Also widely known as gully suckers, vacuum tankers are like a huge wet & dry hoover installed on the back of a truck. Vacuum Tanks are used to clear out blocked drains (hence the gully in gully suckers).
The swivelling side boom enables the vacuum to reach some distance from the truck. The tank then fills with the waste that is being sucked up for transport to a disposal site. The rear door of the tank can open and the body itself tip up to ease the emptying of the tank.
Often these gully suckers will have a jetter unit on board to clean down any additional mess created in the job.
The vacuum unit can be powered by the truck’s engine using a PTO or use its own donkey engine to power the pumps required to suck the waste and blow the water through the jetting unit.
Often available in the used truck market, many of these used vacuum tankers are ex-council and have therefore been well maintained and looked after.
Saving fuel and saving water at the same time – that’s a proud boast by the operators of their new ‘Tridem’ Mercedes Arocs 3258. Enviro-Clean Scotland’s latest, eight-wheeled Mercedes-Benz sewer-cleaning truck is a ‘green giant’ in more than one sense – as well as sporting the company’s distinctive verdant colour scheme, it is also reducing both water and diesel consumption. Supplied by Dealer Western Commercial, the high-riding Arocs 3258 is equipped to save up to 15 million litres of clean drinking water every year, and capable of doing the job of two or more trucks. The new Arocs is fitted…>