Background:
Scottish Water’s Utility Focus Group identified the need for a highly mobile and compact excavator. They tested the viability of the idea with a 3.5t unit before working closely with ourselves at Vac-Ex Ltd to produce the T-VAC – a smaller, 2.0t version that can be towed using a transit style van.
Challenges included:
Many of the Scottish Water engineers jobs are located on small footpaths, meaning they can not be accessed with larger Vacuum Excavation units. The presence of other utilities also means that traditional diggers are impractical and mostly unsafe, leaving the engineers only option to hand-dig down to burst mains.
Key Issues Experienced:
- HAV’s* issues with excessive manual work
- Attracting new engineers
- New engineers lacking the experience of hand digging in and around live utilites
- Excessive time taken to hand dig and eventually repair a leaking main
- Greatly reduces excavation size
*Hand, arm vibration syndrome
Proposed Solution:
Development and introduction of the T-VAC trailer
Clients response to the T-VAC solution & benefits:
- Size excavation reduction: using the T-VAC reduces the size of the excavations by removing the need for engineers to go into the trenches themselves.
- Repair time reduction:Not only does this take more than 3 hours off the repair time but it also reduces the mess left behind after completion. This solution has given us cost savings and is reducing the impact upon our customers.
- Versatility: The types of workswe carry out with the T-VAC extends weekly and varies to what we face daily: major bursts, lead re-newals, water metering, leaks, new connections, road crossings and trial holes for feasibility designs.
- Employee engagment: due to the continuous success and popularity of the T-VAC within our workforce we have committed to further T-VAC variants being introduced to our fleet.
- Removes the need for people in the excavation – We have used the T-VAC to expose a 1200mm water main to check for leaks on joints.
Making every day we excavate with the use of T-Vac a safer day for all.
In recognition for the implementation and use of the T-VAC we were winners at the ‘Strictly Innovation Awards’ and Innovation Finalists at the Star Awards.
