Vacuum Excavation Services

Over 800 Vacuum Excavation Trucks available for hire.

Vacuum excavation trucks, also known as sucker trucks, hydro excavators or vac trucks, safely and gently remove unwanted material from an excavation area or tank, making them ideal for excavating around cable networks, pipelines and other underground services, whilst maintaining their environmental area. iseekplant offers a range of vacuum excavation services, including radar utility location and non-destructive digging, from suppliers across Australia.

Below we cover the various costs and rates associated with vacuum excavations as well as the types of vacuum excavation services you can hire on iseekplant and the capacities of the vac trucks.

Vacuum Excavation Rates Guide

Vac Truck Rates

Below we highlight very general averages for vac truck rates. The only way to ensure accurate rates for your project is to use our Get a Quote tool and obtain rates from multiple local suppliers operating in the area.

Vacuum excavation trucks of most sizes have a minimum 3-hour call out for small jobs, regardless of the volume of materials. This includes travel to and from the destination unless it’s outside of 1 hour travel time (then they will charge extra).

Usually, vacuum excavators work in a circuit, excavating sodden materials to capacity, driving to dump those materials in an appropriate place (which depends on whether you're dealing with soil, spoil, sewerage or hazardous waste) then return for another load. If you have a large square-meter or cubic-meter area you are trying to excavate, then larger capacity trucks can use fewer circuits and provide better productivity (which always means lower cost).

All costs below are general averages and exclude GST.

Spoil, Soil and Material Dumping Costs

Whenever you are hiring a vac truck, you need to consider the actual charges of dumping what you excavate - which is usually soil, spoil, sewerage or hazardous waste. Below are general averages for the cost of commercially dumping particular types of materials as well as council dumping charges and additional costs and useful information.

Commercial Dumping Costs (Averages)

Local Council Dumping Charges (Averages)

Additional Cost & Dumping Information

• You need to Google your local area or state’s environmental protection organisation prior to dumping anywhere. Heavy fines can result from illegally accepting or disposing of contaminated soil.
• It's recommended to design and plan strategically to avoid excessive soil waste.
• Onsite reuse of excess soil is preferred and may include the screening of construction waste, risk assessment, onsite remediation of contaminated soils, or management of contaminated soils in an onsite containment cell. There are companies that make soil remediation machines that can sit on your site and process the soil for reuse. Ask your supplier about this.
• Offsite reuse of uncontaminated natural soil (VENM) is also an option.
• Soil not suitable for offsite reuse may be suitable for treatment at a soil recycler, but this is subject to each recycler's individual license and regulations.
• 'POA' means 'Price On Application'.
• Sewerage dumping costs are specified per kilolitre (kL), and discharge fees are applied per discharge. Special Disposal Tankered Waste discharges are charged based on the conditions of the Special Disposal Approval.
• Clean Natural Soil and Contaminated Soil prices are estimates and may vary. Please check with the local waste management authority for accurate information.
• Sewerage Dumping rates are location-dependent. The range provided is for different locations as specified in the source.

Vacuum excavation service rates vary significantly depending on the project type, scale and duration. There are additional fees for water consumption as well.

Types of Vacuum Excavation Services on iseekplant

Vacuum Excavators & Sucker Trucks: A vacuum truck, also known as a vac truck or sucker truck, is a truck that sucks up solids, liquids, sludge or slurry from one location and transports them to another for disposal. They are used for excavating in sensitive areas, or for cleaning out sewer systems, septic tanks, or catch basins, among other things.

Electronic Locating & Utility Locating: A service performed by a vacuum excavator in collaboration with ground penetrating radar (GPR) technology where high-pressure water is used to carefully excavate an area to expose electrical services underground.

Jet Rodders: A vacuum excavator fitted with a high-pressure attachment that can clear blocked pipes and sewer lines.

Sucker and Gernie Trailers: Lower-capacity trailers towed by a road-registered truck, that suck or expel water to excavate or clean.

Vac Tankers: A vacuum tanker, on the other hand, is generally a semi-truck equipped with a large tank and a pump system for suction. These are usually designed for specific industries or applications such as transporting larger volumes of liquid waste or hazardous materials from one place to another.

Vacuum Excavation Capacities

The following includes capacities of types of vacuum excavation trucks, sucker trucks and vac tankers.

Vacuum Excavation Hire Quotes from Local Suppliers

Our Get a Quote tool asks you a bunch of questions about your vacuum excavation job so it can be sent to a large number of local suppliers. Usually, your best results come from sending your job to about 10 local suppliers. On average, about 3 will respond and be available (depending on the quality of your job and requirements). Our goal is to try to get every Seeker on iseekplant 3 responses.

Start today and Get a Quote.