OREM VAC TRUCK HYDRO-EXCAVATION — NON-DESTRUCTIVE DIGGING

A vac truck — properly called a hydro-excavation or hydrovac truck — uses a high-pressure water wand to break up soil into slurry, then a 15-inch industrial vacuum hose to suck the slurry into a 10-13 cubic yard debris tank on the truck. The result is a precision hole with intact, undamaged utilities at the bottom. No blade, no teeth, no tiger-tooth bucket risking a $40,000 fiber cut.

The reason vac trucks matter on Utah Valley jobsites is exactly the soil condition that makes open-trench work miserable here. Hard clay and cobble rock — the stuff that slows a mini-ex to 15-20 feet of trench per day on an Orem job — is also the stuff that makes blind digging near a gas line dangerous. A steel bucket edge pulled across clay at 2,000 psi of hydraulic force doesn't stop when it hits fiber, PVC, or PE gas main. Water at 2,500-3,500 PSI does stop — it breaks soil, slides around pipes, and exposes utilities without touching them.

Where we use the vac truck on Orem properties

Daylighting buried utilities. Before any directional bore or excavation near a known utility crossing on an older Cherry Hill or Sharon Park property, we daylight the line — expose it with hydro-excavation to visually confirm depth, direction, and pipe material. Blue Stakes 811 marks locations on the surface but can be off by 18-24 inches in aged cast iron mains or rebar-dense areas. Daylighting removes the guess.

Potholing for directional drilling. Horizontal directional drilling (HDD) contractors on Center Street commercial jobs require entry and exit potholes to verify grade and elevation of the bore. Our vac trucks cut 2x2 or 3x3 foot potholes to the bore depth without disturbing surrounding utilities.

Deep catch basin and manhole cleanouts. Geneva area industrial properties, Center Street commercial corridors, and HOAs in Suncrest contract us for scheduled cleanouts — 5-foot storm drain vaults, roof drains clogged with silt, parking lot catch basins full of 10 years of sediment.

Slot trenching near live utilities. Where conventional excavation would risk strikes — common on dense Center Street commercial sites — we cut a precision slot trench with the vac truck, 12 inches wide, full utility depth, zero blade contact. Used routinely around buried gas mains, primary electrical, and live fiber.

Subgrade exploration for contractors. General contractors building additions, pool excavations, or structural footings on older Orem lots use vac truck pothole grids to map unknown utilities before construction starts.

Emergency basement and vault dewatering. Spring snowmelt floods a finished basement near 800 N. A property manager calls about a flooded mechanical vault at a Center Street property. Our debris tanks are rated for liquid loads up to 3,500 gallons.

Why the Utah Valley context matters

Winter is the complication nobody warns out-of-state contractors about. Frost depth in Utah Valley is 30 inches, meaning December through March the top 2.5 feet of soil is frozen solid. A conventional excavator will hammer through it. A hydrovac with a heated water system handles it cleanly — we run 180°F water and the frozen soil breaks apart within minutes. This is why our trucks work every month of the year, not just April through October.

Cobble is the other Utah Valley factor. Softball-size rocks in clay matrix don't vacuum through standard boom hoses. Our trucks run 15-inch debris hoses with reinforced walls, 350 HP blowers, and rock ejection systems — enough to pull cobble up 30 feet of boom without clogging.

Pricing model

Vac truck work is hourly, not flat-rate, because no two jobsites are the same. We bill in portal-to-portal hours from our Orem office — truck leaves the State Street yard, works the job, dumps at the approved disposal site, returns — and the rate includes the truck, the operator, the support tech, and dumping fees where applicable. Most residential daylighting jobs are 2-4 hours. Commercial pothole grids run 6-10 hours. Recurring property manager work along Center Street and the Geneva industrial area gets contract pricing.

Blue Stakes 811 locates are mandatory even for vac truck work — the law doesn't care which tool is doing the digging. We file them on every job and wait the full 48 business hour period before arriving on site.

Membership discount

Members of the Quality Service Club ($79/year) get 15% off vac truck hourly rates plus priority dispatch on busy days. For recurring commercial accounts running 10+ hours per month — common for Center Street property managers and Geneva area facilities — we write dedicated service agreements that beat standard hourly rates and include guaranteed dispatch windows.