Running a vacuum excavation company has its moments of levity. Tim Brown of Santa Fe Vacuum Excavation has a story or two that meets that standard.
For example, Brown says he’s constantly getting calls from people who have come across an advertisement for the company and want to know if he can fix their vacuum cleaner. A household carpet cleaner, that is, as opposed to a 4,000 psi industrial vacuum mounted on a multi-ton chassis.
Even funnier — if you’re laughing — is the call he received from a property owner who asked, “How did you know?” Brown recalls. “And I said, ‘How did I know what?’ He answered, ‘That I was going to bury my vacuum.’ That was my favorite question ever.”
It seems that the man had decided to create a basement under his house where a crawl space existed. To that end, he systematically removed dirt. He employed a shop vac and a jack hammer and succeeded in turning the area into what Brown says is “a very nice, big, beautiful basement.”
A couple of years later, the man decided to expand his basement. However, during that project, a wall collapsed and buried his antique stainless steel shop vac. That was when he Googled vacuum excavation and Brown’s advertisement came up.
A bemused Brown took his vacuum rig to the man’s house and uncovered the antique shop vac. Now, he says, with a smile in his voice, “I am a vacuum excavator.”
