Specialty Rentals and Attachments Co. Inc. will soon have a new place to show off its equipment. Its 5,000-sq.-ft. facility, located in Winslow, N.J., will open in mid to late 2008.
Bob Harrell, owner of Specialty Rentals and Attachments, said his company “outgrew” its old location in Sicklerville, N.J.
“This new facility will be a bigger facility. [At our current location], we try to keep the noise down and we try to be courteous about what hours we work, because it’s in a residential area. At the new shop, we’re not going to have to worry about any of that,” said Harrell.
Specialty Rentals and Attachments tore down an old farmhouse to make room for the new facility and removed 15 trailer loads of debris from the site, using an excavator with a grapple attachment to load the trash and an excavator with a concrete pulverizer to break up concrete from the farmhouse.
“The town was upset because there was a big mess [on the property], so I’m going in and cleaning it up. I guess the town is glad. The mess got there from years of being behind a building. At one point someone gave the authority to dump gardening debris back there and people just took advantage of it and dumped all kinds of garbage.”
Harrell said Winslow Township has been very helpful in getting the facility off the ground.
“When I went to the township to get info, they gave me the straight scoop on the property — if it was going to have a problem based on location or the neighborhood it was in … When I was ready to buy, they sat me down and told me everything about how [the property] was zoned and what paperwork I needed to fill out.”
Harrell had plenty of equipment to build his new facility with. He hired two customers to help with the clearing and the foundation. So far Specialty Attachments’ employees have performed the other work themselves.
“We know how to do some of the construction. For anything big, we ask the experts,” he said.
Harrell said the new facility would not have been possible without help from his customers.
“I’ve had a lot of help from customers who have become friends. … If it wasn’t for them I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing.”
The new facility will have a staging area to display equipment. The company rents track loaders, off-road dump trucks, wheel loaders, excavators, hammers, grapples, shears, clamshell buckets, augers, concrete pulverizers and vibratory plate tampers.
“Clamshell buckets are hydraulic,” Harrell explained. “They open up and close for when you’re digging holes straight down and you can’t use a regular excavator bucket. … They use them for mostly pump stations so they can dig vertical without having to move the boom and the stick so much.”
His fleet is composed of Caterpillar and Komatsu machines.
“I have five machines that are Cat 318 and 320 excavators. They’re all legal load and they’re only 8 feet wide, in the 40,000-pound weight class. I can move them over bridges without overweight permits and that’s helped me out considerably.”
Specialty Rentals and Attachments’ shop foreman, Bill Sherwood, is excited about the new four-bay service area.
“He runs the shop for me,” said Harrell. “He can’t wait. It will be a nicer, cleaner operation to work out of. It will have up-to-date tooling and computer systems and an oil system. We won’t have drums of oil lying around. The oil will all be in tanks and be pumped right to the bay.”
Harrell believes his employees will benefit from the new facility more than his customers.
“I don’t think [the customers] really care as long as the equipment comes out in good condition, which it always does,” Harrell said.
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