Where hand-digging is too slow and a backhoe is too risky.
Non-destructive excavation using high-pressure water and vacuum recovery. Safer than mechanical digging near buried utilities, faster than hand-digging when labor is expensive. Powered by our Super Products Mud Dog 1200.
Road and rail. Both.
Hi-rail-equipped trucks let our crews reach excavation sites along active rail corridors that road-only contractors can’t service.
Pressurized water plus high-vacuum recovery.
Hydro excavation uses pressurized water to break up soil and a high-powered vacuum to remove it from the hole — no metal cutting edge, no risk of striking buried infrastructure. The technology was originally developed for utility work where hitting a fiber optic cable or gas line is unthinkable, but it’s become the standard for any dig near critical infrastructure.
Our crews operate the Super Products Mud Dog 1200, a heavy-duty hydrovac platform with a 12-cubic-yard debris tank, 1,200-gallon water capacity, and pressure up to 3,000 PSI. Heated water capability lets us cut through frozen ground in winter conditions when traditional excavation stops cold.
The dig that can’t afford to hit something.
Hydro excavation is the right call when a strike on a buried line means more than a delay — it means an outage, an explosion, a fiber-cut lawsuit, or a person hurt. Common scenarios where our crews mobilize:
- Daylighting buried utilities before pipe, conduit, or fiber installation
- Pothole excavation to verify utility location and depth
- Trenchless work around tree roots and tight spaces
- Gas, water, fiber line repair without damaging adjacent infrastructure
- Industrial site work where mechanical damage is catastrophic
- Frozen ground using heated water (winter work continues)
- Confined excavation in spaces inaccessible to backhoes
- Rail corridor work with hi-rail support equipment
Crews on the job.
Hydro excavation in action — from industrial sites to utility right-of-ways:
The Mud Dog 1200, in detail.
Most hydrovac contractors run a single tank size. Ours is purpose-built for the variety of jobs we take on across industrial plants, utility ROWs, rail corridors, and DOT projects:
- Debris tank capacity: 12 cubic yards
- Water capacity: 1,200 gallons
- Water pressure: up to 3,000 PSI
- Boom reach: 26 feet, 320° rotation
- Heated water for frozen-ground operation
- 8-inch vacuum hose with extensions for deep excavation
- Chassis: Peterbilt 348 with PACCAR PX-9 engine, Allison transmission
- DOT-permitted spoil transport with manifested disposal
From locate to spoils removal.
How a typical hydro excavation job runs:
811 verification, site walk, scope confirmation. We document existing utilities before any water hits the ground.
Mud Dog 1200 plus supplemental crew arrives at the site. Setup typically under 30 minutes.
Pressurized water breaks up soil, vacuum recovers spoils into the debris tank. Operator-controlled precision.
DOT-compliant transport to approved disposal. Site restoration as scoped. Documentation provided.
Why crews and PMs choose hydro excavation.
Hydro excavation isn’t always the cheapest option upfront — it’s almost always the cheapest option after you account for the risks the alternatives carry:
What hydro excavation gets you
- Zero utility strikes — water can’t damage pipe, cable, or conduit the way a backhoe tooth can
- Faster than hand-digging — what takes a 4-person crew a day takes our truck an hour
- Safer for crews — no one in the hole during excavation, less manual labor, less ergonomic risk
- Cleaner site — slurry contained in the debris tank vs. spoils piles spread across the work zone
- Works in frozen ground — heated water cuts through frost when mechanical digging is shut down
- Tight access — the hose works in spaces a backhoe can’t reach
250-mile service radius.
From our Greenup, Kentucky base, our Mud Dog reaches utility ROWs, industrial sites, rail corridors, and DOT projects across Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, and into Indiana, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Tennessee. For multi-day projects we mobilize beyond our standard radius — call us to scope.
Ready to scope a hydro excavation job?
Tell us the location, the depth, and what’s underground. We’ll quote it fast.