Tiltrotator Cuts Job Time in Half for Massachusetts Contractor

He left his full-time job at a sand and gravel company, got himself an excavator, a truck, and a trailer, and started AG Landscaping in Littleton, Massachusetts.

All he needed after that was an engcon. “I always looked-up to the big guys in the industry,” he said, “and everybody had tilt-rotators. They seemed to think it was the thing of the future, and being a one-man band, I thought a tilt-rotator would be the absolute next best purchase for me.”

Two years into his business, the self-described “one man band” got a trusty back-up musician an an engcon EC-204, and they’ve been making beautiful music ever since.

He currently has a Kubota U-35, and recently added a Kubota U-10 for it’s small footprint and easy maneuverability. “We found ourselves getting into really tight trenchwork,” he said, noting that he does a lot of utility trenching for plumbers and electrical companies.

Adding the engcon to a small excavator, “Is a gamechanger” he said, especially for a small crew. “Its ability to turn, move, rotate, you can do the job of two other guys most of the time. It’s a two-to-one equation,” he estimated, “One engcon to 2 guys…it’s crazy.”

“We’re all about minimal damage to existing landscapes, and we’re able to fit places many other machines can’t,” he said, noting that many of his residential projects have expensive trees and plantings that might be damaged by a larger excavator. “You’re able to navigate and dig with confidence.”

That work, over the last two years, has included slope-grading, digging around existing utilities, under walkways, across driveways. On an August afternoon in Sudbury, Massachusetts, Gentile was backfilling about 210 feet of trench dug for electrical conduit. The trench was as straight as anyone could hope to get it, and the disruption to the homeowner’s front yard was minimal.

“There’s a lot of money that goes into repairing landscapes,” he said. “We do a 250 foot utility trench and we had to spend another two or three thousand dollars on labor, time, and material to get that landscape back to where it was.”

The limited damage done using the engcon makes that effort and expense unnecessary. “With the engcon, he said, “We just need a couple of yards of loam and a rake.”

Most of the time, he said, he works alone “and being able to be so efficient, the customers are always impressed with how clean things are left. I feel like I’ve found a little niche of limited damage just due to the fact that I have such good control…with the engcon.”

“I’ve done it the old way with just an excavator” he said, “and it just makes a mess”

Repairing landscapes has become easier, but Gentile doesn’t really know about repairs to his engcon, because he hasn't had any. “I’ve got 550 hours on it now and I haven’t had a single problem,” he reported.

Gentile first got acquainted with the encon the way many people do, through watching other contractors on social media demonstrating their work and talking about the engcon. Then he tested one at the annual Batten Earthworks Construction Nights in Templeton, Mass.

“I saw the efficiency,” he remembered. “There is no other excavator attachment that is more efficient than this machine to help with clean-up, digging, loading, grading…you can do absolutely everything with this machine. Every job I go to, the machine comes,” he asserted.

Purchasing the engcon was a big decision, but he’s found that the engcon reduces the time spent on an average job by about half. That leads to a more competitive quote, less diesel fuel and exhaust, and the ability to accept more work.

“I’m very particular in the way things are done,” he said. “How they’re finished to the customer’s satisfaction. The extra time I have using the machine is used insuring that everybody’s happy and the job is correctly done and complete.”

His company’s slogan is “Where Passion and Quality Grow” and he has plenty of passion and insists on quality.

He also has a little slogan for his engcon, he calls it his “Labor Saver”.

“I will never own a machine without a tiltrotator,” he said “That’s for sure.”