NPORS Suction Excavator Training (N021)

A vacuum unit, usually lorry mounted, with a large fan or positive displacement blower, a boom mounted suction hose and a spoil tank. It lifts soil off buried apparatus by air rather than cutting it with a bucket or a blade, so it can expose a live cable or a gas main without touching it.

No. A 360 excavator category does not cover a suction excavator and it never has. The machine, the risks and the technique are different, which is why NPORS give it its own category and its own test.

Five days for a novice, with three candidates to one instructor and one unit. An operator already running a suction excavator normally takes the shorter experienced worker route, where NPORS allow four candidates, and the refresher is shorter again. We confirm the length when we quote.

The published NPORS practical runs to a maximum of two hours. The operator checks and sets up the unit, travels through a restricted space, establishes an exclusion zone, then either digs two exploratory holes or excavates a trench, exposing at least three different types of buried service, disposes of the material correctly and shuts the unit down properly.

For the NPORS category itself, no. If the same person drives the unit on the public road then the licence entitlement for that chassis is a separate legal requirement, and we will ask about it so nobody is trained into a job they cannot legally do.

Yes, and it is usually better. Operators train on the unit they run and the ground they work, and nobody loses days travelling. We need a suitable area for the practical with services that can safely be exposed, which we agree with you beforehand.

The Red Trained Operator card, which NPORS issue for two years, or the Blue Competent Operator card valid five years where the operator holds the relevant NVQ. The CSCS logo version of either needs a current CITB Health, Safety and Environment test. Where the work is not on construction sites, the traditional NPORS card may suit better.

Three on the novice course and the refresher, four on the experienced worker test. Larger groups get sequenced across more than one course, because the ratio is what gives each operator real time on the hose.

NPORS courses are priced per course, not per person. What you are paying for is the instructor, the registered tester and the machine time, so the figure turns on four things: the category, which route your operators need (novice, experienced, conversion or refresher), how many people are coming, and whether we run it on your site or at one of ours. It is also why a squad works out considerably cheaper per head than sending operators out one at a time. Use the course builder on this page: tell it who is coming and it works out how many days the course takes and how many times it has to run, which is what the price is built from. Then ask us and you will get a figure for that exact group rather than a list price with conditions attached.

We run NPORS courses across the UK rather than out of one fixed centre, and for most categories the better answer is that we come to you: your operators are assessed on the machine they will be using anyway, nobody loses a day travelling, and for a group it costs less. If you would rather come to us, we have centres at Trent House in Stoke, Pride Park in Derby, Europa House in Manchester and Kingsway House in Liverpool. Tell us where the work is and we will say honestly which way round makes more sense.

There is no fixed timetable to wait for. NPORS courses here are run to order, which means the dates are built around your programme rather than ours, and a single operator or a full squad can normally be booked in within a couple of weeks. If you have a card about to expire or a start date to hit, say so when you enquire and we will work to it.