Do you have a good sense of what day-lighting utilities is costing you? Do you know all the factors to consider when estimating the costs of operating hydrovac trucks?
If you’re uncertain about the answers to those questions, carry on. Getting a good handle on your hydrovac costs is important for project bidding and overall company efficiency. Perhaps equally important, it’s also important to understand the costs so that you can evaluate alternative technologies properly. This article examines the risks and costs associated with using hydrovac technologies, and the benefits of dry suction excavation. The article concludes by highlighting two dry suction excavation technologies available in North America, the tinbin TC2, an excavator attachment, and a truck-mounted solution offered by Ox Equipment.
Why Use Vacuum Technology
The first thing to understand is why your company should be employing vacuum excavation technology. That answer is straightforward— it’s all about helping reduce the risks of striking utilities. While your staff may have excavators on site and shovels in the toolbox, these tools can put you at a higher risk of damaging utilities. Costs, including fines, can add up. Also, you are putting the well-being of your employees and others at risk. So there are definite arguments for using hydrovac technologies over conventional excavation.
The Risks of Using Hydrovac Technologies
That being said, hydrovac technologies come with their own risks. Using vacuum excavation technology is an efficient way to daylight utilities. However, most traditional vacuum excavation technologies use water at high-pressure. Water can add its own problems, especially if its used with high-pressure lances.
First, material excavated with a traditional vacuum excavator can’t merely be piled up near the hole and filled back in. Because it forms a wet slurry, on most jobs the spoils need to be trucked to designated disposal sites. Efforts and costs can and do vary significantly depending on traffic, time of day, and geographic location. In urban areas, a round trip to a disposal site varies dramatically because of time of day. It’s not uncommon for crews to be shut down while waiting for a hydrovac truck that’s stuck in traffic. This adds significant financial risks.
Second, water lances are the equivalent of pressure-washing soil off of utilities. The water lance can generate 1500 to 4000 psi of pressure. That pressure can also damage utilities, especially lighter material such as smaller gas lines and fibre optic cables. It also damages tree roots, stripping the outer bark from the roots. Further, the addition of water to a hole where there are utilities present can make it difficult to see properly, and can add risk if there are electrical utilities present.
Finally, longer drive times, project delays, higher disposal costs, and the risks of using water aren’t the only variables you need to consider. You also need to think about the transport weight of your truck, especially when it’s full of water. Recent regulations in some jurisdictions have resulted in many trucks being overweight when they are carrying their maximum water load. The result is that they are forced to carry a reduced load to the job site. So it’s a good idea to get your hands around the costs and potential savings that could come with operating a vacuum excavator.
Other Options Exist
There are other options. Consider dry suction excavation as a possible solution. Dry suction technology, whether truck mounted or as excavator attachment, has significant benefits.
First, because the material excavated is dry, there is no water to carry to the job site. This means significant savings every day in time loading up the truck, and no turnaround time waiting for the hydrovac truck to get more water, and sitting in traffic while it does so.
Second, there is no slurry to carry away for treatment. As a result, there is reduced time in traffic and no disposal fees. You are using your assets, including your crews, more effectively.
Third, the excavated material can be piled up near the hole and when the excavation is completed, it can be filled back in. This reduces costs significantly. You don’t need to pay for a second truck to bring in material to fill in the hole that you just created with the hydrovac unit.
Consider: (1) no water to carry and no water to get during the job, (2) no slurry to carry away for treatment, and (3) no trucking in new material to refill the excavation. Huge savings! In addition, if the excavation is taking place in a remote area, there is reduced environmental risk because bringing in new soil always contains seeds and organisms from other places that can damage local ecosystems.
Dry Suction Options
As demonstrated in this article, there are significant savings available through the use of dry suction excavation. There are several technologies available that use this technique. If you have excavators in your fleet already, then you can consider the tinbin TC2. The tinbin TC2 is an excavator attachment that allows you to incorporate suction excavation into your excavator fleet. Distributed in North America by Integrity Rail Products, the tinbin TC2 is a lower cost option that allows you to increase the asset utilization of your excavator fleet, especially if you have excavators on site already. It’s not unusual to see an excavator standing by while a hydrovac truck does utility day-lighting. The tinbin TC2 allows you to continue using your excavator and operator effectively, while also incorporating the benefits of dry suction excavation into your fleet.
Another option is to use a truck-mounted solution. Truck-mounted dry suction technology allows you to deploy to places where you would normally bring in a hydrovac truck. But with these units you receive all the benefits of dry suction excavation, without the issues that hydrovac trucks have with weight limits, water, and slurry disposal. Ox Equipment is the North American distributor for MTS, a German manufacturer of truck -mounted dry suction excavation technology. They carry a number of different-sized options to allow you to add the benefits of dry suction excavation to your fleet.
Both the excavator mounted and the truck mounted technologies allow you to use air lance technology to disrupt the soil before sucking it into the storage container. This is especially helpful in clay or heavily compacted soils. In addition, air lances are far gentler on utilities and tree roots. Unlike water, air expands and contracts around these objects, reducing the risk of damage to the object itself, or it surfaces. Several companies offer air lance solutions, including Air Spade and Ditch Witch. The video below demonstrates the use of an air lance with a truck-mounted dry suction solution.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it’s important to have a good sense of what day-lighting utilities is costing you, and to examine all the factors when determining costs of operating hydrovac trucks. Costs not only include the costs of operating the vehicle (capital, insurance, maintenance, and operator), but also include time in traffic, slurry disposal fees, time to pick up more water, and the costs of trucking in new material to fill the excavation. In addition, there are additional risks to using a water lance, including damaging light utilities and tree roots, adding water to electrical utility excavations, and the general mess of a water and soil mixture.
Dry suction excavation technologies are available to overcome most of the costs and risks associated with hydrovac technologies. These are available in a number of formats. One type is the tinbin TC2, an excavator attachment that allows you add dry suction excavation technology to your excavator fleet. A second is the truck-mounted solutions offered by Ox Equipment. Both of these technologies offer significant benefits over conventional hydrovac excavation techniques.