Afterwards, an air vacuum hose is passed into the site and used to suck the loosened materials out of the hole and into a specially designed tank, ready to be transported elsewhere or saved for refilling the site later.

Because vacuum excavation technology is relatively low-impact and non-destructive, it’s fast becoming the preferred excavation method for fuel and energy distribution industries, as well as other industries for whom both human safety and environmental impact are major factors.

It’s also been successfully deployed in situations where congenital digging equipment has been deemed inappropriate, or areas that are inaccessible to larger machinery.