It has been one year since Lester Contracting in Port Lavaca, Texas, entered and won Sage Oil Vac’s first-ever Lube Skid Sweepstakes contest which ran during the 2017 CONEXPO-CON/AGG show in Las Vegas.
As the sweepstakes winner, Lester Contracting was able to select the Sage Oil Vac lube skid model of their choice (they went with a 2H48-5 Heritage Lube skid) for a yearlong demo. Their 2H48-5 lube skid was also customized to their specifications — it featured a 120-gallon used oil tank, four 60-gallon fresh oil tanks, five 50-foot reels and a grease package all within an enclosed trailer.
“It has been awesome to have the opportunity to win something like this and learn that we’re able to do (large-scale fluid exchanges) on our own,” said Brandt Boone, Equipment Manager of Lester Contracting. “In terms of cost and time — we know (the 2H48-5) helps the company and we appreciate Sage giving us this opportunity.”
Lester Contracting has served the surrounding areas of South Texas as a civil contractor since 1959. Their primary services include dirt work and utilities, such as water and sewer.
“Our company is made up of mainly Caterpillar equipment from backhoes to excavators, wheel loaders and dozers,” Boone said. “We have probably 60-70 pieces of Caterpillar equipment. We also have a fleet of trucks — Mack trucks, dump trucks and a few 18-wheeler belly dump trucks.”
Before Lester Contracting received their demo skid from Sage, their mechanic team did most of the smaller preventative maintenance jobs in-house at their facilities. The larger scale PM’s, that occurred every 2,000 to 6,000 hours needed equipment with much larger fluid capacities than the company could handle. As a result, those PM’s had to be outsourced to Caterpillar to complete.
“I saw the cost of (outsourcing) was really adding up and I wanted to find a way to reduce that cost and take care of it in-house with our guys,” Boone said. “(With the 2H48-5) my mechanics are able to do those large-scale PM’s, something we weren’t able to do before.”
Now that the demo year is up, Boone says they plan on purchasing the 2H48-5 because it not only “makes sense” to keep it, but his team enjoys the efficiency of the system. All Sage Oil Vac skid models feature Sage’s signature pump-free fluid exchange technology which use compressed air to build vacuum pressure to move fluids to and from tanks. Fresh oils and fluids can be vacuumed at a rate of up to 10-15 gallons per minute (gpm). Removing pumps from the equation means fewer maintenance problems and a lower cost of ownership.
“The guys really like it,” Boone said. “They work together to get the oil change done and (the 2H48-5) is quick, hassle-free and clean — I like that it’s clean with no spillage. It’s an efficient system and that’s what they appreciated about it.”
Sage equipment uses clean, sealed tanks and an enclosed vacuum system to significantly reduce the possibility of the fresh fluid contamination. This configuration also protects the operator and the environment as tanks are not vented to the atmosphere and spillage is reduced and localized.
Boone also said the enclosed trailer option made the 2H48-5 very portable so they could travel from jobsite to jobsite with ease.
“It’s been great. I’ve been able to observe the mechanical team a couple times on oil changes (with the Sage skid) and they make it look really easy whenever they’re going through the motions of completing an oil change.” Boone said. “I just think it’s really quick, easy and clean; and I’m sure it saves us time versus having somebody else come in and do it.”
Are you ready to change with Sage? Contact us or your local dealer.
