigation district’s written permission under Idaho Code 42-1209 — a completely separate approval, from a different body, for a different reason. Around Rupert this comes up constantly. Start with your ditchrider; the Minidoka Irrigation District is at (208) 436-3188. See fencing near an irrigation canal.
Bottom line
Call 811 or file online at least two business days before anybody digs, mark your dig area, honour the marks, and locate your own private lines. It is free, it takes minutes, and it is the cheapest insurance on the whole project.
Call (208) 732-2816 and we will handle the locate as part of the job.
The bottom line
If you want this priced for your own property rather than in ranges, we come out and measure at no charge across Rupert and the Mini-Cassia area. You get a written per-foot price with gates and removal broken out separately. Call (208) 732-2816.