The Bedfordshire-based groundworks and civil engineering contractor has purchased four of the 17-tonne excavators, to initially work on various new housing schemes in the south Midlands. Its clients include Bloor Homes, Bellway and Crest Nicholson.
“We currently operate a fleet of over 70 JCB excavators, mostly the 20-tonne JS220 and 13-tonne JS130,” said ECL director and co-owner Sean Hoare. “With an increase in the number groundworks contracts from existing customers, we were looking to fulfil this demand by expanding our fleet further. We specifically were looking for a mid-sized excavator in the 13-20 tonne range as we have found that, for housing groundworks contracts, the 20-tonne excavators are a bit too big to easily manoeuvre around a compact site, while the 13-tonne machines are too small to carry out works such as pulling drag boxes for drainage work”.
He added: “We researched the marketplace and we were surprised by how few excavators were available in this weight range, so when we discovered that Komatsu was introducing the 17-tonne PC170LC-10, we made contact with [dealer] Marubeni-Komatsu Ltd to find out further details.”
As well as the four 17-tonners, ECL also ordered a PC210LC-8 excavator and a PC160LC-8 excavator.
“These are the first Komatsu machines that we have run and since the machines were delivered we have been pleased with their performance, fuel consumption and reliability,” Mr Hoare said. “The PC170LC-10’s have been powerful enough to do the jobs required, whilst the shorter back end of the excavator has made them ideal for housing construction projects, where typically we handle all the infrastructure and ground works up to floor slab.”
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