Midtown Plumbing Company provides hydro excavation services across Ventura County, from Pierpont to Piru. Our trailer-mounted hydrovac exposes water, gas, and sewer lines with pressurized water and vacuum, so no backhoe bucket touches your pipe. Ventura County soil hides a century of unmapped utilities, shallow groundwater, and heavy clay.
Owner Shawn Girt holds CSLB license #1126558 and brings 15 years of plumbing experience to every dig. Call (805) 765-3995 for a free quote.
A hydrovac rig does two jobs at once. A high-pressure water wand cuts the soil. A vacuum hose pulls the slurry into a debris tank on the trailer. The hole stays clean and narrow, with straight walls and a visible pipe at the bottom.
Pipes, conduit, tracer wire, and tree roots stay intact because water flows around them. A backhoe bucket does the opposite. The operator digs blind, feels resistance, and finds out what he hit after the damage is done. One strike on a gas service shuts down your job site and puts your crew at risk.
You will hear this service called hydrovac, vacuum excavation, soft dig excavation, potholing, or daylighting. The method is the same. The name depends on which trade is talking.
Few plumbing contractors in Ventura County own a hydrovac. Most rent a vacuum excavator for the day or sub the dig out to a Los Angeles company. We keep our trailer at 3800 Market St in Ventura, ready to roll. Mobilization within Ventura and Oxnard is included in our rates.
A hydrovac-only company exposes your broken water line and leaves. You still need a licensed plumber to fix the pipe, and you pay for two mobilizations. Our crew exposes the line, makes the repair, pressure tests, and backfills in one visit.
A full-size hydrovac truck weighs more than 50,000 pounds loaded. Drive one across decorative pavers in an HOA or down a Midtown Ventura alley and you create a second repair job. Our trailer tows behind a service truck. We park in the street or a single stall and run hose to the dig.
Midtown Plumbing Company has served Ventura County since 2023. Shawn Girt has worked in the plumbing trade for 15 years. We hold California contractor license #1126558, carry bond and insurance, and maintain a 4.9-star rating from local customers.
California Government Code 4216 requires you to expose marked utilities inside the tolerance zone before power equipment digs. The zone runs 24 inches on each side of the mark. Hand digging a dozen potholes burns a full day of labor. We pothole each crossing, confirm depth and pipe material, and mark the find for your crew. General contractors, fence builders, electricians, and directional drillers use this service before every bore and trench.
We expose leaking water services, mains on private property, shutoff valves, and meter connections. Hydro excavation keeps the hole small, so you replace a few square feet of landscaping or concrete instead of a 20-foot trench line. For full replacements, see our trenchless water line replacement service.
Gas is where soft digging matters most. We work on customer-owned gas piping downstream of the meter. SoCalGas owns everything upstream. Water and vacuum expose steel and polyethylene gas lines without sparks, gouges, or torn coating. We use this method for gas leak repairs, new runs to commercial kitchens, pool heaters, generators, and outdoor fire features.
Clay laterals, cast iron, and the occasional run of Orangeburg pipe crack or crush under a bucket. We expose the damaged section, the city connection, or the cleanout location by vacuum, then complete the sewer line repair. Every dig starts with a camera inspection and a locate, so we open the ground once, in the right spot. We are NASSCO certified, so the inspection follows a standardized grading format and you get a documented report of defects and pipe condition.
Need a narrow trench for a new water, gas, or conduit run through a yard full of irrigation and tree roots? We cut a slot a few inches wider than the pipe. Roots stay alive. Sprinkler lines stay whole.
We install water, gas, and sewer lines under driveways and landscaping with pneumatic boring and pipe splitting. Both methods need entry and exit pits. We dig the pits with the hydrovac and pothole every utility crossing along the path first. See underground utility repair and boring. One company controls the locate, the pits, and the bore, so your schedule holds.
Two things decide how a dig goes: when the property was built and what ground sits below the surface. Older properties across the county run on clay sewer lines and galvanized water services, and we find Orangeburg sewer pipe on occasion. None of those materials survive contact with a bucket. The ground changes by neighborhood.
Oil production along the Avenue dates to the 1910s. A century of drilling left abandoned pipelines and gaps in the records. DigAlert marks show what utilities know about. We treat every dig here as a potholing job first.
The Oxnard Plain holds groundwater a few feet below grade in many areas. Open trenches fill and slough. Farmland on the edges of Oxnard and Camarillo carries private irrigation mains no utility will mark. Industrial sites along Rice Avenue and near the Port stack water, fire, gas, and communication lines in the same corridor.
In Ondulando, Clearpoint, and the streets rebuilt after the 2017 Thomas Fire, slopes limit where an excavator sets up. We park on the street and run hose uphill to the work.
Expansive clay swells in wet winters and shrinks in dry summers. The movement shears rigid pipe at joints. After a storm, a backhoe trench in this clay fills with mud. The vacuum removes the slurry and leaves a workable hole.
Cobble and river rock fill the soil along the Ventura and Santa Clara rivers. A bucket snags a rock, the rock drags across a gas or water service, and the line breaks. Water pressure washes soil from around the rock, and we lift each one out by hand.
Ventura County gets most of its rain between December and March, often in short bursts. The December 2023 storm dropped roughly 3 inches on Oxnard in an hour. Saturated ground shifts pipe, floods open trenches, and turns excavation sites into hazards. A hydrovac hole is small enough to plate or cover the same day.
Homes built before 1970 sit on clay sewer laterals and galvanized water services. Lots are narrow, and many are served from the alley. In Pierpont, you dig in beach sand with shallow groundwater and salt air corrosion on every metal fitting. Sand walls collapse in an open trench. A vacuumed hole stays tight, and the hose pulls water out as we go.
Contractors, GCs, and repeat customers: preferred trade partner pricing is available. Call (805) 765-3995 and we will talk through your job and your rates.
Hours on site depend on depth, soil, and access. Sand digs fast. Dry clay and cobble take longer. Long hose runs add setup time. Work in a public street or sidewalk needs a city encroachment permit and traffic control. When we dig and repair on the same visit, you pay for one mobilization instead of two.
Tell us where the line is, how deep you think the pipe runs, and when you need the hole open. We will quote the dig, file the ticket, and show up with the rig. Emergency water, gas, and sewer digs get 24/7 response.
Hydro excavation uses pressurized water to loosen soil and a vacuum to remove the slurry. The method exposes buried utilities without mechanical contact. Contractors use hydrovac services for potholing, utility repair, and trenching near live lines.
We charge $300 per hour with a 2-hour minimum, or $1,200 for a half day of up to 4 hours on site. Mobilization within Ventura and Oxnard is included. Off-site spoil disposal starts at $225 per load. Contractors and repeat customers get trade partner pricing by phone at (805) 765-3995.
Yes. Water and vacuum do not spark, gouge steel, or cut polyethylene pipe. California law names vacuum excavation as an accepted way to expose marked utilities inside the tolerance zone. Gas line digs are the most common reason contractors call us.
Yes. State law requires a DigAlert ticket at least two working days before any excavation. DigAlert covers public utilities up to the meter. Lines on your side of the meter are private, and nobody marks them for free. We locate those for you.
A truck carries a larger debris tank and suits all-day digs on open job sites. A trailer is lighter and shorter. You want a trailer for alleys, HOA drive aisles, parking lots, backyards, and any surface a 25-ton truck would crack. Most plumbing and potholing jobs in Ventura County fit the trailer.
Midtown Plumbing Company runs an in-house hydrovac trailer from 3800 Market St in Ventura. We cover Ventura, Oxnard, Camarillo, Ojai, Santa Paula, Fillmore, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark, and Carpinteria. Call (805) 765-3995 to schedule.
3800 Market St B, Ventura, CA 93003
California Contractor License #1126558. Licensed, bonded, and insured.
Service areas: Ventura | Midtown Ventura | Oxnard | Camarillo | Ojai | Santa Paula | Fillmore | Thousand Oaks | Simi Valley | Moorpark | Carpinteria
