Hydraulic excavators and backhoes, even hand tools like shovels all exert a certain amount of force to dig which qualifies them as mechanical forms of excavation. When excavating around underground utilities and buried infrastructure it is imperative to remove the risk of striking or damaging those buried resources so “non-mechanical” excavation is mandated.
There are two forms of non-mechanical digging which utilize vacuum excavation equipment:
Hydrovac
Suction Excavator, or Dry Vac