Combining more than sixty-five years of joint experience within the ‘Asphalt’ industry, Iain Saunders and Rob Darlington decided to join forces to establish their new venture together just seventeen months ago. “Rob has years of experience working for several large contractors from the ground up, from working in paving gangs to managing fleets of equipment and teams of men, whilst my background is on the quarrying side - selling asphalt, aggregates and quantity surveying,” explains co-Director, Iain Saunders. “Bringing our extensive experience has got Asphalt Surfacing off to a fantastic start and we’re continuing to build our portfolio of regular customers operating from two offices – one in Dursley in Gloucestershire, the other in Llantrisant, South Wales.” “We employ a team of twelve men full time and, until now, we’ve hired in wheeled pavers to cover our contracts. With Rob’s own experience of operating ABG and Volvo pavers and the preference of our crews, our collective choice has always been for Volvos! The volume of work we are now undertaking from both regular and new clients, has made commercial sense to purchase our very first paver and it just had to be the Volvo P6870C,” he adds. The P6870C is powered by a Volvo D6 Stage-IIIB compliant 175hp engine. At its heart is the EPM II feature – an electronic paver management system which incorporates a ‘Settings Management’ feature allowing the operator to store up to twelve parameter settings for major functions such as screed temperature, tamping & vibrating, conveyor, auger & paving speeds.
The machine has other unique features such as ‘Smart Power’
offering optimum power for the job together with 6x6 ‘Smart Drive’ technology for unparalleled continuous independent traction control over all six wheels. Even on the most difficult bases, tractive forces are automatically adjusted according to the weight of material in the machine’s 12-tonne capacity hopper. Screed performance is a distinct feature on Volvo pavers. The P6870C has a variable screed width of between 2.5 and 5 metres in standard configuration but can be fitted with optional extensions to provide a generous width of 9 metres. The machine has a theoretical output of up to 700 tonnes per hour at varying screed widths and depths.
Also, it demonstrates a high degree of manoeuvrability, thanks to the ‘Active Steering’ feature with an inside turning radius of just 2.5 metres. “I’m very impressed with the machine’s ability to turn on a sixpence,” says Rob Darlington. “It’s really proving to be an optimum paving machine for us working in confined areas, yet still has a significant production output for road surfacing contracts,“ adding that the machine can be doing just 24 tonnes up to 400 tonnes in a day’s shift. “It’s all about getting the job appraised correctly, delivering a quality service to our clients and making a reasonable margin at the end of the day.”
“Another critical factor is the level of support when we need it and certainly our experience to date with SMT’s mobile engineer, Simon Ford, has been exemplary. When we’ve had the odd issue, Simon is there right away and getting it sorted.
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