Electrical Maintenance Near Your Home

Austin Energy crews travel within our service area 24/7 to perform a variety of operations needed to keep power on. You might occasionally see a vehicle near your home with an Austin Energy logo, or with the logo of one of our approved contractors.

From time to time, our employees and contractors may need access to your metering equipment or utility easement to:

• Read or replace metering equipment 
• Repair or maintain power lines, poles, and other electrical equipment 
• Inspect and prune tree limbs away from power lines 
• Inspect poles or survey pole locations

If We Need to Access Your Property

Here’s what you can expect if an Austin Energy employee or contractor needs access to energy equipment or a utility easement located on your property.

Electrical Equipment in Plain Sight — For equipment unobscured by a fence, wall, or other barrier, employees will take the safest route available to the equipment.

Electrical Equipment in a Backyard — If Austin Energy needs to enter a secured space like a backyard, the employee will attempt to knock on your door to request access. If you are not home or unable to answer the door, the employee will announce their presence loudly before entering the area.

Emergency Access — Austin Energy crews try to alert customers by knocking on their door before accessing an easement on private property.

On some occasions, employees or contractors may need emergency access to utility easements. In such cases, crews may not have time to knock on customers’ doors and may use ladders or other equipment to gain access to the utility easement on your property.

Door Notification — If an Austin Energy employee or contractor knocks on your door to request access to the utility easement, the employee will:

• Display an Austin Energy employee or contractor badge.
• Explain the reason access is needed.
• Wait for the customer to secure pets and provide safe access.
• Adhere to Centers for Disease Control recommendations for COVID-19.

Contact Us

• For questions regarding utility work in the community, contact City of Austin Utilities Customer Care at 512-494-9400
• View or report power outages using the Austin Energy Outage Map

Learn More

• Sign up to receive outage alert notifications on your phone 
• Learn what to do during an outage 
• Learn how we restore power
• Above-ground and underground electrical systems: What’s yours? What’s ours? (pdf)