Vac truck hire - should you go big or opt for a small vacuum truck?
Date published 29 November 2021
A vac truck is a type of tank truck designed to suck up and remove both solid and liquid construction materials from a construction site. They do this by displacing construction materials using highly pressurised (2600psi) water, and then sucking up the resulting slurry. Our small vacuum trucks use a vacuum hose powered by either a petrol or diesel motor.
Vac trucks can be used for a wide range of applications including potholing, slot trenching, water valve box repair, and the location of existing fibre optic lines. They can also be used in tandem with other plant and equipment like our small tipper trucks in situations that require the removal or transportation of excess waste materials before the vacuum truck can be used effectively.
Vac truck hire could be an option worth considering if your work site will require the removal of construction materials in a liquid, slurry or sludge form. Our trucks can also handle solids and dry bulk powders, and come with a 15 metre hose to ensure that you’ll be able to reach any tricky spots.
What are the differences between large and small vacuum trucks?
Size
The first and most important difference is obviously size - but the size of your vac truck can have a huge impact on how useful it is on a worksite. If the worksite in question is small or difficult to access by heavy vehicles, a large vacuum truck may not be a practical or feasible choice. In such cases, a small vacuum truck may be a more appropriate option and better-suited to your worksite.
Our vac trucks are powerful and efficient despite their size, and cause minimal ground disturbance during operation. If you require a waste removal and management solution with an even smaller footprint than our small vacuum trucks, we also offer dry hire on our mini vacuum trailers.
Cost
Generally speaking, a small vacuum truck is going to be cheaper to hire than a larger one. We exclusively offer dry vac truck hire, meaning that you don’t have to pay for an operator on top of the equipment hire fee. However, please note that our small vacuum trucks can only be legally operated by someone who holds a Light Rigid (LR) license.
Capacity
It stands to reason that a smaller vacuum truck is going to have a reduced capacity, but smaller doesn’t necessarily mean small. Our small vacuum trucks have a spoil tank capacity of 1,000 litres (one cubic metre of volume) and a water tank capacity of 189 litres. While larger vac trucks can have capacities as high as 12,000 litres or more, 1,000 litres will generally be plenty for any small project or worksite.
Manoeuvrability
As mentioned above, one of the key benefits of opting for a smaller vac truck is their ability to access and be used on smaller worksites. If your site isn’t easily accessible to large/heavy vehicles but contains waste materials that need removing, one of our small vacuum trucks could be the solution.
If you’re interested in our vac truck hire services, you can request a quote and one of our specialists will be in touch as soon as possible.
If you need to hire additional plant and equipment for your project, you can take a look at our other P&E hire offerings, including:
