SoftDig® vacuum excavation roots go back to 1959 when one of our founders helped design one of the first SoftDig® vacuum excavation trucks. Today, our state of the art fleet of vacuum excavation trucks provide the Mid-Atlantic and Texas with low impact, minimally invasive, excavation services. Vacuum excavation is done for a variety of reasons including: clearing bore holes prior to geotechnical drilling, trenching around structures and utilities that must be protected from normal excavation, and to expose the utility in order to retrieve utility depth measurements and data of that nature.
SoftDig® vacuum excavation trucks utilize a truck-mounted compressor/vacuum system that simultaneously compresses air, shooting it through a lance to loosen the soil, and sucks the dislodged debris through a vacuum system. The dual purpose system allows SoftDig® to disturb the least amount of soil necessary, and replace the excavated soil as efficiently as possible. The process allows SoftDig® to deliver necessary location/position data to clients (necessary for ASCE 38-02 Quality “A” SUE services), while leaving only a marginal footprint at the job site. The same process is used in hydro-vacuum excavation, which replaces compressed air with jetting water.