Hydro excavation is the process of removing soil from an area with pressurized water and a vacuum. In other words, a non-destructive method that successfully removes soil and debris with industrial strength vacuum truck. This works great to safely dig and locate underground utilities. Including piping systems, fiber optics, telephone lines, and cables. These sensitive lines can easily be damaged with traditional digging methods. It can also be used for non-destructive excavation services such as trenching, digging utility holes, and debris removal.
Why Choose Hydro Excavation?
Traditional excavation methods use backhoes for major operations and hand tools in smaller spaces. They're extremely labor intensive, and because of the nature of digging, they're potentially risky, especially when underground utilities are present. In general, using traditional excavation methods are more labor intensive and harder to accomplish, but in colder weather conditions it would make it nearly impossible. This would in turn make traditional methods more expensive as well as potentially dangerous to the contractors involved.
Using hydro excavation, however, makes digging much more efficient, accurate, faster, and safer, since the surrounding soil is left undisturbed.
Top 10 Benefits of Hydro Excavation :
Hydro excavation brings dozens of benefits to industrial excavation world. It's the most preferred method of digging because of its low cost, efficient, and accurate results. Listed below are the top cost and safety benefits of hydro excavation :
Faster : Hydro excavation can be a cost effective solution to digging because of the amount of time and labor saved by using a more efficient method. The use of pressurized water and vacuuming combine to remove earth quickly and expose underground pipes long before digging would. If you have deadlines to meet or want your project finished quickly, hydro excavation is the choice for you.
Less Labor Intensive : Traditional digging techniques are more labor intensive because they use tools such as backhoes and hand tools, which results in the need for more workers. On the other hand, the number of workers needed for hydro excavation is much fewer. Usually needing only about two crew members to complete the job.
Safer : Traditional methods of excavation involve labor-intensive techniques and equipment, sometimes including explosives. These methods come with additional risk factors such as falling debris, cave ins, and even landslides in larger operations, creating hazardous conditions for the workers. When it gets cold outside, cutting through cold ground is even harder, making traditional methods even more dangerous. In contrast, because hydro excavation uses an extension to emit water, the workers are at a safer distance from the worksite. The pressurized water is also more capable of cutting through cold ground, making the job easier for workers as well.
Greater Precision : In some scenarios, municipal and federal laws don't approve of traditional excavation methods. Especially with projects that have fragile, pre-existing factors, such as underground utilities in tight spaces. Hydro excavation allows these projects to remain compliant by reducing backfilling, as well as any additional repairs that are common with traditional techniques.
Reduced Service Interruptions : Using traditional excavation methods such as drilling and back hoeing have frequently been a cause of service interruptions whenever underground infrastructure lines are damaged. Typically, these are expensive repairs, leading up to millions of dollars in some larger projects. With hydro excavation, however, the process can be done within a day and since it uses pressurized water to excavate the soil there are no damages or unexpected excavation delays to be had and you won't have to shut down parts of the road or building in order to complete the process.
Better for the Equipment : Since hydro excavation uses water, it's a non-hazardous medium used for digging holes and trenches. In addition, there's no damage to existing underground utilities because there's no digging done to disturb the soil.
It serves a variety of applications in many sectors. A hydrovac machine is used in directional drilling, slot trenching, utility locating, daylighting, coring, and potholing. They are as useful in utility or plumbing and electrical installations as they are in construction. Today, telecommunication and oil or gas plant industries also use hydrovac units for subsurface engineering.
Cost Effective : With traditional methods it requires you to hire an extensive crew, use heavy machinery, and you may have to repair a large portion of the area being excavated. This can lead to exorbitant prices you weren't expecting. However, with hydro excavation you see reduced costs. The cost of labor with hydro excavation goes down since you only need a couple crew members to complete the job, the job is also completed a lot quicker so there's no worry about paying multiple days of labor and equipment rental, and since water is used for digging, there's no risk of costly pipe damage and no restoration team is needed after the job is done.
Remote Digging : There are times when you must dig in very confined spaces that traditional excavating equipment simply cannot reach. Hydro excavation equipment can be located far away from the actual dig site which makes it easier to reach into these spaces and conduct the excavation. This reduces the need for restoration and construction following these types of digs and helps to keep the cost of the project from spiraling out of control.
Improved Drain Cleaning : Hydro excavation is particularly useful for cleaning pipes and sewers, as it combines the strength of pressurized water with high power suction to remove all debris and gunk. Pipes are less likely to become damaged using this cleaning method, making it the safer choice. Since it can be used in cold weather it increases it's effectiveness in digging down to potentially frozen sewer pipes, allowing for the job to be completed faster than traditional methods.
Considering all the above factors are in favor of hydro excavation, it is considered a best practice by cities, municipalities, public utility companies, and even neighborhoods. In most scenarios using cost analysis strategies, hydro excavation method have been 10 time faster and at least 4 times cheaper than traditional methods of excavation.
This demonstrated the benefits and cost saving power of hydro excavation far outweighs that of traditional methods. If you are in need of a hydro excavation service or just want more information, please contact us here at Cloud 9 Services, Inc., 407-481-2750, and one of our hydro excavation contractors would be happy to assist you.
