A Colorado Springs concrete contractor said that he has tripled production with the Power Curber 5500-B that he purchased.

“We figure on one particular day, we run as much sidewalk as it would take four days to do by hand,” said Kevin Klein, who is in business with his dad, Art. Art C. Klein Construction is the parent company of Peak Concrete Enterprises. Previously, Peak had hand formed its curb work or subbed it out.

The 5500-B has increased production and quality of the sidewalks, and is helping tremendously with the work schedule, Kevin said.

It’s also helping with labor costs, he added, requiring one or two people fewer on the crew. “It’s very hard to find real good people,” Kevin said.

The 5500-B was the right choice for the kind of work Peak Concrete Enterprises does. They don’t do major developments and didn’t feel the need for a larger machine.

The 5500-B weighs some 8,000 lbs. (3,625 kg) less and is 16 in. (40.6 cm) shorter than the 5700-B. It’s particularly effective for smaller jobs that had previously been done by hand.

“I noticed that the Power Curber looked smaller, yet could do a lot,” he said. “I talked to competitive owners and they were going to Power Curbers. You guys are definitely on top of it. There is no question that Power Curbers was the way to go.”

After mastering curb and gutter with the machine, the opportunity came to do 5-ft. (1.5 m) sidewalk. Kevin worked with his dealer, Inter Mountain Equipment Service. “The 5500 did a wonderful job with the sidewalk,” Kevin said. He found Inter Mountain to have a lot of good insight into machine troubleshooting.

Inter Mountain is a Power Curber dealership, working only with slipform machinery.

“I actually thought there would be more break-in time.” Kevin said of the training he and his crew underwent. No one at Peak had previous experience. “It’s gone better than I expected,” Kevin said. “With the Power Curber, it was a lot easier to train someone in the operator position than I thought it would be.”

Peak’s machine operator, Wilbur Raven, has caught on quickly. “We threw a lot at him at once — curb and gutter, tight radius and then sidewalk,” said Kevin. The crew has mastered the most difficult radius, 2 ft. (60 cm).

Kevin expects his company to definitely increase capacity “now that we’ve got the confidence to see what we can do.”

The family-operated company has been in business for 17 years.

(Reprinted from “Power Curber Profiles” with permission from Power Curbers Inc.)

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