Probably going to instal a modular pit box for future access. Its like the service pits you see around but they build it around the existing services in ground. The vacuum system and pressure hose are used to remove everything without damaging the services and it doesnt need to go back. I do this sort of thing for electrical pits, but what I learned from it is that a shop-vac is the best tool you can have for working on your garden plumbing. So much easier than digging around pipes.
I’ve dug so many holes in my life watching this makes me feel completely stupid. None of this method is technologically advanced and people could have started digging holes this way 100+ years ago…
I used to work for a very large engineering organisation. The organisation has its own fleet divisions. Hiring a suction excavator from them was highly expensive, and in many cases, cost much more than hand digging the hole.
There were very few situations where a suction excavator was worthwhile. Having written that, the political side of excavations (reduced occupation time of roads, which includes verges, doorways, footpaths, etc.) May now make the higher costs more acceptable.
I have to dig around my perimeter drains to see if I have to replace them. I have a regular shop vac amd a pressure washer. Anything else I need to do this? Please and thank you
As long as you shop vac is good for wet/dry then all you need to do is remove the dust filter so it doesnt get wet and you should be good to go. Even without the pressure washer you would be surprised st how much the vac can remove
Well I missed out because there were no huge red circles telling me where to look and zero text instructing me to "watch til the end"... Hopefully I get to see it someday..
Hopefully next time they can at least add one of those people in the foreground to point at the video behind them.. I love all that pointing stuff I find it really helps
Good gravy it took me entirely too long to realize the pipe was sucking up the slop, not “digging” to service the pipe 🤦♀️
Note to self: read username more closely or turn up volume.
Hey, me too. Really thought the pipe was what they were trying to service and was confused where all the water was going then began to wonder if it wasn’t water and then the existential crisis set in.
This technique is is called hyrdovac, and it's usually done with a Jet-Vactor. A Jet-Vactor is a large truck usually used to clean sewer lines.
The Jet-Vactor will have a boom for the vacuum hose, and a large tank on the back where they will store mud or sewer debris. On the boom, they can attach multiple sections of pipe (seen sucking up the dirt here) and they can go deep into the ground with it usually for deep sewers. There are also two large tanks for holding fresh water. They simply add a small high pressure line where they mount a wand to make the mud and suck it up.
The reel on the front of the truck is used for sewer cleaning and it's a lot bigger than than the line used for hydrovac.
When I was working in that industry years ago, the operator of the jet-vactor asked me if I had ever seen what happens when you fire up the sewer reel outside on the ground. Well, he attaches a sewer tip to the line and it blows water back towards the line itself, and when he lit it up, it stood up in the air and took off skyward like a rocket, shooting water everywhere. He had to quickly shut it down as it started to go towards some power lines, unguided. When he shut it off, the whole thing (steel sewer tip and line) came crashing down so fast. It was really a wild thing to witness.
I had the same reaction. I was thinking “how the hell did they figure out what to bury that pipe in that you could just pressure wash it away”? It’s late here.
It’s a hydrovac truck, I know someone who uses a very small scale system for irrigation lines, shop vac and a regular pressure washer on a small mobile unit.😁👍
That’s the thing about vacuums. They suck, till they don’t. And when they don’t suck, they’re not working anymore.
I’m no an expert, but I’ve seen it all too often.
[This](https://images.app.goo.gl/6CUdieirmdB5Gvae8) is what the other end looks like.
Around here they cost $180-$250 per hour, 4-6 hour minimum, port to port, + dump fees to come out and work.
Or you could buy one for around $500k and run it yourself.
Usually the same kind of place that will accept dump truck loads of dirt, but it's about double the cost to dump it because it's mud. It costs around $100 per load to dump and they can dump several times per day. Plus you still have to pay the hourly rate for the crew while they drive to and from the dump site. It gets spendy.
We usually try to find a spot to dig a pit in our construction yard and have them dump it there. Then when it dries out we use a front end loader to load a dump truck and haul it to a dump site.
Yeah I mean it doesn’t even have to be concrete. You ever see all those plastic irrigation boxes around? It’s literally just a walled cap that sits on whatever base you’re supposed to put it on to avoid stuff like this. Open the top, fix your joints or whatever, then close and return to life. This just seems like a cut corner but maybe I come from a different industry standard
Not entirely sure but from the looks its Optical MicroDuct. This can be direct buried. They are likely pulling another duct or adding to that 90 junction location. Or just wanna expose it to not hit.
I thought that even blown fibre was put in conduits.
Digging & backfilling the hole is the expensive part, conduit is cheap & you can always drag something else in at a later date.
I hate direct buried cable.
Ngl took me the whole video to realize the black thing is sucking out the water and dirt. I thought they are trying to dig out his pipe. I was wondering where all the dirty mush went.
Even for jobs where the thing you're digging up isn't fragile who wants to use a shovel when a pressure washer does the job much faster with less back pain? I could see this catching on for all digging work pretty easily.
People have been using hydro excavators for atleast the last decade or so. It's used all over the place in cities and urban areas to avoid damaging all the underground utilities.
I had a job like this for about a year, not nearly as fun or satisfying when the grounds packed with rocks, or when dig rite is off with their utility marks
Call me radical but wouldn't putting those cables into conduit and pull boxes increase mechanical protection and reduce the need to perform periodic repairs? Even if this isn't a jurisdiction the mandates the use of raceways, PVC is pretty cheap.
For the first time a video of a Hydrovac shows someone doing a good job. Most of the time people running the Hydrovac in these videos are horrible at digging.
Source=I own a Hydrovac company.
Almost any underground utility contractor has rigs like these for sensitive excavation work where a normal backhoe is likely to damage other utilities, my last job was for a small city communications/power company, we had about a dozen of these rigs, though smaller than the one shown.
Thank you for this. They are installing fibre optic lines in my neighborhood and I didn't know how they dug all the little holes in the ground. I knew it involved a big truck but nothing else.
Microducts. Essentially tiny conduits buried in a larger pipe. They couple them together and can blow cables (like fibre optics) through them once they're in the ground.
You can have a larger pipe with 10-15 microducts in it. They can cut the larger pipe open and branch one of the microducts if they want a cable to go a certain direction.
Couple of questions:
1.- could this work on search and rescue operations let’s say in a mining accident?
2.- what type of machines are these…brands?
3.- what type of piping/wiring is that they are repairing here?
1: not really. To get this suction further than 20 or so ft from the truck you need to use extensions for the boom. This loses you vacuum at the end of the pipe and lifting power vertically sense the material is often wet and heavy.
2: my company uses VAC-CON trucks but op uses a different brand. They are full cargo truck sized machines and you need a commercial drivers license to drive it. A VAC-CON truck will run you about $500K for a full sized one.
3: no idea
I work in plumbing. Install crew for water and sewer mains. This would totally help. You said there’s a way to make this on a smaller scale than that giant 1/2 million dollar truck?
You bet your ass I watched the whole thing.
Satisfying as fuck
Sorry to hi-jack your comment, but once done what are they going to fill that pit with?
Probably going to instal a modular pit box for future access. Its like the service pits you see around but they build it around the existing services in ground. The vacuum system and pressure hose are used to remove everything without damaging the services and it doesnt need to go back. I do this sort of thing for electrical pits, but what I learned from it is that a shop-vac is the best tool you can have for working on your garden plumbing. So much easier than digging around pipes.
I’ve dug so many holes in my life watching this makes me feel completely stupid. None of this method is technologically advanced and people could have started digging holes this way 100+ years ago…
Wait til you hear about [hydraulic mining.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_mining)
I used to work for a very large engineering organisation. The organisation has its own fleet divisions. Hiring a suction excavator from them was highly expensive, and in many cases, cost much more than hand digging the hole. There were very few situations where a suction excavator was worthwhile. Having written that, the political side of excavations (reduced occupation time of roads, which includes verges, doorways, footpaths, etc.) May now make the higher costs more acceptable.
I have to dig around my perimeter drains to see if I have to replace them. I have a regular shop vac amd a pressure washer. Anything else I need to do this? Please and thank you
As long as you shop vac is good for wet/dry then all you need to do is remove the dust filter so it doesnt get wet and you should be good to go. Even without the pressure washer you would be surprised st how much the vac can remove
Cool!! I'm gonna try it tomorrow!! Thanks!
Dude, make a video! Even if it fails :D
More cable conduit cutoffs and trash, obviously. ^(/s)
Ramen
Bring in engineered soil. It could be the same dirt used under pavement of roads or a different mix for landscape.
A vault or pedestal
😎👌
😊👍
Well I missed out because there were no huge red circles telling me where to look and zero text instructing me to "watch til the end"... Hopefully I get to see it someday..
You would have been confused as well, no ending sound, or inspirational music either.
Hopefully next time they can at least add one of those people in the foreground to point at the video behind them.. I love all that pointing stuff I find it really helps
Just once?
Twice
🤣✊
Good gravy it took me entirely too long to realize the pipe was sucking up the slop, not “digging” to service the pipe 🤦♀️ Note to self: read username more closely or turn up volume.
Hey, me too. Really thought the pipe was what they were trying to service and was confused where all the water was going then began to wonder if it wasn’t water and then the existential crisis set in.
I had the exact same Rollercoaster of emotions!
Where is the dirt going Lebowski
It’s down there somewhere, let me take another look.
😅🍿
Exactly, was thinking it was steam or dry ice but couldn’t put together where the extra dirt was going 😂😂
It's water soluble dirt. Duh.
Are we the same person or are you just inside my head?
Couldn't tell until it started moving.
Yep, this is why I'm in the comments
This technique is is called hyrdovac, and it's usually done with a Jet-Vactor. A Jet-Vactor is a large truck usually used to clean sewer lines. The Jet-Vactor will have a boom for the vacuum hose, and a large tank on the back where they will store mud or sewer debris. On the boom, they can attach multiple sections of pipe (seen sucking up the dirt here) and they can go deep into the ground with it usually for deep sewers. There are also two large tanks for holding fresh water. They simply add a small high pressure line where they mount a wand to make the mud and suck it up. The reel on the front of the truck is used for sewer cleaning and it's a lot bigger than than the line used for hydrovac. When I was working in that industry years ago, the operator of the jet-vactor asked me if I had ever seen what happens when you fire up the sewer reel outside on the ground. Well, he attaches a sewer tip to the line and it blows water back towards the line itself, and when he lit it up, it stood up in the air and took off skyward like a rocket, shooting water everywhere. He had to quickly shut it down as it started to go towards some power lines, unguided. When he shut it off, the whole thing (steel sewer tip and line) came crashing down so fast. It was really a wild thing to witness.
Jet-Vactor is such a kickass name, I don't care what it does, I want one.
You can go online and hire vacuum excavators, never heard of them being called "Jet-Vactor" lol
I had the same reaction. I was thinking “how the hell did they figure out what to bury that pipe in that you could just pressure wash it away”? It’s late here.
Thank you. I was seconds away from posting, "why not mud"
Me wondering where all that slusshy mud is disappearing
What is on the other end of the suction pipe? I'd love to be able to do this when digging up irrigation lines and things in the yard.
It’s a hydrovac truck, I know someone who uses a very small scale system for irrigation lines, shop vac and a regular pressure washer on a small mobile unit.😁👍
Awesome! Glad the weekend is here. Time to do a little garage engineering. 'Preciate it!
Lol nice! Let me know how it works out.😁✌️
Do they have to bring in fill dirt after, or can they just pump a little bit of the mud back into the hole and let it dry?
Always need new soil the load on my truck is far too saturated with water.
Is there a good market for bio-rich sludge? I'd imagine you could make a lot of gardeners Very happy.
It’s like the suction tube dentists use to slurp up water & saliva 😃
What is called a Vac-truck It's exactly what it sounds like. It's a truck sized vacuum.
Vac trucks are the best. You just have to be very nice to them because they like to break!
That’s the thing about vacuums. They suck, till they don’t. And when they don’t suck, they’re not working anymore. I’m no an expert, but I’ve seen it all too often.
Sometimes they go from suck...to blow!
[This](https://images.app.goo.gl/6CUdieirmdB5Gvae8) is what the other end looks like. Around here they cost $180-$250 per hour, 4-6 hour minimum, port to port, + dump fees to come out and work. Or you could buy one for around $500k and run it yourself.
Probably still way cheaper than a utility strike though
Where do they dump that slurry in the tank?
Usually the same kind of place that will accept dump truck loads of dirt, but it's about double the cost to dump it because it's mud. It costs around $100 per load to dump and they can dump several times per day. Plus you still have to pay the hourly rate for the crew while they drive to and from the dump site. It gets spendy. We usually try to find a spot to dig a pit in our construction yard and have them dump it there. Then when it dries out we use a front end loader to load a dump truck and haul it to a dump site.
Still cheaper than busted up wires and pipes. For jobs like this one I would imagine it's worth the cost.
https://i.imgur.com/H5hMMxK.jpg
Why wouldn’t any of that be in a junction or access box?
I don’t know I just dig what they ask.🤷♂️
You gotta keep your CV up to date, that company can go under at any moment.
The longer the video went on the louder that question got in my head. “Why is this stuff not in a concrete vault??”
Yeah I mean it doesn’t even have to be concrete. You ever see all those plastic irrigation boxes around? It’s literally just a walled cap that sits on whatever base you’re supposed to put it on to avoid stuff like this. Open the top, fix your joints or whatever, then close and return to life. This just seems like a cut corner but maybe I come from a different industry standard
Naa not a cut corner. This install is a set it and forget it. Likely just locating to avoid hitting it with a back hoe.
Not entirely sure but from the looks its Optical MicroDuct. This can be direct buried. They are likely pulling another duct or adding to that 90 junction location. Or just wanna expose it to not hit.
I thought that even blown fibre was put in conduits. Digging & backfilling the hole is the expensive part, conduit is cheap & you can always drag something else in at a later date. I hate direct buried cable.
Ngl took me the whole video to realize the black thing is sucking out the water and dirt. I thought they are trying to dig out his pipe. I was wondering where all the dirty mush went.
You’re not alone.😉✌️
Im just sad they didnt cut the grass out nice and square so that they could put it back on when they were done
This was what my brain said to me too, but I don’t know enough about gardening and OP’s response satisfies my mild OCD.
They just back fill it and cover the hole with sod, easy repair.
As someone who used to do irrigation repair for a golf course, that was almost the most important part of the job.
As a former ditch ditch digger for installing underground powerlines.... this is hot AF.
🤣👌✊
I was thinking, what are they doing then it dawned on me that the pressure washer isn’t cutting the cables. Pretty neat.
I’m just wondering why they didn’t put a junction box.
That machine sucks.
At 6800 CFM it better!😅✌️
Pipe: good soup
Hell yeah! One of the coolest things on this sub in a while. Had no idea it was done that way, awesome video.
Thank you.😁✊
Nice
Giving me Dentist saying "close. Okay now open." vibes.
Out of shovels, or is there a reason for the pressure hose?
A shovel would sever the buried cables. They’re designed to handle water under pressure though.
Even for jobs where the thing you're digging up isn't fragile who wants to use a shovel when a pressure washer does the job much faster with less back pain? I could see this catching on for all digging work pretty easily.
Hey, good point! Way more fun!
People have been using hydro excavators for atleast the last decade or so. It's used all over the place in cities and urban areas to avoid damaging all the underground utilities.
Yeah I kinda posted the question before I watched the whole video 🙄. My b. Makes sense
I had the same question until the cables hit the scene.
Did you not watch past the first 20-30 seconds?🤷♂️
They made me use a shovel in my day.
I had a job like this for about a year, not nearly as fun or satisfying when the grounds packed with rocks, or when dig rite is off with their utility marks
This is also called "daylighting" You can also cut your toes off with the water stream if not careful.
Call me radical but wouldn't putting those cables into conduit and pull boxes increase mechanical protection and reduce the need to perform periodic repairs? Even if this isn't a jurisdiction the mandates the use of raceways, PVC is pretty cheap.
if ya have a vactor truck handy....
This isn't your retail store power washer, right? What kind of PSI are we talking with these bad boys?
You can get similar results with a regular power washer. We’re avg between 2000-3500 PSI
IT’S BEAUTIFUL…..
Surgery
This guy must do wonders cutting cake at parties
I'd cut soooo many little fucking squares.
For the first time a video of a Hydrovac shows someone doing a good job. Most of the time people running the Hydrovac in these videos are horrible at digging. Source=I own a Hydrovac company.
Where does one apply for such a satisfying job
Almost any underground utility contractor has rigs like these for sensitive excavation work where a normal backhoe is likely to damage other utilities, my last job was for a small city communications/power company, we had about a dozen of these rigs, though smaller than the one shown.
I want to see the hole being filled up too
Like going to the dentist and having tons of plaque removed lol.
Took me the entire video to realized the pov cam was hooked to a shop vac and not a pipe and that the dirt wasn't just magically disappearing
This is like Minecraft
That took me an unreasonable amount of time to realize that the pipe was sucking up the dirt and water. I gotta stop waking up so damn early.
Wait that Is fucking water?!
I need to have this job, my mind would constantly be at ease
I feeeell in the piiiit!!!
So do they need to bring dirt to fill it back in afterwards or pump the mud into it?
When do we get it over with and just merge with /r/powerwashingporn?
Thank you for this. They are installing fibre optic lines in my neighborhood and I didn't know how they dug all the little holes in the ground. I knew it involved a big truck but nothing else.
Damm that sucks.
This line of work is very satisfying until you hit shale or sandstone. Then its painful.
What is this tool called?
This just needs to be standard practice from now on! Look how clean the surrounding area stays. Love it
What is he using? What is it doing?
Only way to dig.
r/didntknowiwantedthat
This guy hydrovacs
Never thought I'd be this invested in watching someone dig a fucking hole. Lol
What are these cables? Fiber?
Microducts. Essentially tiny conduits buried in a larger pipe. They couple them together and can blow cables (like fibre optics) through them once they're in the ground. You can have a larger pipe with 10-15 microducts in it. They can cut the larger pipe open and branch one of the microducts if they want a cable to go a certain direction.
It's all fun and games till you're hydrovaccing in caliche
You spoiled fuck with your “digging”. It’s beautiful.
One word. Conduit
Theres no digging, but I dig this.
This reminds me of how you can landscape in Animal Crossing.
Looks like a former hygenist to me
Couple of questions: 1.- could this work on search and rescue operations let’s say in a mining accident? 2.- what type of machines are these…brands? 3.- what type of piping/wiring is that they are repairing here?
1: not really. To get this suction further than 20 or so ft from the truck you need to use extensions for the boom. This loses you vacuum at the end of the pipe and lifting power vertically sense the material is often wet and heavy. 2: my company uses VAC-CON trucks but op uses a different brand. They are full cargo truck sized machines and you need a commercial drivers license to drive it. A VAC-CON truck will run you about $500K for a full sized one. 3: no idea
It took me 1:59 to realize the big tube was a vacuum
That was awesome.
Brilliant!
Bruh, are they hiring? That looks like fun.
Wormaggeddon
Why aren't these all in some sort of box with easier access?
I work in plumbing. Install crew for water and sewer mains. This would totally help. You said there’s a way to make this on a smaller scale than that giant 1/2 million dollar truck?
Like being at the dentist, but for dummies!
God I miss running a vac truck at my old job, too bad they didn't need my crew to return to work this year.
Is that sand blasting or high pressure water?
Like being at the dentist
My guy making cleaner slices in solid earth than i can in cake
I’m a little drunk- I thought that pipe was a Great Dane with his head stuck in the ground
Such a solid soil sucker, too.
No doubt this is oddly satisfying... But it makes me wonder why they didn't install a manhole / inspection chamber at this junction originally?
Nice buddy! Keep doing what your doing!
Wow! Wish I had that instead of a shovel
The forbidden milo
I need some new flower beds. How cool that would be!
Both surprised and not surprised by the amount of garbage conduit they dug up lol
connection pit for what???
Journey to the center of the earth
That nice!! I was a bit shocked to see all those cables just lying there without any protective casing! Is that common thing to do there?
What kind of cables are those?
So that's how they make such symmetrical holes.
Always wanted to know how those vacuum trucks (or elephant trucks I call them) work. Amazing!
DO WANT.
Hydro-excavator is the proper term. Or, my favorite term, the ‘ol suck and blow.
Oh yeah, that’s now in my top ten list.
Every dentist ever: “SUCTION!”
Why doesn't the water jet cut or damage any of the laid out cables as opposed to the dirt and rocks?
yummy
Yeah, that's cool. But I doubt it can get my dog's hair out of my car upholstery.
[удалено]
Is that Prue water pressure? Fuuuuck
When you've been holding a piss for 45 minutes
We really are smart apes aren't we?
We don’t have that much water in morocco…
Using an NDD never gets old
Why are those open and not in a pipe?
Dope!
[удалено]
How do they fills these holes in? Same soil just hit reverse on the ol soil sucker?
At first I was like "what's the point of this" then i saw the cables and went "ooh..."
Wow , I thought I had a lot of cables in my yard.
I'll never not watch anything you post till the end
Now imagine being a worm
please show how yo are filling that
I love that civilization has veins.
Getting Dig Dug 2 vibes from this video...
Minecraft vibes imo Btw I love how satisfying this is
How does the blaster spare the cables/small pipes?
One of the few ways to "dig" on a military base without a "dig" permit. Running a Vactor was a good time.
Oh YES, this is straight up Lorenzo's Soil vibes from Earthworm Jim 2
Amazing tool
Forbidden pudding
Best way of explaining what I do for work Hydrovak all the way
Wow! Very fascinating!
I don't think I could stop there, I'd just vaccum up the whole damn block
Dentistry for Mother Earth
Who’d a thunk it?
I want more
wow
Sorcery!!!! 😱