Air Knife Excavation

A powerful, yet safe method to clear pre-probing locations.

PES has added a new service to provide utility clearance using air knifing. The system includes an AirVac compressed air and vacuum unit attached to an AirSpade 4000 air excavation tool for utility potholing. This system can efficiently clear pre-probing locations to a depth of 5 ft. to eliminate damaging utility lines. A tow-behind air compressor capable of delivering 185 cfm at 100 psi. is used to power the air knifing tooling. This system can move air at approximately 1200 mph to dislodge soil from utility lines. Typically this system can remove more than 1 cubic ft./min of soil. Once the potholing has been completed, the excavated soil is returned to the boring and appropriate tooling can safely be advanced for direct push or drilling operations to proceed.