You do not need to know every technical detail before you call us about a vac truck job.
What helps most is a clear picture of what is happening on site.
Where is the job? What needs to come out? Can the truck get close? Are there underground services nearby? Is the work beside traffic?
Give us the useful stuff and we can ask the rest.
The Short Version
| What to send | Why it helps |
|---|---|
| Site address | Helps us understand travel, access and the general job location. |
| What needs to be done | Potholing, trenching, slurry removal and pit cleaning can all need different planning. |
| What material is involved | Soil, mud, slurry and water do not all behave the same way. |
| Access photos | A photo of a narrow gate can save ten minutes of trying to explain it over the phone. |
| Underground service information | Useful when the work is around pipes, cables or other buried infrastructure. |
| Timing | Helps us understand where the vac truck fits into the rest of the project. |
Start With What You Actually Need Done
You do not need to ring up asking for a particular truck size or hose setup.
Start with the job.
Tell us whether you need to expose a service, dig potholes, remove slurry, clean out a pit or deal with another type of material.
That gives us somewhere useful to start instead of guessing from the words “vac truck hire”.
If you are not sure whether vacuum excavation is even the right method, our guide to when vacuum excavation makes sense for a project can help you work that out first.
Tell Us What Needs to Come Out
The material matters.
Soil, mud, slurry, water and wet spoil can all change how a job needs to be approached.
You do not need to identify everything perfectly. A simple description is usually enough to start.
Something like “wet clay from a trench” is already more useful than “we need a vac truck”.
If you are not sure what the truck can handle, our guide to what a vacuum truck can remove and what affects the job gives a clearer breakdown.
Give Us an Idea of How Much There Is
We are not asking you to stand there with a calculator and work out an exact volume.
A rough idea is fine.
For example:
- one small pothole
- several potholes across the site
- a trench roughly 10 metres long
- a pit half full of slurry
- a larger area of wet spoil that needs to be removed
Photos can help here too.
The amount of material can affect tank capacity, time on site and whether the job needs to be staged.
It can also affect the quote, which is why our article on what actually changes a vac truck quote in South East Queensland is worth reading if you are budgeting the work.
Access Is One of the Big Ones
A job can be simple on paper and still become awkward if the truck cannot get close.
Tell us about narrow gates, tight driveways, soft ground, fencing, buildings, parked vehicles or anything else that may affect where the truck can sit.
If the work is behind a building or inside a restricted area, give us a rough idea of how far the truck may need to stay from the job.
This is where photos are gold.
Our guide to truck access and hose distance covers the things worth checking before the crew arrives.
If Underground Services Are Involved, Tell Us Early
If there are pipes, cables or other services in the work area, let us know before the job starts.
Have any available plans, markings or site information ready as well.
The aim is not to turn the call into a technical meeting. We just want to understand what the crew is likely to be working around.
For Brisbane projects where service exposure is the main job, our article on how non-destructive digging is used around underground services explains that side in more detail.
Photos Usually Make Life Easier
You do not need professional site photography.
A few phone photos can be enough.
The most useful shots are usually:
- the site entry
- where the truck may be able to park
- the actual work area
- anything sitting between the truck and the job
If there is a narrow gate, steep driveway, retaining wall or awkward access point, show us.
It is a lot easier to work around an access issue before the truck turns up than discover it when everyone is standing there waiting.
Tell Us Where the Job Sits in the Project
Timing matters too.
Is the vac truck the first job of the day? Does potholing need to be finished before an excavator starts? Are other trades waiting on the excavation?
If the work is tied to a construction program, tell us.
That helps us understand whether there is flexibility or whether the job needs to happen in a specific window.
Our guide to when to book a vac truck around the project schedule covers that planning side in more detail.
What If the Work Is Near Traffic?
If the truck needs to sit beside a road, driveway or busy access point, that needs to be part of the conversation.
The best place for the truck may affect traffic movement, pedestrians or other vehicles entering the site.
Where traffic control is required, Get Group can also coordinate traffic control alongside the vac truck work.
A Good Job Brief vs a Vague One
Here is the difference a few useful details can make.
| Vague | Much more useful |
|---|---|
| “Need a vac truck tomorrow.” | “Need three potholes exposed tomorrow before the civil crew starts.” |
| “Access is a bit tight.” | “Truck can park at the front, but the work area is about 15 metres behind the building.” |
| “There’s mud to remove.” | “Wet spoil from a trench, roughly this size, photos attached.” |
That is the sort of information that helps us get to the useful questions faster.
Different Locations Can Mean Different Site Conditions
We work across the Gold Coast, Brisbane, North Brisbane, Ipswich, Logan, Tweed Heads and Northern NSW, and access can look very different from one site to the next.
A busy Brisbane commercial site may need more thought around truck positioning and traffic.
A larger civil site around Ipswich or Logan may have plenty of room but several excavation points spread across the work area.
Gold Coast projects can range from tight suburban jobs to roadside and civil work.
For Gold Coast service enquiries, our Gold Coast vacuum excavation page has the local service information.
For Ipswich jobs, you can also see our vacuum excavation information for Ipswich.
Once the Brisbane service landing page is live, that should be the main destination for Brisbane-specific commercial enquiries.
What If You Do Not Have All the Answers Yet?
That is fine.
You do not need to wait until every detail is locked in before you contact us.
Tell us what you know.
If something is still unclear, we can ask the questions that matter and work out what needs to be confirmed before the job.
Before You Call, Have These Ready if You Can
- site address
- what needs to be done
- what material is involved
- rough size or amount
- site photos
- access information
- known underground services
- preferred job date or time window
- traffic or site restrictions
That is usually enough to have a useful first conversation.
Ready to Talk Through the Job?
You do not need to know the truck setup before you call.
Tell us what is happening on site, where the job is and what you know so far. We can work through the rest with you.
If you want to see what happens after the truck actually arrives, our guide to what to expect when a vac truck turns up on site follows the job from arrival through to wrap-up.
For service enquiries, visit our vacuum excavation service page or call 1800 828 723.