A waterjetter can serve as a tidy profit center and open up new markets and revenue streams. But just buying a jetter doesn’t guarantee success. To succeed, contractors rely on a variety of strategies: investing in reliable equipment, hiring good operators, providing comprehensive training and keeping up with advancing technology. Here’s what a few contractors say about making their jetting operations successful.
“We’ve been providing waterjetting service for seven years,” says Tim Pike, owner of Pike’s Plumbing & Gas in Birmingham, Ala. “Good equipment is the key to our success. No matter how much advertising you have, or how skilled you are, you can’t do the job without proper, dependable equipment.
“We use a jetter made by US Jetting (4,000 psi/18 gpm) to clean storm drains, pool drains, larger yard drains and things like that. We weren’t doing that kind of work before, and it greatly increased our productivity. And once you fix the drainage problem, it opens the door to get a foot in for other plumbing work.
“For example, in downtown Birmingham, we were asked to jet a main sewer line because another plumber didn’t have the equipment to do it. When we finished, they asked us to do all their work, since we had the right equipment. This happened about two years ago and provided about $200,000 worth of business for us.
“We had small mini-jetters and cable machines before now to do residential and small commercial lines, but it was a battle because we didn’t have the capability to go out and do larger lines. We didn’t have something that someone else didn’t have. We went with a bigger jetter because at the time, very few other people had them. I had other plumbers calling me to help them out, so it opened the door to other business. It really differentiates me from competitors.
“Using a camera with the jetter has been a big plus, too, because you can actually show the customer why they’re having a problem. You can actually sell them a repair because there’s proof that a legitimate problem exists. They know you’re not just trying to sell them something.
“We use the phone book for marketing, but word-of-mouth is our biggest marketing tool. We thought about using brochures, but word got out so fast that we didn’t have to. Word-of-mouth is the best advertising because you don’t have to pay for it.”
“We’re successful because we have good men and good equipment,” says Arland Hilyer, owner and manager of ATC Services in Millbrook, Ala. “When we hire guys, we use a screening process and a thorough background check. Most of the guys I hire I’ve had relationships with before they come to work for me. You bump into guys here and there while they’re working for other companies.
“Good equipment is very important – one of the key assets for our business. With top equipment, you can provide better service and better quality of work than other companies that don’t spend money on good equipment. I run the kind of equipment we run to avoid breakdowns. We use jetters from US Jetting and high-pressure equipment from Jetstream of Houston.
“Minimizing downtime is very important. If you have downtime, you’re pulling equipment from somewhere else to take care of a problem. That’s why I buy newer equipment, so I’m not using worn-out, breakdown-prone equipment. If you’ve got it running, it’s making money. If it’s broken down, it’s not making you any money.
“In addition, it looks better when you pull up on a job with nice-looking equipment. It makes a big difference. If you pull up on a job for a new client and you’ve got equipment that looks like junk, you’re not making a very good impression. You pull up with something nice, and you do a great job, chances are they’ll call you back.
“We work with a lot of industrial companies, paper mills and the like, where uptime is critical. When they have shutdowns for eight or 10 hours to do maintenance work – clean tanks or waterblast heat exchangers, for instance – you’ve got a certain amount of time to get in and get it done. And if you don’t, it doesn’t look good.”
“Productivity is the key to our success,” notes Brad Dutruch, vice president of Compliance EnviroSystems LLC in Baton Rouge, La. “We do 100 percent municipal sewage system work, cleaning and televising. We spend a lot of time trying to be efficient.
“We invest a lot in training. We make sure our operators understand the difference between pressure versus flow and how to select the right nozzle. We also teach them how to make sure the jets are at the right angle on the nozzle to handle the different kinds of debris in a pipe, as well as different pipe materials.
“Sometimes representatives from companies come in to train them, but we do a lot of it ourselves with senior-level guys. We have some guys who focus 100 percent of their time on training operators.
“Some of our people have been cleaning for more than 25 or 30 years. For more difficult pipes, we pair them with new operators to bring them up to speed. There are so many different issues you can run into: access, water availability, different pipe materials, different debris levels, and whether you can bypass or not bypass.
“Keeping up with technology also ensures our success. That’s why we attend the Pumper & Cleaner Environmental Expo International. We go every year – all the new technology is there. We try to stay on the cutting edge. We spend a lot of time with vendors because there are a lot of new mousetraps out there every year.
“It’s amazing how much the technology has changed in the last 14 years. In jetters alone, there are many different nozzles you can use. Being able to use reclaimed water, or being able to filter water from the sewer system without using hydrant water – that’s a big deal when you’re cleaning a 54-inch interceptor that’s half full.
“The reliability of equipment is much better today, too. Our downtime has significantly decreased due to the better products out there. We have to keep making capital investments. We have to stay on the cutting edge or competition will pass us up.”
