At the core of its intent, compact construction equipment was designed to be productive in close environments, whether that means a jobsite crowded with personnel, one in which obstacles are present, or a site where the overall work area is simply limited in size. For Gilbert, Arizona-based C&R Excavating, Inc., the latter is almost always the case. The company excels at excavating for residential swimming pool installations and, because many of those pools are installed in smaller back yards, larger equipment is often impossible to use on the site. However, a couple of small—but highly productive—compact excavators have proven very efficient at addressing that challenge. The net result of that effort? C&R is one of the most sought-after excavation specialists for that type of work in the Phoenix area.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
C&R Excavation was formed in 1986 by Connie & Rick Kendall who, like a large part of the Arizona population, moved to escape the winters up north, according to Rick Kendall.
“We are originally from Western New York—first Buffalo and later Rochester,” he says. “When we moved the family down here in 1978, Connie and I started a silk-screening business which, in addition to Connie’s salary as an RN, helped us get by while our sons, Mark and Brandon, attended Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Seeing more potential in meeting people’s outdoor/recreational needs, I started a pool cleanup business.”
To the uninitiated, a pool cleanup is one of the final steps in the swimming pool installation process. That overall process first includes excavation, followed by plumbing, steel, electrical, shotcrete, deck, tile, cleanup, and then finish.
“During all this activity, the yard becomes a mess, with everyone digging, and various trades coming in and out,” says Mark Kendall. “So companies, like my Dad’s at the time, come in and clean things up. They will scrape the inside of the pool to remove any jagged surfaces, wash it down, pump out the water, remove all the trash and other solids, then grade out the yard so that it looks like the pool just fell down out of the sky. Brandon and I would always come home on breaks from school to help him out.”
NEW DIRECTION
While Brandon and Mark Kendall enjoyed working in their father’s cleanup business, when they relocated to the Phoenix area and worked with him full-time for a while, they felt the business needed to head in a different direction.
“Cleanup is very manual labor-intensive; we wanted to get into the excavation part of the pool installation process,” says Mark Kendall. “So, in 1999, my Dad sold us C&R, we purchased some equipment to begin digging pools, and that’s been our focus ever since. We grew to as many as 26 employees and things were looking great until the economy tanked in 2008 and we had to let almost everyone else go.”
With just the three of them digging and Mark’s wife Jennifer handling the books, C&R struggled to keep the business afloat during the recession, a period when one install a week (versus five or six in busy times) was common. Eventually, however, things started to turn around, homebuilding in the area picked up once again, and when C&R was looking to replace some of their equipment to handle that growth, they decided to make a change in that area as well.
Featured Image: On a recent project in Gilbert, Arizona, working as a subcontractor to the Alexon Design Group, C&R excavated for a 44-foot long and 20-foot wide pool.
Above: C&R Excavation added the Kubota KX057 to its fleet to handle the excavation needs.
SUDDENLY SOLID
Over the years, Brandon Kendall had heard great things from fellow contractors about the performance of Kubota equipment but had been put off by the price disparity between Kubota and other manufacturers—back then a difference of about $10,000 in some cases.
“However, around 2011 or so, other manufacturers’ prices kept inching upward while Kubota’s held steady,” he says. “Suddenly the numbers were working in our favor, so we met with Kenny Palmer from the Mesa branch of Bingham Equipment to discuss buying a Kubota KX41-3 mini excavator. We made the purchase and followed it up with the addition of a KX057 a couple years later. From an equipment standpoint, those were two of the best moves we’ve made as a company. At only 39-inches wide—with the tracks pulled in—that KX41 will fit through a single gate opening which is, for most of the work we do, the only access we have to a back yard. Without that machine we wouldn’t be able to do our work as efficiently as we do it.”
BIG DIPPER
On a recent project in Gilbert, Arizona, working as a subcontractor to the Alexon Design Group, C&R excavated for a pool that, at 44-foot long and 20-foot wide, was significantly larger than most traditional “play pools,” as those in the industry call them. For that job, the company used the KX057, equipped with a 36-inch wide, .5 cubic yard bucket to excavate for the 7 foot deep pool.
“Digging a pool of that size—nearly twice as large as a standard pool—means moving a lot of dirt,” says Brandon Kendall. “We would excavate, swivel around, and drop the soil. From there, Jackson, Mark’s son, would scoop it with a skid steer loader and take it to a waiting dump truck driven by my Dad. Doing that over and over, we filled about 15 dump truck loads by the time we were done.”
LEAN AND MEAN
The Kendalls have had a long-standing relationship with the team at Bingham Equipment. “Kenny Palmer and Bingham have really taken care of us,” says Mark Kendall. “They’ve provided what we’ve needed to get the job done.”
C&R’s business is now back to a point where they are doing roughly 200 pools a year, a breakneck pace for a company staffed as leanly as they are.
“We don’t get a lot of time off, and Saturdays are rarely our own anymore,” says Mark Kendall. “But we remember what the slowdown was like and feel we have to get at it while times are good. Luckily for us, we have a committed team and the equipment needed to make that happen.” ■
About the Author: Larry Trojak is president of Trojak Communications, a Minnesota-based marketing communications firm. He has written for the construction, recycling, demolition, scrap, and aggregate processing industries.
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Modern Contractor Solutions – June 2016
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