Hazell Bros was founded in 1944 by brothers Donald and Rowley Hazell as a transport business operating in Southern Tasmania. The company remains a family owned and operated business. Throughout its 75+ year history Hazell Bros has diversified its operations and business offerings to meet the prevailing economic conditions. Having expanded into Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, their core business functions today are Civil Construction, Quarries, Concrete, Construction Material Testing, Plant Hire, Transport, Asset Servicing and Industrial Services.
With a 700-strong team of employees Hazell Bros enjoys a longstanding reputation for reliability in providing service solutions and the supply of quality products and materials.
We were fortunate to chat with John Hogan from Hazell Bros. at the Hydro Tas project on Lake King William in Tasmania. John has over 40 years’ experience in the industry and has worked for and with Hazell Bros for many of those years. John is highly regarded in the industry and has worked as a superintendent on many projects and is very skilled in bulk excavations and getting the right machine for the job.
John talks us through the site conditions and where the Hidromek HMK500LCHD fits into their fleet.
“We are constructing intake and outlet portals as well as a tunnel for Hydro Tasmania. The material and ground is very wet and boggy and we have onsite, seven excavators including the 52 tonner (the HMK500LCHD), a loader, three dozers and seven 40 and 30 tonne ADTs. The machines are loading out 120,000m3 of very wet clay.’
John also mentions that they are about to start on the drilling and blasting of rock and will start loading out hard dolerite shortly. ‘It hasn’t been the easiest of work and it (the HMK500LCHD) has done a good job. We also have a HMK300LC here as well and have had no issues with that either’, said John. It is expected that the project will run until the end of summer next year.
John explains some of the reasoning behind purchasing the Hidromek excavators. ‘It was around pricing and the specifications.’ Hazell Bros. are very thorough in their approach to buying new equipment, reviewing service manuals and ensuring all specs are in line with their business requirements. John continues ‘We took into consideration the pricing which was near $300,000 below some of the other options and then looked at the breakout horsepower and compared cycle times.’ As they had experience owning Hidromek excavators and recognised the HMK500LCHD would also meet their requirements, the excavator was ordered and delivered early 2023.
Interestingly John said, ‘The cab design was not a factor in buying this machine, but certainly now the machine is here, it is. The operator has been in the industry a long time and is very impressed with the comfort of the machine. He would have sat in just about every brand out there and he definitely likes this one, so that is worth noting.’
The operators are also happy with the power as John states, ‘Rob, the operator is happy with the way it digs, happy with the power and it has been performing very well since it has been here.’ In regard to the maintenance of the machine John said ‘they really like the auto greaser, and servicing has been good, no complaints, actually we haven’t needed to do much work on it.’
When asked if he would recommend Hidromek, John didn’t hesitate, ‘Yes, I would recommend Hidromek, the operators like them and that makes a big difference. They find it very comfortable and easy to operate. Hidromek do what they said they would do and it is not down on power, with no breakdowns to speak of.’
John also had nothing but positive comments about Onetrak aftersales support and working with Rodney Onions. ‘We know Rodney really well, and he and Onetrak have worked in with us here at Hazell Bros.; but we wouldn’t expect anything else from Onetrak!’
