Hydro excavation and hydro jetting are critical tools for maintaining buried utilities. But while they both utilize high-pressure water, each technique has unique applications and offer specific benefits.
What Is Hydro Excavation?
Hydro excavation is a non-destructive digging process that uses high-pressure water to break up soil and a vacuum system to remove the slurry. This method is used primarily for excavating soil in a controlled manner to expose underground utilities (also known as potholing or daylighting), such as pipelines, cables, and sewer lines, without damaging them.
How Hydro Excavation Works
- High-Pressure Water: A stream of high-pressure water is directed at the ground to break up the soil. This water pressure is strong enough to turn the soil into a slurry, but gentle enough to avoid damaging buried utilities
- Vacuum System: Simultaneously, a powerful vacuum system sucks up the slurry into a debris tank, leaving a clean excavation site
- Precision and Control: Operators can adjust the water pressure and control the direction of the stream, allowing for precise excavation even in areas with high utility density
Advantages of Hydro Excavation
- Safety: Hydro excavation significantly reduces the risk of damaging underground utilities like gas lines, water pipes, and electrical cables, which can be dangerous and costly to repair
- Precision: The method allows for highly accurate digging, making it ideal for projects where precision is critical, such as utility installations or repairs
- Minimal Surface Damage: Traditional mechanical excavation methods can cause extensive surface damage and require large areas to be dug up. Hydro excavation is less invasive, leaving behind minimal disruption to the surrounding environment
- Versatility: It can be used in a variety of soil types and conditions, including frozen ground where traditional digging methods might be challenging
Common Applications of Hydro Excavation
- Utility Location and Exposure: Safely exposing underground utilities for maintenance, repair, or installation
- Trenching: Creating precise trenches for the installation of pipes, cables, or other utilities
- Potholing: Digging small, exploratory holes to verify the location of underground utilities before construction
- Debris Removal: Clearing debris from confined spaces like catch basins, manholes, or other areas that are difficult to access
What Is Hydro Jetting?
Hydro jetting is a cleaning process that uses high-pressure water to clear blockages, buildup, and debris from pipes and sewer lines. Unlike hydro excavation, which focuses on soil removal, hydro jetting is designed to clean the interior of pipes and restore normal flow in plumbing systems.
How Hydro Jetting Works
- High-Pressure Water Stream: A hydro jetting machine delivers a powerful stream of water through a specialized nozzle inserted into the pipe. This high-pressure water can break apart blockages, scour the pipe walls, and flush debris out
- Different Nozzle Attachments: Various nozzle attachments can be used depending on the nature of the blockage and the size of the pipe. Some nozzles are designed to cut through tree roots, while others are meant for removing grease or mineral deposits
- Thorough Cleaning: The high-pressure water cleans the entire interior surface of the pipe, not just a small section, ensuring that debris and buildup are completely removed
Advantages of Hydro Jetting
- Effectiveness: Hydro jetting is highly effective at removing stubborn clogs, including grease, mineral deposits, tree roots, and other obstructions that traditional methods may not fully clear
- Comprehensive Cleaning: It not only removes blockages but also cleans the pipe walls, helping to prevent future clogs by eliminating the buildup of debris and sediment
- Environmentally Friendly: Since hydro jetting uses only water pressure, it avoids the use of harsh chemicals, making it an environmentally safe option
- Preventive Maintenance: Hydro jetting can be used as a preventive measure to keep pipes and sewer lines clear and functioning efficiently, reducing the risk of future blockages
Common Applications of Hydro Jetting
- Clearing Blockages: Removing clogs from residential, commercial, and municipal sewer and drain lines
- Grease and Scale Removal: Cleaning kitchen drains clogged with grease or pipes with mineral scale buildup
- Root Intrusion: Cutting through and removing tree roots that have infiltrated sewer lines
- Routine Maintenance: Keeping pipes and sewer lines clean as part of a regular maintenance program to prevent future issues
GPRS’ damage prevention services help ensure efficiency during your hydro excavation and hydro jetting projects.
Striking a buried utility while conducting hydro excavation can endanger the lives of your workers and the community surrounding your job site and derail your project’s budget and schedule. Hydro excavation allows you to confirm where a buried utility is located by daylighting that utility. GPRS utilizes ground penetrating radar (GPR) scanning and electromagnetic (EM) locating to find and map all buried infrastructure on your site, allowing you to pinpoint where you need to utilize hydro excavation.
When you need a comprehensive understanding of your buried wastewater infrastructure, GPRS utilizes remote-controlled sewer pipe inspection rovers equipped with sondes: instrument probes that allow us to track the rovers from the surface using EM locating. This means we can map your system at the same time we’re inspecting it for defects such as cross bores, sediment buildup and inflow/infiltration.
From sewer pipes to skyscrapers, GPRS Intelligently Visualizes The Built World® to keep your projects on time, on budget, and safe.
What can we help you visualize?
Water & Sewer Damage Awareness Week Returns October 21-25
To help water and wastewater system operators take a more proactive approach to maintaining their infrastructure, GPRS hosts Water & Sewer Damage Awareness Week. From October 21-25, our safety experts will travel across the country delivering free safety presentations to municipalities, engineers, facility managers, property management groups, and anyone else who is ready to regain control of their fresh and wastewater infrastructure.
Click here to schedule your WSDAW presentation today!
Frequently Asked Questions
What size pipes can GPRS inspect?
Our NASSCO-certified Project Managers can inspect pipes from 2” in diameter and up.
What deliverables does GPRS offer when conducting a video pipe inspection?
GPRS is proud to offer WinCan reporting to our Video Pipe Inspection clients. Maintaining sewers starts with understanding sewer condition, and WinCan allows GPRS Project Managers to collect detailed, NASSCO-compliant inspection data. GPRS Project Managers not only inspect the interior condition of sewer pipes, laterals, and manholes – they can also provide a map of their location. The GPRS Mapping & Modeling Department can provide detailed GPS overlays and CAD files. Our detailed WinCan/NASSCO reports contain screenshots of the interior condition of the pipe segments that we inspect, as well as a video file for further evaluation, documentation, and/or reference.
Can you locate pipes in addition to evaluating their integrity?
Yes! Our SIM and NASSCO-certified Project Managers use VPI technology equipped with sondes, which are instrument probes that allow them to ascertain the location of underground utilities from an inaccessible location. This allows them to use electromagnetic (EM) locating to map sewer systems at the same time they’re evaluating them for defects.
Does GPRS offer lateral launch services?
Yes, we offer lateral launch capabilities as part of our standard Video Pipe Inspection services.
