VAC UK has the best vacuum excavator fleet in the UK. We are a trusted delivery partner to the UK’s major contractors and public utilities.
Our dedicated operators will help you get your job completed safely and on time within your budget. We’re available 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, nationwide.
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Vacuum excavation is a safer, more environmentally friendly and cost-efficient method of excavating.
A vacuum excavator is a construction vehicle that removes heavy debris and material from a hole in the ground in urban and suburban areas. Fast excavation is guaranteed without the risk of affecting or damaging any unforeseen utilities.
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Trusted suppliers to Costain, Laing O'Rourke, BAM Nuttall, Morgan Sindall, Galliford Try.
We are often faced with excavating around critical infrastructure and the safety of our workforce is our upmost priority along with avoiding damage to our clients buried infrastructure. This state of the art vacuum excavation unit will greatly help us achieve this ambition.
Osborne hired a vacuum excavator and driver from Kilkern’s specialist vacuum excavator business Vac Uk. Kilkern turned up on time at short notice with top of the range equipment and a highly skilled driver. We hired Kilkern because of their impeccable safety credentials and experience of excavating safely around live utilities. Prior to using Kilkern we had a number of cable strikes but since enlisting the services of Kilkern we have not hit any cables and we have also increased our production ensuring the project is finished ahead of programme with a better safety, cost and environmental record.
BAM have utilised Vacuum Excavation Units supplied by VAC UK on several projects in the North West of England over the last few years. I’ve always been an advocate of using this type of technology and VAC UK have provided industry leading equipment, operatives and advice during our schemes.
VAC UK have provided cost effective equipment, but also provided industry leading performance as well as expert advice and support throughout, and I would not hesitate to use them again if required. In fact, they’re the only people we call on my project now and in the future.
VAC UK have provided us with excellent service over the past 12 months. Their reliability and work ethic in being proactive are assisting with meeting our demanding programme. The operatives are conscientious in their duties and maintain high levels of H&S which we demand on our sites. Once briefed and put to work they can work unsupervised for prolonged periods and also maintain level control from our line and level.
Outputs have exceeded our expectations in areas where ground conditions have not been ideal and services have been in abundance.
I would highly recommend VAC UK for any future contracts.
Vacuum excavation virtually eliminates the risk of damaging underground utilities, while mechanical digging with hand tools or backhoes could potentially damage the utilities.
Vacuum excavation is much less invasive than traditional methods of hand-digging. It also offers a lower cost with a higher level of precision with less surface restoration needed afterward.
The table on the right demonstrates how much material can be excavated on a daily basis using the manual hand-dig method compared to vacuum excavation and ultimately what the average cost incurred is per cubic metre.
Vacuum excavation is much faster than other excavation methods especially manual digging and can be essential for reducing disruption to homes, businesses, and services, especially within urban areas.
The amount of material removed during the excavation of a site can depend largely on the material being excavated. Whether it’s sandy soil or much heavier soil with buried pipes or cables it’s still the preferred choice and much faster than traditional manual methods. See the chart for a comparison of how much material can be removed within 6 hours.
Vacuum excavation is the safest method of digging around live utilities as it allows you to remove the earth from around existing pipes and cables without damaging the underground utilities and causing any unnecessary health and safety or environmental incidents.
Instead of arduous physical work with shovel and air hammer both of which can damage underground cables or the risky use of an excavator, the soil is simply suctioned away with the suction excavator.
The use of suction excavators is up to 16 times more effective than conventional excavation methods and replaces the time and cost-intensive work done by hand in different sectors.
Suction excavators are safe, very fast on-site, ready for immediate use, operate in an environmentally harmless way, offer a high level of industrial safety, require little space and suck through small openings.
Vacuum excavation always leaves behind a clean construction site and ensure that fewer machines and deployment of personnel are necessary. Instead of 3 workers, an excavator and a truck, you only need one suction excavator and its operators. This reduces your carbon footprint and is the most environmentally friendly way to dig around live services.
Our suction excavators have a long reach the four moveable joints have a reach of six metres to enable convenient operation from a safe location. The suction hose is firmly guided from the cover right up to the suction crown and can, therefore, be placed exactly in the suction point. The fully hydraulically guided jointed hose carrier is the optimum solution for working well at distances between 0 and 6 metres.
With a swivel range of 180°, the jointed hose carrier is specially adapted to site conditions. This allows the machine also to work safely where space is limited. The suction hoses are developed especially for a high load.
If you are working with a vacuum excavator in a confined space location, VAC UK has several options for you. One is to use a long hose which we carry with our trucks.
We can supply up to 200 metres of hosing so you can suction soil and other materials from the remotest locations. We use this hosing to go into confined or difficult to access areas that have safety advantages as it stops the workers from having to go into the health and safety danger zone when they don’t need to.
We also have remote control units that can be used to position the vacuum excavator in the perfect spot for suctioning the material without any people having to position the hose in place.
This is ideal for using a vacuum excavator in highly hazardous locations.
The number of ‘safety-related electrical incidents’ caused by underground cable, joint or link box damage reported under the requirements of the Electricity, Safety, Quality, and Continuity Regulations 2002 to the HSE.
Vacuum excavation has many environmental benefits over traditional, more disruptive methods –
It also reduces the need for manual hand digging, thereby lessening the associated health risks for construction workers on site.
Most importantly, for both industry operatives and the general public, vacuum excavation is exponentially faster than other excavation methods, which is essential for reducing disruption to homes, businesses, and services.
Vacuum excavation has so much less of an environmental impact than its traditional mechanical counterparts so it’s a great choice for anyone with a vested interest in protecting their green credentials.
Vacuum excavation firstly uses a high power blast of air directed into the site in order to loosen soil and break up any large materials. An air vacuum hose is then passed into the site and used to suck up 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.
 | VACUUM EXCAVATION IS SAFER
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 | VACUUM EXCAVATION INCREASES PRODUCTIVITY
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 | VACUUM EXCAVATION IS MORE EFFICIENT & LESS DISRUPTIVE
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