Remote excavation and trenching for construction and installation projects.
Air excavation is the process of using compressed air to disturb the earth’s soil. The soil is vacuumed through a wide, flexible hose to a truck-mounted debris tank.
The tank can be parked remotely, up to a hundred feet from the dig site, to minimize congestion and additional surface damage. Air excavation is used to safely expose underground utilities and allows backfill with the dry material.
Hydro excavation is a non-mechanical, non-destructive process that combines pressurized water and a high flow of moving air to simultaneously excavate and evacuate soil and natural debris at a controlled rate. The soil and water slurry travels through a hose to a debris tank. Hydro excavation allows for the breakdown of clay and rocky soils.
Vacuum excavation is a much safer method when working around utilities during construction. Using air or hydro excavation avoids the dangers of striking a utility with heavy equipment or machinery. It's also safe enough to protect plant roots from damages!
Trenches are cut to various dimensions with great accuracy and precision using high-pressure water or air. It’s an effective method when searching for utility lines especially when the location is unknown.
Slot trenching is a method used for installing pipes, sprinkler systems, cables, signs, posts, and other utilities underground. The method is also used for narrow trenching around the perimeter of a foundation, for the installation of grounding wires, or electrical lines.
Vacuum excavation can provide easier access to areas where backhoes or larger excavation may not fit. Vertical vacuum excavation is less destructive to surrounding landscape. The tools can be used to cut out specific dimensions such as "L" shaped trenches or cylindrical pits for piers, pylons, or sono-tubes.
Spoils can be either transported immediately, left on site at specific locations or put back into the excavation area. Plus the big one, no damage to unmarked utilities. Capable of doing large dimensions or small test holes.
For any work sites where we break asphalt such as state highways, our field employees will conduct patch repair with the Core Bore Process.
Some benefits of the Core Bore Process include:
- A permanent repair
- Overall process (repair and restoration) time reduced
- Less time to excavate roadway surface and base
- Less inconvenience to vehicular traffic during work
Trinity runs both. Which one comes to your site depends on the soil and on what is buried in it.
Air excavation uses compressed air to break up soil, which is then vacuumed through a wide flexible hose into a truck-mounted debris tank. The spoil stays dry, so it can go straight back into the hole. The truck can sit up to a hundred feet away from the dig, which matters on a congested site or inside a plant where there is nowhere to park.
Hydrovac excavation combines pressurized water with high-volume airflow to cut and evacuate soil at a controlled rate. Water handles clay and rocky ground that air will not move. The soil and water slurry travels to the debris tank the same way.
Neither method can damage a utility the way a backhoe tooth can. That is the entire point. Both are gentle enough to work around live gas, fiber and electric, and gentle enough to expose tree roots without cutting them.
A pothole, also called a test hole or a daylight, is a small excavation that exposes a buried utility so its position can be recorded precisely. Once the line is visible, Trinity documents horizontal location, depth to top of pipe, size, material and condition, then restores the hole.
That record is what turns an estimate into Quality Level A data, the highest reliability level in ASCE 38. Everything above QL-A is a designation on the surface. A test hole is the only way to know an elevation rather than infer one.
Potholing is most often ordered at the points where a proposed installation crosses an existing line, since that is where a surprise costs the most during construction.
Trenches are cut to specific dimensions with high-pressure air or water, which is effective when a line is known to be present but its exact path is not. Slot trenching is also used for installing conduit, sprinkler lines, signs, posts and grounding wire, and for narrow trenching around a foundation perimeter.
Where Trinity breaks asphalt, including on state highways, crews restore the surface using the Core Bore process. It is a permanent repair, it takes less time to cut and less time to put back than a saw-cut patch, and it keeps traffic disruption shorter.
Do you need precise ground removal for utility installation, trenching, or potholing? Complete excavation in highly congested underground scopes. Here are the steps to our remote excavation and trenching process:
If trench work, boring, or remote excavation needs to be completed in a high-density utility area, utility locating is crucial. We recommend leveraging Trinity Subsurface for your locating needs as many Call Before You Dig projects leave a 2 ft leniency in their mark outs. Reduce exploratory digging with highly accurate mapping.
We solve the problem of outdated mapping by finding all unknown utilities before exposure. Eliminate guesswork before digging with electromagnetic equipment and ground penetrating radar. Our locating process requires many geophysical tools because we leave no stone unturned!
To excavate, an air lance is used to loosen the ground while the soil is sucked up by a vacuum. For harder materials such as compact clay, the vac truck will leverage high-pressure water. The paradigm system of the truck allows field employees to use both methods on the same job site!
The area is cleared to appropriate depth or a utility pipe is uncovered, requiring manual operation. Using trenching and boring techniques, place with precision:
Field employees document found utilities, subsurface data, or anomalies while trenching. Our reporting platform makes it simple for data to be recorded the same day. This provides subsurface utility engineering data.
With air excavation, remove large amounts of soil, soft clay, or shale that can later be redeposited. Soil can be left on-site to be refilled at a later time after line installment.
Preliminary step: locate utilities, foreign objects before digging.
Learn More >Preliminary step: inspect cross lines before directional boring.
Learn More >Trinity Subsurface, LLC will protect your work zone with temporary traffic control while conducting excavation services for commercial sites, municipalities, and residential areas.
Within a test hole report, underground features found during trenching or remote excavation are observed and documented with precision.
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