Engineered vacuum solution for satisfied customer

West Country quarry supplied with re-engineered trailer-mounted vacuum unit from Portable Vacuum Solutions

TRAVELLING from site to site on good-quality urban roads, large self-propelled truck-mounted vacuum units are great for the job that they were designed for. But they are expensive to hire or buy and probably not the sort of investment most managers would want to see being driven around a quarry.

This was the dilemma facing James Ilott, senior manager at the Portable Vacuum Division of Industrial Blower Services (IBS). He had a customer who needed all the features of a powerful vacuum unit but with all-terrain capability.

Portable Vacuum Solutions had been asked to provide a vacuum system that could be used to handle fugitive dust and stone from the conveyors feeding and discharging three large stone crushers at a West Country quarry.

The requirements were fairly strict. The vacuum unit had to be one that the site maintenance team could use at night, it needed to be sufficiently powerful to handle dust and stone chippings over a significant distance, it needed to be easily towed into position by tractor and, just as importantly, it needed to be capable of being easily reversed as some locations had access issues.

By happy coincidence, Portable Vacuum Solutions had just taken delivery of a powerful, trailer-mounted vacuum unit from Italy. This 75kW diesel unit featured a 6 cubic metre tipper-based collection tank and ticked the all-important environmental boxes with its filtration system.

The only problem was that this unit had been designed to be towed to site by a truck fitted with a fifth wheel; not a farm-type tractor fitted with conventional towing ball. However, in the space of 10 days, the trailer’s running gear was re-engineered and the towing method was changed.

In addition to the vacuum unit, the customer opted for a kit that included two 40m hoses, all necessary tools and a fluidizer, along with four two-day on-site training sessions for maintenance staff.

Mr Ilott said: ‘This was a project that caused quite a few sleepless nights. However, the customer now has precisely the vacuum unit needed for the site and we have all the necessary experience in the event of a similar opportunity.’