That is the best way I can approximate it. It is a line with a half-arrow pointing up at one end, and a half-arrow at the other end pointing down. I came home one day and found it painted at the end of our driveway. Apparently they had been doing some work on my street–I am not even sure exactly what kind of work. And the maintenance men had to paint this symbol in flashy yellow.
What does it mean? Why is it in my driveway? I certainly plan on leaving it alone. But if I did accidentally remove it, would I get in trouble? Does anyone know the answer to these and more questions?
If it’s yellow, then according to the American Public Works Association Uniform Color Code, it’s probably “Gas, Oil, Steam,
Petroleum or Gaseous Materials”.
Usually yellow markings denote gas line locations, blue lines denote water line locations and red or orange are used for telephone and power lines. I’m guessing they were doing work on underground gas lines, and needed to have the pipes locations marked.
You have experienced the ever troubling and equally never anounced utility survey. As others have pointed out this symbol indicates the presence of an under ground utility at the end of your drive way. However I feel compelled to add that the particular color of spray paint, although it should matter, doesn’t necessarily reflect the utility line in question. I used to work with surveyor’s and they aren’t always on their A game. Anyhoo the symbol merely indicates the presence of a buried “something” and the “general” orientation thereof. Hope this helps.
Beerfan
P.S. If aliens or JW show up claiming responsibility and you are able to, please post back with their respective explanations.
Yellow is gas. (Steam is pretty uncommon these days)
Blue is water
Red is electricity
Orange is signals - phone, cable TV, fiber optic, etc.
White is sewer and other stuff
Those single-letter markers are:
E - Electricity
W - Water
S - Sewer
G- Gas
These are most often used to denote valve locations, especially with an arrow aiming you where to look in someone’s lawn for the shutoff. Achernar’s double-ended arrow is marking a pipe or cable route.
Other markers I’ve run across are FIBER and MCI, denoting fiber optic lines.
How about this - a little bit ago, someone came by and marked in pink spray paint, this on the end of my drive:
1 | 2
with the bar between the 1 and 2 perpendicular to both about the 2/3 point on my house and the street. Further on down the street, at non-even intervals, there was:
3 | 4
5 | 6
7 | 8
and so forth. They do not correspond to the numbers of houses, and sometimes they skip several houses. No one saw who did them, and calls have revealed no info. Personally, I think they are Citizen Relocation Numbers (and God forbid we should ever have to use them!), but don’t know…
Anthracite, Plastic Man has moved to your neighborhood, and his children are playing hopscotch. I’d make friends with him, he could be really helpful in getting your gutters clean.
