It’s crunch time in the portable sanitation industry. By August, most of you have been grinding away for more than a month and won’t be able to slow down and take a breather until after Labor Day.
Of course there may be a few exceptions to this rule, like in parts of the Deep South, where special events come to a near-standstill with oppressive summer heat. But for the most part, this time of year brings lots of weekend special event work, early morning service runs to beat the heat and lots of long shifts to get to all of your construction customers.
I know the majority of you are keeping this kind of frantic summer schedule because of how difficult it is for me to reach any of you to talk about PRO or set up an interview for a future issue.
When I call a contractor’s phone anytime during the day, I am often greeted with a chuckle when I ask to speak to the owner. “Um, he’s out. He’ll be back at 8, er, make that 10 p.m. But then he’s heading back out at about 6 in the morning,’’ an office staffer will say. “Can he call you back, um, in a few months?’’
Last week I called a cell phone and the person on the other end had to turn off a vacuum pump to talk to me. This time of year, I often conduct phone interviews in the evening, when I know I’m not backing up a hardworking PRO’s service schedule.
I appreciate that so many of you take the time out of your busy summer to talk to me, making it possible for us to continue to bring information-packed issues of PRO to you all year long.
I hope you can set aside some time to thumb through this entire issue for news and views aimed at helping your business prosper. Here’s a pitch for several features I think you’ll enjoy reading over lunch, in the truck between service calls or as you’re nodding off to sleep in bed at night:
Restroom trailer specs
We reached out to manufacturers of restroom trailers to ask the questions you might ask regarding unit specifications, including construction standards, towing facts and tank capacities. Our aim was to provide you with a side-by-side comparison of the units you may be considering adding to your fleet. More and more, restroom trailers appear to be the upscale portable sanitation answer for your customers, so we felt it was appropriate to share important specifications with you. We begin sharing the information with you this month, starting with the most basic restroom trailers from a number of manufacturers.
On the same topic, we asked PROs in our Think Tank feature how they utilize restroom trailers for special event clients. What writer Mary Shafer found is that restroom trailers bring in new business from customers who demand an at-home quality restroom experience anywhere they go.
North to Alaska
For our PROfile story this month, writer Erik Gunn heads to the land of the midnight sun where Bill Hamilton of Tyler Services serves a tourist trade projected to bring more than a million visitors to the tiny port city of Ketchikan, Alaska. Imagine if your hometown had 15,000 people and that number doubled every week throughout the summer. Existing public restrooms certainly couldn’t handle increased need, creating a strong demand for portables.
Hamilton handles the demand himself. This crew of one places, services and maintains an inventory of 146 restrooms for a company that also rents a variety of equipment to the construction industry in Alaska.
Timely maintenance advice
You may think you’re too busy to keep up with truck maintenance this time of year, but as Truck Corner writers Bob Carlson and Jerry Kirkpatrick will tell you this month, there is no time where cutting corners should be allowed. The guys make their case for routine testing of the vacuum relief valve on every one of your service trucks. Neglect in this area can result in a vacuum tank collapse. Bob and Jerry see examples of collapses in their shop a few times a year, and they don’t want that fate to hit you. If you don’t know what a collapsed tank looks like, turn inside for a striking visual example of what the power of vacuum pressure can do.
PSAI committee reports
The Portable Sanitation Association International will provide PRO readers with “state of the committee’’ columns written by volunteers serving the industry group. In the first of such column, David Andres of the Image and Education Committee outlines progress on several initiatives, including a committee mission statement and exploring how the PSAI conducts panel and roundtable discussions.
