“With the zero tail swing, wherever you can drive you can swing and work” The maneuverability of zero tail swing plays a big role in the daily routine of Metro General Services, a Minneapolis-St. Paul utility contractor. Metro’s four crews operate three Kobelco zero-swing excavators plus a big Kobelco SK160 excavator.
If they can drive a zero-swing excavator into a tight location, it can work there, according to brothers Dale and Chuck Cazett, owners of Metro General.
“We’re set up with good equipment and our crews are experienced,” says Dale. For standard 50-foot connections, Metro crews do two and three jobs on a typical day.
Very detailed coordination enables them to work with some of the bigger homebuilders in the Twin Cities. Many job requests come in by e-mail and are integrated into complex building schedules.
“One of the keys is that we’re able to react quickly,” Dale says. “We have a six-by-ten foot erasable calendar on a wall in our shop to help us plan two weeks ahead. We get a file started when a customer calls us. We call in the utility locates, get the permits and then we put it on the schedule.”
The Cazett brothers began working in utility construction in 1985. They purchased Metro General in 1995 from two brothers who were retiring. The deal included a pair of rubber-tired, tractor backhoes.
"They worked OK, but you could only swing from side to side,” Dale recalls. They purchased a Kobelco 150 track hoe in 1998. “It was so much faster, so much more efficient. It was nice because you could put the dirt behind, on both sides. And it was easier to get in and do the job.”
Their three zero-tail swing excavators today include the two Kobelco 135SRs and a Kobelco 70SR. “These machines range around 1,200 operating hours a year,” he says. “They’re working every day.”
The 70SR is especially handy for tight areas and small jobs. Dale needed it for one of his first jobs in January 2005. The job was on a small lot near downtown Minneapolis.
“This house was being built on a side bank, probably 30 feet higher than the road. The road was almost at a 45-degree angle to the house. We got the machine up there, and used the blade to stabilize it as we came down the bank, digging in the sewer and water hookup,” he says.
“It was perfect for the job because there was not a lot of room. With the zero tail swing, wherever you can drive you can swing and work.”
The SR70 does a lot of rural septic systems, too, including drain fields and tank installation.
“Many of these lots are wooded, so you need a smaller machine in there. That SR70 works perfectly. With the zero tail swing, you don’t have any overhang. It’s fast, and the hydraulics are super fast. You can put on a good-sized 36-inch bucket. It has rubber tracks, so you can walk in over curbs and driveways that are already in place.”
Metro’s larger 135SR excavators have become the company’s primary workhorses.
“To me, the 135SR is a unique machine,” Dale says. “You don’t have to worry about the overhang of the counterweight. Anywhere you can walk the machine into you can pretty much work. You can pull the boom up, so it spins inside the tracks. You lift it straight up in the air, turn and swing, but that’s not all.
“To me, the hydraulics are so fast and so smooth it’s like reaching out there with your arm and taking a handful of dirt and putting it where you want it – that’s how smooth it is!”
For example, at least one of the 135SR excavators usually is at a townhouse project. A builder may have one townhouse with four to eight units only 20 feet away from a matching townhouse.
“When you’ve got a building on both sides, and only 15 or 20 feet where you can walk into, the 135SR is very convenient,” Dale says. “When an area is that tight, and a lot of them are, the 135SR is the only machine for the job.”
He’s tried machines of similar size from two other manufacturers. “For the price, and the quality of the machine, there was just no comparison,” he says.
Their biggest excavator, a 2003 Kobelco SK160, handles basement excavation for Metro and does the larger sewer and water jobs that often have deeper connections. It has more reach, and a bigger bucket, than the 135SR.
“Digging townhouses requires a lot of dirt moving,” Dale says. “When you have a six or eight-unit townhouse project, and you dig one big hole for the foundation, that’s a lot of dirt moving. The SK160’s got good hydraulic response and a bigger bucket, so it makes a job go that much faster.”
The Kobelco excavators have been reliable. His operators have preferred the Kobelco over other brands. Service from the Kobelco dealership has been good from the start.
He admits that, because they are so busy, keeping the service up to date can be a challenge. The dealership always seems to have a spare unit available.
“In predicaments, I’ve used a (spare) machine if I’ve had to get one in for service – there’s not too many days that our machines aren’t working. Our dealer has been a good partner.”