Each rule is tied to a different moment on the site
The permit, the 811 locate request and the footing inspection line up because each one is keyed to a different event, not because one statute lists them in order. Virginia's Uniform Statewide Building Code says a permit "shall be obtained prior to the commencement of any of the following activities", and construction of a building or structure is the first activity on that list. Virginia's dig law is keyed to the ground: Section 56-265.17 A puts the locate request to the notification center ahead of anyone making or beginning an excavation. The inspection is keyed to the concrete, because Section 113.3 names an inspection of footing excavations and reinforcement "prior to the placement of concrete".
In site order, a permitted Virginia job runs this way. The permit application goes to the building official first. The locate request goes in ahead of the dig, and the dig waits on the operators' answer. Then the permit holder calls for the inspection, which the code sets before the concrete is placed, and the building official answers in writing, with an approval or a notice of defective work. The permit step is not an absolute gate, because Section 108.1 also says "the building official may authorize work to commence pending the receipt of an application or the issuance of a permit." That is the official's permission to give, not the owner's to assume.
A driveway, patio or walk the county does not permit runs a different track. Section 108.2 says that for the work it lists "application for a permit and any related inspections shall not be required", and in the same sentence says the exemption does not excuse the work from the code's other requirements. Ordinary flatwork that the list does not name specifically rides on the building official's judgment that the work is "minor and ordinary". With no permit there is no permit holder, and with no permit holder nobody owes an inspection call. The locate request is what remains, because the dig law attaches its duty to the excavation, permit or no permit. How a county makes that call is worked through on the Virginia concrete permits page, and whether your footing or slab carries an inspection at all is answered under do footings need an inspection.
The two tracks can merge by choice. Section 108.2 goes on: "when an owner or an owner's agent requests that a permit be issued for any of the following, then a permit shall be issued and any related inspections shall be required." An owner who asks for a permit on listed work moves the job onto the longer track, inspections included.
Three duties, three names on the paperwork
On a Virginia pour, the locate request, the inspection call and the VDOT entrance permit each have their own obliged party, and on one permitted house whose driveway meets a state road they can be three different people.
The locate request belongs to whoever makes or begins the excavation. The one item on Virginia's dig law exemption list that names an owner or occupant covers hand digging "performed by an owner or occupant", and a trencher or a machine auger is not hand digging. We place the locate request for the digging we do. How that request fits a pour date is laid out under calling 811 before a pour, and the operators who answer it, and what they paint, are the subject of who marks utilities before digging.
The inspection call belongs to the permit holder. Section 113.1.2 of Virginia's building code says that when construction reaches a stage that requires an inspection, the permit holder "shall notify the building official", and Section 113.1.1 puts any ladder, scaffolding or test equipment needed to conduct or witness the inspection on the same person. The permit holder is whoever the permit application names, not a job title, so where the owner took the permit out, the inspection call is the owner's.
The VDOT entrance permit belongs to the property owner. VDOT's land use rule says a permit must be obtained by the facility owner "or the adjacent property owner in the case of entrance permits", and that it "may be issued jointly to the owner and contractor if the contractor is the owner's authorized agent." The same rule makes that permit valid only on right of way under VDOT's jurisdiction and on VDOT-owned property, and sends work on county or city streets to a county or city permit. For the apron itself, the VDOT entrance permits page carries the mechanics.
Virginia's locate side runs on numbered deadlines
Most numbered deadlines in a Virginia pre-pour sequence sit on the locate side, and several bind the utility operators rather than you. Virginia's dig law gives each operator until 7:00 a.m. on the third working day after the locate request to mark the line and report its status, unless the excavator gave a scheduled excavation date or extraordinary or exigent circumstances get in the way.
- How early: outside a request by a designer, Virginia's dig law bars asking for marks unless excavation will begin within thirty working days of the original notification, and Virginia 811 asks excavators to contact it only for work they plan to start within the next fifteen working days.
- How much lead: Virginia 811 says to request the ticket at least 3 working days before you plan to dig, and Virginia's dig law says a scheduled excavation date has to sit no less than 48 hours and no more than 12 working days after the request.
- How long the ticket lasts: Virginia's dig law makes the notification valid for 15 working days from 7:00 a.m. on the next working day after the request, or 15 working days following a scheduled excavation date, whichever is later.
- When to ask for a re-mark: three working days before those 15 working days end, for an excavator who still intends to dig, or at any time the markings become illegible. The operator then has 48 hours from 7:00 a.m. on the next working day to finish the re-mark.
What Virginia's Sections 110 and 113 leave unnumbered
Virginia's building code, in Section 110.1, which governs approving and issuing permits, tells the building official to examine applications "within a reasonable time after filing" and to issue a complying permit "as soon as practicable", and puts no number on either. Section 113 attaches no numbered deadline to the inspection itself, apart from the two working day figures Section 113.7 sets for third-party reports, one that triggers them and one for putting a rejection in writing, and Section 113.6 asks for the written approval or defect notice with no number either.
Those absences describe the sections, not how fast any county moves. In Virginia the locate side can be counted in working days and the permit and inspection sections cannot, so the open-ended side is the one to settle before a date is chosen. What a county counter actually publishes about inspection notice, and what the Section 113.7 route asks of you, sits on the footing inspection scheduling page.
A fixed ticket against an open-ended inspection wait
The Virginia locate ticket and the footing inspection run on two kinds of clock, and they meet at the trench. A Virginia ticket governs digging and runs on a fixed count of working days, while Section 113 puts no numbered deadline on the inspection answer. A dig that stretches, or a footing that has to be corrected and reinspected, can push the remaining digging past the ticket's 15 working days, and that is when the re-mark duty starts to matter.
The statute puts that move on the excavator, and early. Section 56-265.17 D says: "Three working days before the end of the 15-working-day period, or at any time when line-location markings on the ground become illegible, the excavator intending to excavate shall contact the notification center and request the re-marking of lines." The re-marking is then "valid for an additional 15 working days from 7:00 a.m. on the next working day following a locate request." A separate section, 56-265.24 B, makes a notice about illegible markings an extension under Section 56-265.17 D.
Virginia 811 handles the same situation as ticket types. Its Ticket Specifications Guide, in the edition dated January 2024, says "An Update locate request must be processed if work will not be completed by 7:00 AM on the 15th working day", and says an Update or a Re-mark produces a new request number with another cycle of 15 working days. That is the notification center's ticket handling, and the statute's words above are the legal rule.
The sections that set Virginia's validity window say nothing about work continuing past it. North Carolina answers that question in its own statute, below, and its rule should not be carried across the line to fill the gap. Scoping matters for the same reason: the work area on one request has to be one "that can be excavated within 15 working days" and may not exceed one-third of a mile. The rest of the dig law, including how close a machine may work to a mark, is on the 811 and utility locates page.
North Carolina counts the same job in calendar days
Across the North Carolina line, the locate and inspection steps keep their places and change their units. G.S. 87-122 requires notice "no less than three full working days before the proposed commencement date" for work that does not involve a subaqueous facility, and puts it on the person responsible for the excavation, who "shall provide or cause to be provided" it. Before digging, the excavator confirms through the positive response system that all operators have responded and the facilities that may be affected are marked.
The ticket's life is where the states part. North Carolina's notice "shall expire 28 calendar days after the work start date", and the statute says no excavation may continue after that period unless a subsequent notice is provided "in the same manner as the original notice". North Carolina 811 says to submit that subsequent notice 3 full working days before the expiration date and to leave out areas already finished. Virginia's 15 are working days, which leave out Saturdays, Sundays and legal state and national holidays, counted from 7:00 a.m. on the next working day after the request or from a scheduled excavation date, while North Carolina's 28 are calendar days counted from the work start date.
The inspection side changes too. North Carolina's administrative code puts the call on "the permit holder or his or her agent", and it carries an approval rule that Virginia's Section 113 does not state: work may not go past the point each inspection indicates "without first obtaining the approval" of the code enforcement official. It names when a footing is ready, too: trenches excavated, grade stakes installed, reinforcing steel and supports in place and tied, and forms in place and braced, before any concrete is placed. G.S. 160D-1104 asks for inspections "in a timely manner" and sets no number. For the state's other permit rules, turn to North Carolina concrete permits.
Five answers to have before a pour date is booked
The pre-pour order on any one job turns on a few facts that only the permit, the permit office and the locate request can supply, so get them answered before anyone books a truck.
- Who is named as permit holder. In Virginia that name owes the inspection call, and in North Carolina that name or its agent does.
- Which office issues the permit, and how that office wants an inspection requested.
- Whether the building official's written third-party inspector policy is one your job can use, since the Section 113.7 route runs through it.
- Whether the locate request will carry a scheduled excavation date, because a later scheduled date, not the call, can set when the 15 working days start.
- Whether the job involves an entrance onto a road VDOT maintains, since an entrance permit there is the property owner's to obtain.