While they can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound or travel faster than a speeding bullet, innovative “super trucks” are definitely the heroes at Zoom Plumbing and Drain Service Inc. in Norristown, Pa.
“Our trucks have doubled or tripled our waterjetting business,” reports Jim Criniti, president of Zoom, which serves five counties in the Philadelphia area. He co-owns the business with his brother, Jason.
“Instead of doing one or two jobs a day, we can do four or five, because we’re able to bring all the equipment to a job instead of shuttling back and forth to the shop for additional equipment or supplies,” he says.
The trucks are unique because they carry a waterjet along with all the other standard tools and equipment Zoom technicians use on a daily basis. Before the trucks were developed, the only options were a waterjet truck that couldn’t carry any other equipment, or a tool truck that couldn’t carry a waterjet, Criniti notes.
Building a bridge
“Back in 2002, we started working with Nick Woodhead at US Jetting and Holton Woolard at Hackney to create a ‘super sewer truck,’ if you will, that would bridge that disconnect between the two pieces of equipment,” Criniti recalls.
The main challenge for US Jetting was to fit the waterjet and water tank into a limited amount of space at the front of the 14-foot-long Hackney truck body, next to the cab. At the same time, Hackney designers had to customize a standard truck design to accommodate the waterjet. The process took six to eight months, Criniti says.
Ultimately, US Jetting decided to use two narrower, taller 100-gallon water tanks instead of one 200-gallon tank, and place them at the rear of the truck. The jetter remained up front.
Initially, Criniti was encouraged to buy only one truck for starters. But he was so confident in the design that he ordered five right out of the gate, built out on a 2002 Hino FA17 chassis. Zoom now owns eight of the trucks in all, the last three built out on 2007 Isuzu NPR chassis.
“The only thing we tweaked from the first five trucks to the last three was replacing stainless-steel water tanks with plastic tanks,” Criniti points out.
Each truck is equipped with a mounted US Jetting 3010 jetter that delivers 3,000 psi at 10 gpm. Each unit also carries:
• Model 2001, 100 and 81 drain machines made by Spartan Tool LLC.
• A RIDGID SeeSnake color camera from Ridge Tool Co.
• A complete line of standard tools, such as a metal detector, plumbing supplies, smoke-testing equipment and Electric Eel cable machines.
Snappy, head-turning graphics designed by SignZoo in Sarasota, Fla., top it all off. The trucks provide a benefit to customers as well as Zoom, explains Paul Markley, a field supervisor.
“Just yesterday, I went to a home where the main line was backing up,” he says. “I did a video inspection and discovered the problem was tree roots. So I took care of the problem with the truck’s built-in, high-velocity jetter and moved on to several more jobs that day.”
Before the new trucks arrived, Markley noted, he wouldn’t have enjoyed that luxury. For starters, he wouldn’t have had the jetter along. And because it’s usually booked in advance for other jobs, he probably wouldn’t have been able to schedule a return visit with the jetter for several more days. By then, the frustrated customer probably would have called a competitor to do the work.
Furthermore, even if the jetter was available, Zoom covers such a wide area that technicians are usually an hour or more away from the shop. So it’s unlikely they could go back, pick up the jetter
and return the same day to finish the job.
“The truck is basically a one-stop shop; everything is at our fingertips,” Markley notes. “We can take care of a job from start to finish, which saves the customer — and our business — time and money.”
The cost of each truck was about $70,000, Criniti says. “The units are not a cheap investment, but the return is quite substantial,” he notes. “And they definitely help us provide better service to our customers, which is always our top priority.”
