F4P Detectable Red Electrical Caution Tape - 1000 ft

The printed legend reads CAUTION ELECTRIC LINE BELOW, on red tape. Red is the APWA uniform color code for electric power lines, so the color and the message both tell a future excavator what is buried beneath before a shovel or trencher reaches the conduit.

Yes. The tape is built with a foil laminate core, which makes it detectable from the surface with a standard metal locator. That matters on non-metallic runs: PVC conduit and direct-burial cable give a locator nothing to read, so the tape laid above the trench becomes the locatable element.

Three widths are offered, all on 1000 ft rolls: 2 inch, 3 inch, and 6 inch. Narrow 2 inch is usually enough over a single small conduit or a service lateral. 3 inch is the common general-purpose width for distribution runs. The 6 inch covers a wide trench or a multi-duct bank where you want the warning visible across the full excavation width as the backhoe opens it.

Use it only over electric. The tape is red and printed CAUTION ELECTRIC LINE BELOW, which is specific to underground electric power. Marking a water, gas, sewer, or telecom line with it would mislead the next crew in the trench. Those lines take their own color and legend under the uniform color code: blue for potable water, yellow for gas, orange for communications.

No, and the two do different jobs. This is a 0.005 inch foil-laminate warning tape laid in the backfill above the line, so a locator can find it and a digger can read the printed warning. A tracer wire is a continuous conductor laid with the duct and energized from an access point for precise path tracing. Many utility specs call for both. If your drawing specifies tracer wire, this tape does not substitute for it.

Each roll runs 1000 ft, laid in a single continuous line above the conduit, so one roll covers roughly 1000 linear feet of trench per tape line. If your spec calls for two tape lines over a wide duct bank, figure two rolls per 1000 ft, or move up to the 6 inch width and run a single line.

The film gauge is 0.005 inch, a foil-laminate construction rather than plain polyethylene. That gauge is what lets it take mechanical backfill and compaction without tearing into pieces, while the foil layer stays continuous enough to read with a locator years later.