When the homes at a development called “The Legends at Half Hollow,” in Melville, NY, are completed, there’ll be nothing “hollow” or “half-way” about them. In fact, this upscale neighborhood will feature houses beginning at $1.5 million without any landscapes or hardscapes.
Quintal Inc., a 20-year-old light excavation and full service landscaping company based in Bay Shore, NY, has been contracted by the developer to provide all pre-closing landscaping for 46 units, with each sitting on one- to two-acre lots. Quintal is installing $100,000 to $500,000 landscapes, poolscapes and hardscapes and expects to be on this project for the next two years, while balancing its time among five other substantial jobs in the New York City and Long Island area.
Quintal is well equipped to handle all this work, though. The company boasts a sizable iron inventory, with more than 50 pieces of earthmoving equipment and trucks.
On the “Legends” project, however, Quintal needed to augment its inventory with two Takeuchi tracked loaders — a TL130 and TL150 — purchased from All Island Equipment, of West Babylon, NY. “All Island does not forget you after a purchase. With All Island Equipment, we always receive the best service after the sale,” explained Anthony Quintal Jr.
So far, the Takeuchis are paying huge dividends.
“The Takeuchi moves very large amounts of dirt very quickly,” said Bill Thompson, site superintendent of Quintal Inc., “much faster than any of the skid steers in our fleet. I particularly like the two-speed transmission. Low, for when we’re pushing dirt and high, when we want to get from point ’A’ to point ’B’ as quickly as possible.”
According to Thompson, the Takeuchi tracked loaders are getting the job done two to three times more quickly than Quintal’s traditional skid steers would when making the cuts for driveways.
“With its power and rubber track system, we’re able to push dirt with the Takeuchi like you would with a small dozer and with the Takeuchi’s superior boom height and reach, we’re able to stack materials higher than we were able do before,” Thompson said. “As everybody knows, this spring was extremely wet and we had no wiggle room at all with our deadlines. The only way we got the jobs completed was with the Takeuchis because they could still work on days when our other machines couldn’t move. The track system creates such a low PSI that the Takeuchi can work in extremely wet conditions.”
And with the scope and stringent deadlines that define the Legends at Half Hollow project, operator fatigue must be addressed, if not avoided all together. Furthermore, when homes go for $1.5 million, the buyers expect everything to be perfect, right down to the patios and driveways. But, according to Thompson, all these potential pitfalls won’t happen.
“Our Takeuchi TL150 is very operator-friendly. The cab is huge, it operates with joystick controls, you can run this machine all day long and have very little operator fatigue,” he explained. “Another advantage to the Takeuchis is that the track system will allow the machine to cross sensitive areas without doing any damage. Many of the homes in the development are installing elaborate paver brick driveways and patios and high-end curbing. With the Takeuchis we can cross these areas and be assured that there’ll be no damages.”
Quintal’s smaller TL130 also has proven key on the Legends project. “In tight spots where finesse moves are necessary, the TL130 is invaluable to us,” Thompson said.
Even the fast approaching winter (and on Long Island, that means extremely windy, bitter cold days) shouldn’t pose the slightest threat to meeting the project’s deadlines. “We’ve equipped both of our Takeuchis with fully enclosed cabs that are heated to keep our operators completely protected from the weather on those nasty days,” Thompson said, with a smile.
With Quintal’s experience, Takeuchis and the rest of its fleet of equipment, the Legends at Half Hollow should be filling up to capacity by 2005. Probably, the most difficult part of the entire project remains — finding $1.5 million to move in.
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