The Vacuum Truck – An Unusual Truck Driving Job That Is An Excavators Best Friend

Now here is an unusual vehicle and an unusual truck driving job – operating a vacuum truck. As the name suggests, it is a truck that has a vacuum attachment and just like your home vacuum, it is designed to clean up dirt. Instead of vacuuming carpet, the vacuum truck cleans up after an excavator has been hard at work – you could say it was an excavator’s best friend.

Excavators are good at what they do – excavate. There are a lot of different devices that can be attached to excavators, unfortunately some of them make life a little harder. There are specialized drill attachments. These are great for drilling holes but leave behind all the drill castings from the hole. Rather than change back to a bucket to remove these castings, a vacuum truck works with the excavator sucking up the dirt as it is removed from the drill hole.

Of course, excavators themselves can only do so much. Their buckets can dig trenches and remove a high percentage of the dirt, however, the remnants often need removing by hand, or by vacuuming. Imagine removing sand from a child’s sand pit using a bucket and spade. Eventually you will be left with small amounts – too small for the bucket and spade to be effective. You could use something smaller, like a teaspoon to get at that last little bit – or a vacuum cleaner to do the job quickly – the same is true in construction.

Are there special skills require to operate a vacuum truck – not really, just a commercial drivers license. It’s an unusual job but one that does what would normally take several men many hours to do using hand tools. If you’re ever at an excavation site – keep your eyes open to see if they are using a vacuum cleaner on wheels – the vacuum truck, an excavator’s best friend.