How One Truck Streamlined Construction Equipment Maintenance

When Doug Holmes started his construction business in Lubbock, Texas, all his crew needed to finish construction equipment maintenance was a pickup truck with diesel tank in the back. Ten years and 75 pieces of equipment later, that pickup truck just wasn’t cutting it for the Doug Holmes Construction fleet. Even adding more pickups didn’t help. Holmes and his crew needed a new solution for efficient fuel and service — and they found it with a Sage Oil Vac Class 7 Fuel/Lube Body.

“When it showed up, it was every bit as good as we’d hoped it would be.”

– Doug Holmes, President of Doug Holmes Construction

Servicing heavy equipment out of a pickup

The Doug Holmes Construction crew works on projects across West Texas, from new construction to road construction. Their specialties include dirt work, concrete and asphalt. According to Holmes, there’s plenty of work to go around in Lubbock and the surrounding areas.

With construction work comes the need for heavy equipment — and with heavy equipment comes maintenance needs. In the beginning, Holmes’ team was able to fuel and service equipment out of a pickup. Then a fleet of pickups. After a while, even that wasn’t enough. Today, they need to move up to 800 gallons of fuel daily.

“We started out being a small business and as our business needs grew, we outgrew the ability to service and fuel our equipment,” Holmes said.

Holmes knew they needed something different to get the job done. In every other part of the business, state-of-the-art equipment and technology were helping Holmes and his crew get an edge over the competition. It was time to bring the fuel and maintenance equipment up to speed.

The search began at CONEXPO 2020. Holmes and his son — who works for the family business — were on the lookout for a truck that could help streamline maintenance. After walking the massive show floor and connecting with different brands, they found a Class 7 FL7120S Fuel/Lube Body from Sage Oil Vac to be the best fit.

Simplifying construction equipment maintenance

The difference between their old setup and the new setup was clear as soon as the new Class 7 work truck arrived on site.

“When it showed up, it was every bit as good as we’d hoped it would be,” Holmes said. “We were really excited to be able to expand the ability to grow and to make life much easier than what we had been dealing with for the last few years.”

Before adding their Sage Oil Vac truck, it took three workers to keep up with fuel and service demands across the fleet. With the new addition, one person can maintain the fleet. Today, that’s Nick Balderama. The service tech for Doug Holmes Construction is out in the field every day with the Class 7 truck.

“There’s never a minute that I’m not busy throughout the day working here,” Balderama said. “This truck really helps me get a lot done each day because it has all of the fluids that I could possibly need.”

Outfitted with a 1,000-gallon diesel tank and five product tanks, the Class 7 Fuel/Lube Body can handle everything from DEF to hydraulic oil. In fact, it includes a 60-gallon DEF tank. That helps Balderama be more productive without frequent trips to the shop. But it’s not just the capacity of the vehicle that keeps things moving efficiently. The size of the truck offers an advantage too. Redesigned to include a shorter tank and wheelbase, the Class 7 Fuel/Lube Body helps crews like Doug Holmes Construction navigate jobsites.

“With this truck, I can actually roll right up to wherever I need to be to service a piece of equipment, whereas if it were a little bit larger, sometimes I would have to just post up somewhere and let that equipment come to me,” Balderama said.

Service beyond the sale

When Holmes selected Sage Oil Vac equipment to help streamline construction equipment maintenance, he found a partner invested in keeping their mobile lube equipment up and running.

“They have been extremely easy to work with. Anytime that we have a problem, they take it to heart. They get us stuff as quickly as we can,” Holmes said. “They know that we’re running one big truck that services a whole lot of equipment and they’ve been able to keep our uptime running, and they’ve made life very smooth and easy for us for the last two years.”

Learn more about the Class 7 truck Doug Holmes Construction trusts to keep their operation ahead of the game.