Daylighting & Hydro Excavation

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Uncovering, identifying and accessing underground utilities during construction or repair projects requires accuracy.

Using an excavator or backhoe can be a burdensome, high-risk practice because the potential to damage existing utilities can result in costly downtime or a safety hazard.

Clean Harbors Potholing services is a non-mechanical, non-destructive process that provides faster and more accurate excavation to locate and expose utilities or any underground infrastructure. Our potholing techniques utilize various levels of pressurized water and high velocity vacuum to surgically remove the soil allowing quick and easy access to your underground utilities.

Our potholing process also minimizes time and expense to restore the site. Because our process is so precise, we only remove the amount of soil needed to locate and expose your utilities and underground infrastructure with minimal disruption to the surrounding area.

Our team of experts with state-of-the-art equipment are located throughout the United States and Canada and ready to provide you with a safer more precise, less damaging process for locating and exposing underground utilities.

Exposing underground pipes, cables or utilities requires precision and the utmost safety.

In many industrial and municipal settings, excavators often have to rely on their “best guess” about the nature and location of pipelines, utilities, service pits and other hidden obstructions—making conventional manual or machine digging a significant risk to underground infrastructure and the surrounding ecosystem.

Clean Harbors Daylighting services provide an experienced, highly trained team and the right hydro vac equipment to uncover highly sensitive underground materials with ease. Our technology and methodologies surpass those of traditional excavation techniques to provide fast, accurate and safe access—and save time and money.

Compared to conventional hard-edge excavation methods, the Clean Harbors approach to daylighting poses a greatly reduced risk to underground infrastructure. In most cases, our processes require substantially less backfilling and site restoration, eliminating the need for costly repairs.

With a large team of experts, nationwide coverage and vast experience, Clean Harbors provides safer, less damaging and more efficient daylighting services, benefiting both the environment and your bottom line.

When your job requires holes for pilings, telephone poles, light poles, footings or other structures, you need the work done as efficiently as possible. Clean Harbors quick, efficient pier holing process eliminates the drawbacks of mechanical augers, saving you time and money.

While our procedures speed up the process, they also deliver the accuracy needed to ensure proper clearance of underground systems, virtually eliminating the risk of costly and potentially deadly strikes. Our pier holing experts make the needed adjustments at the moment utilities are encountered, avoiding significant damage and delays.  

We’ll work closely with your team to coordinate the final concrete fabrication and other work steps, making the process as seamless and easy as possible. Clean Harbors highly skilled staff, fleet of vehicles and commitment to safety make us invaluable partners in industrial excavation.

Clean Harbors excavation experts utilize specialized equipment and training to safely, accurately expose underground utilities, pipes and cables so that your crews can survey, inspect, repair or replace pipe sections.

Pipelines often run in parallel, cross over each other, or are interconnected, greatly reducing access and increasing complexity. Clean Harbors teams are experienced and well equipped to deal with these and the other challenges associated with digging bell holes. We can create bell holes for any need, in any configuration, such as sloping, shoring or benching. Our focus on environmental health and safety ensures that bell holes are more efficient, safe and designed to best fit your needs.

While any hole depth poses danger, once you’re below four feet, the digging operations and accompanying safety dynamics change greatly. Clean Harbors understands the unique challenges of trenching and shoring. Our environmental and safety experts take the time to evaluate each dig site to determine which technique(s) to use (benching, sloping, shoring or a combination of approaches). Any excavation project can go terribly wrong without proper shoring.

If a shoring or shielding process is implemented, we combine our hydro excavation services with a wide range of prefabricated shoring and shielding materials to ensure that your excavation projects stay safely on track.

When mechanical ditching and trenching is not an option, hydro excavation is your solution. As a pioneer in the use of hydro excavation, Clean Harbors provides precise ditching and trenching in sensitive areas and in close proximity to structures, trees or other obstacles. Our techniques allow safe and easy access to be able to cut your trench or dig your ditch while leaving the surrounding areas intact and undistributed.

Our hydro excavation techniques are implemented with precision and efficiency. Whether it’s a three-inch wide trench for cable installation or a 12-foot wide trench for piping, Clean Harbors has the talent and hydro vac equipment for any size job.

When you rig out, you know your rig must be clean before you can move it to the next site.

Whether you just need a mud tank cleaned or an entire rig, Clean Harbors is on call and ready to handle the dirtiest cleaning jobs. We provide reliable service with an eye for high productivity to ensure your rig is completely cleaned and ready to go quickly. Supported by deep resources, we can also bring in hot water and vacuum trucks.

We ensure that your rig process equipment, mud tanks and pits are cleaned and decontaminated safely and efficiently and in full accordance with environmental regulations.

When you need your mud tank cleaned, you can’t afford to wait around.

Clean Harbors is your one-source solution, quickly and efficiently cleaning your mud tanks utilizing our hydrovac technology and experienced crews. Supported by deep resources, we can also bring in hot water and vacuum trucks.

We can clean tanks of any shape and size, even tanks located inside buildings or at a remote location. Our equipment ensures the rapid, safe and complete removal of solids and liquids from tanks.

Spills not only cause downtime but also can pose significant environmental and fiscal risk exposure. When you have a spill, you need expert help and you need it fast.

For more than 35 years, Clean Harbors has been North America’s leader in emergency response and spill cleanup. Whether it’s a small diesel spill or a large event, we have the experience, manpower and resources to handle your emergency situation from initial response and containment to potential remediation. With Clean Harbors, you have peace of mind knowing the cleanup is handled in the most environmentally sound manner and 100% in compliance with all regulations.

Clean Harbors Line Locating Services provide the pre-planning, project management, locating, GPS surveying and GIS mapping of your underground utility and buried facility lines in advance of your ground disturbance activities.

Each site, locate, and reporting process varies greatly from job to job, yet your basic needs and expectations remain much the same. You need trained professionals that will meet your needs and expectations head-on, time after time, no matter how hard the job is, or where your location is. We employ highly trained and experienced professionals, whose integrity and confidence in their work help us focus on quality, efficiency, damage prevention, safety, environmental responsibility and customer satisfaction.

Clean Harbors has line locators based throughout Alberta to provide efficient and cost-effective response with availability to service Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Our locators are also supported by pipeline database providers whose database searches are produced digitally and transmitted with ease.

Download Fact Sheet (Line Locating)

Services Offered

• Oilfield Lease and Pipeline Construction
• Private Line Locating
• One-Call Management
• Wellsite and Pipeline Abandonment
• Leak Detection/ROW Inspection
• Environmental/Reclamation Projects
• Seismic Locating
• GIS Mapping
• Crossing Inspection/Supervision
• Sign Installations
• Pipeline Integrity Programs

One-Call Management

Clean Harbors can fulfill your One-Call Management needs from start to finish, saving time and money for your administrative and field operations teams.

• Receive
• Screen
• Dispatch
• Field Visit
• Report
• Record
• Archive

Download Fact Sheet (One-Call Management)