Non-destructive digging can be boiled down to 2 methods: hand digging, and vacuum excavation. Vacuum excavation using a vacuum truck is the preferred method of non-destructive digging. It is an accurate, efficient, safe, and a cost-effective method due to labour savings.
A high-pressure water hose is used to break up the soil, while the high powered truck mounted vacuum is used to suck up the mixture of soil and water into the large collection tank. As more soil testing is being done around the Country, there are many occasions where the soil and water mixture could be considered contaminated and therefore needs to be discarded in a specialised facility.
Non-Destructive Digging Experts
While there is still a small risk in vacuum excavation, mainly coming from the setting of the high-pressure hose, it is the preferred method of many utility owners, as even when hand digging to pothole, there is a greater risk of damaging pipes or cables from a shovel or crow bar. Vacuum excavation is also a very good way of finding exactly where the asset is. While Electro Magnetic Frequency locating is very good, the only way to ensure Quality Level A, or exact location of an asset, is to pothole using a non-destructive digging method.