Residential Underground Distribution Line Awareness

Residential Underground Distribution Line Awareness

Is your home serviced by Nova Scotia Power through underground distribution lines?

When a community has underground service, you won’t see overhead powerlines, but you may notice an underground distribution box on or around your property.

The box is used to connect the distribution lines to your home to provide power.

What does an underground distribution box look like?

Below-grade styles are buried 6” to 12” underground and covered with grass like this one.

1

 

There are also above-grade styles which are visible on your property that look like this:

2

What to know

In the event of an outage, we may need to access the underground distribution box to make repairs and restore power to you and in some cases your neighbourhood.

 Safely accessing this equipment and restoring power quickly is always the goal but some types of landscaping can delay our ability to make emergency repairs. Consider avoiding these landscaping choices to ensure safe access:

  • Planting trees, shrubs, or flowerbeds too close to the box
  • Installing pavement or stone walkways directly over the box

TIP -If you’re planning to do landscaping or any other property improvement but are unsure where your underground distribution box is located, just give us a call at 1-800-428-6230. We’ll complete an underground locate and ensure its safe to start your work.