Long History, Modern Outlook

Wed 28 Aug 2019

Long History, Modern Outlook

Like many companies in the plant game, Somerset based Gartell & Son was founded as an agricultural contracting business back in 1957 by the current Managing Director Andrew Gartell’s Grandfather Alan Gartell and Father John, who initially established themselves with a solitary Nuffield 460 tractor with a Twose backhoe. This venerable set up served them well until 1963 when they decided to invest in their first dedicated digger, which perhaps unsurprisingly for the era was a trusty JCB 3 backhoe loader. From those agricultural roots the company has continually evolved and diversified to meet the needs of an ever-changing climate and works. From the mid 1970’s and throughout the 80’s the company branched out into the land drainage sector, investing in specialist equipment from the likes of Mastenbroek to undertake the work.

Photo: Courtesy of Gartell & Son Ltd. Andrew takes up the story, “Back in those days the agricultural industry was heavily granted and our company enjoyed a good run of consistent work. Unfortunately, the grants were revoked almost overnight, which meant our large order book went from having a year’s worth of work lined up in front of us, to being completely empty!” “Rather fortuitously for us, farms were undertaking a lot of dirty water systems such as large concrete tanks and lagoons, which is where the construction side of the company emerged and the work load continued, however on a different course”.

Gartell & Son are very much a family run business, Andrew’s father is still very much involved with the company, however he is taking more of a “back seat” Chairman’s role and less involved with the general day-to-day running of the business. Current MD Andrew now carries out the aforementioned duties, working on quotes, tenders and all other requirements. “I also like to try to and keep my finger on the pulse and operate machines for holiday cover” said Andrew. “In addition, my sister is involved with our other business “Landpower Machinery” which is an arboriculture company operating as a Timberwolf wood chipper dealer, there is also a fully stocked shop full of PPE, tools, equipment and other tree surgeon derived toys, so we have plenty to keep us all busy”. Earthmovers visited Gartell & Sons on site at the prestigious Sherborne Girls School in Dorset where they had been employed directly by the private establishment to undertake enabling groundworks, with a view to getting a head start on the building works ahead of the main contractor.

The team excavated the site, the majority of which was through both blue and white lias, a tough mixture of limestone and shale layers, with the dig totalling around 10,000m3. They were then tasked with stripping the current playing fields of both topsoil and subsoil, then levelling and relaying the stripped material on top of the excavated material to eventually be finished off as an Internationally Accredited and Approved Lacrosse playing field. This work also involved the laying of land drains. Gartell & Sons modelled and provided the design to the sports field staff to provide marking out. Another part of the enabling works entailed replacing the excavated site which were tennis courts with 2 new tennis courts, and a third to be excavated, levelled and to receive a base coat to act as a contractor’s car park throughout the main package.

The company have recently invested in some new Wacker Neuson kit in the shape of a 6-tonne class ET65 hydraulic excavator and a 2.5 tonne DT25 compact tracked swivel skip dumper with rotating operator’s seat, both of which have been purchased from Dorset based dealer C&O Construction. Talking about the Austrian built kit Andrew said, “We have been running Wacker Neuson dumpers since 2005 and have always been impressed with their build quality and performance. We attended a Wacker Neuson demonstration day organized by C&O Construction, when we were looking to upgrade our existing 6 tonne machine, both myself and our operators were very impressed with the ET65 and the demo day was closely followed with an order for a new one, which we specified with 600mm steel track pads, a Steelwrist X07 tiltrotator C/W gripper, which is our very first “tilty” and a Topcon 3D GPS system”.

Since purchasing the ET65 just over 6 months ago, they have added and ordered more Wacker Neuson machines to join the fleet, including a DW50 wheeled swivel skip dumper, a DV100 Dual View Dump Truck, a RD28-120 tandem vibratory roller and a second ET65 excavator with a more standard spec. The ET65 has been well received by its operator Adam Clothier who has worked for Gartell & Sons for just over 4 years. Adam is a well-respected operator and had some input into the specification of the machine, talking about his new mount he said, “I’ve had her now for about 6 months and I absolutely love the machine. I had never used a tiltrotator before, but had done a lot of research into them, reading up in the magazine and online on the blog, I could easily see the benefits would be there and I have not been disappointed. We specified the short dipper arm which we felt would be better suited with the tiltrotator fitted, in terms of balance and stability and we also invested in a grading beam which is a fantastic bit of kit when grading large areas in conjunction with the GPS system. The machine overall has great digging power and its smooth on the controls, just a good all-round machine really”.

“The machine has been brilliant on this job coping with anything we’ve thrown at it, it’s a proper multi-tasker. If I had to find one fault with it, then it has to be gap between the top of the tracks and the bottom of the upper-structure, it’s just too small, if you get any debris on top of the track it can easily cause some damage along the underside, so you have to be careful with it” Adam concludes. The aforementioned power is provided by the well proven 4-cylinder Perkins 404D-22T diesel engine which in this application produces a power output rating of 48.64hp (36.3kw) @2000rpm. Blue chip hydraulic components from Bosch Rexroth provide smooth and powerful operation of the machine.

The short dipper arm option was specified due to the tiltrotator being fitted which makes for a better balance overall. Maximum dig depth with the short dipper is 3,826mm with a maximum reach at ground level of 6.220mm both slightly longer in reality with the fitting of the Steelwrist. Talking about the addition of the GPS System and technology in general Andrew Gartell said, “I’m a firm believer in GPS and machine control, I know many operators believe it takes the skill out of driving and are quick criticise it. However, as I see it, it makes the machine and operator more efficient, no more waiting for engineers to set out, no reworking and finally no over digging. With no over digging comes no excess concrete so there are significant savings to be made. For example, our first project using our Komatsu PC210LCi, we excavated pits for an industrial unit totalling 100m3 and used 103m3 of concrete”.

Andrew continued, “We have another Wacker Neuson ET65 on order which will also be fitted with GPS machine control. Our long-term plan is for all our machines above 6 ton to be fitted with either GPS or Robotic machine control. We are now running peg less sites and using machine control for all our bulk excavation, foundations and drainage works. As for the Steelwrist, Well the jury is still out given that we have only had this set up for a few months, however it definitely has its place on site and it is a great tool on the finishing works”.

On the Day of our visit Adam was busy loading the new Wacker Neuson DT25 tracked dumper. This compact tracked dumper is the largest model in the Wacker Neuson range, capable of carrying a maximum payload of 2,500kgs it’s a very handy piece of kit to have in the arsenal, especially on soft underfoot conditions.

Power comes from a well proven 4-cylinder Kubota V-2403M diesel engine which puts out 33kw (44.8hp) @2,350 rpm. Hydrostatically driven, the machine has two driving speeds, 5 km/h in low range and 11 km/h in high range. The rotatable operating seat console, which features Wacker Neuson’s Logic Control system, ensures the driver is always facing in the direction of travel and the controls work accordingly, which eliminates the need for reversing manoeuvres, so a very safe machine to have on site. The swivel skip option offers increased flexibility for distribution of the load through a 180-degree range.

Talking about the Wacker Neuson dealer Andrew said, “To date we have been widely impressed with C&O Construction, we have had a few minor issues which have all been dealt with quickly. The important part of being a dealer is how reactive the dealership is to fix mechanical issues as and when they arise, touch wood we have not had any serious problems”.

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