Diverse Property Services has in a short time experienced strong growth, with the Mudgee-based tree services and vegetation management specialist having swiftly built both its equipment fleet and the scope of its services since its establishment in 2018, enabling it to carve out a strong niche in the local market.
Second-generation arborist Chris Jarvis was able to draw on significant industry experience in getting the business off
the ground, having originally started out working for his father’s Central Coast-based company Treecorp Solutions in 2006 as a general labourer and groundsman.
“I did my time on the ground, as everyone else does, and from there moved into small- scale climbing work, and after moved up into management, becoming the operations manager,” he told AA.
“I decided to go out on my own after moving to Mudgee. I started the business, originally doing small-scale tree and garden maintenance work, and quickly progressing to doing some contract climbing and seeing there is a market here for larger-scale work.”
This in turn led to Chris buying a truck and chipper, and also taking on a few employees, with DPS having since grown to become responsible for the majority of the tree work carried out in the Mid-Western Regional Council area.
GMT050 TTC grapple saw significantly reduces project work times
Chris told AA that he has always maintained a strong interest in “mechanised arb”, closely following developments in the European and American markets in seeking to integrate new technologies at a local level and ultimately make his work processes more efficient.
With DPS taking on increasingly extensive and demanding project work, he had eventually made the decision to add GMT Equipment’s GMT050 TTC grapple saw to his equipment fleet, and the business hasn’t looked back since.
“After winning a couple of big contracts, and really struggling to get climbers, and struggling to take on the workload myself, I decided to pull the trigger, and we bought the GMT050 TTC and a Doosan wheel excavator,” he said.
“With the help of our hydraulics expert in town, we put it all together, and now we do large-scale roadside works.”
Chris explained that the GMT050 TTC has fundamentally changed the way DPS goes about its daily operations, enabling it to complete larger, more involved projects in significantly shorter time frames.
“Before we purchased the GMT050 TTC, we were running two climbers on a standard roadside job, and the job would be taking twice as long,” he commented.
“Now, I just operate the machine from the cab myself, and I have one or two ground workers who operate a remote-controlled chipper, and we do it in half the time with pretty well zero climbing.”
Less need for climbers: Projects less labour-intensive
Chris told AA that since adding the GMT050 TTC to its equipment fleet earlier this year, there has been close to a 60 per cent decrease in DPS’s climbing operations, with it being very rare that climbers are now required for roadside project work.
Unlike large forestry-specific attachments, the GMT050 TTC is designed to cut smaller branches or trunk sections from every direction (it has minimum gripping diameter of 8cm and maximum single cut diameter of 50cm), thanks to its flexible, rotating attachment to the boom.
Trunk sections up to 72cm diameter can also be removed by rotating the grapple saw around to cut from both sides.
This makes it particularly suitable for arborists and improves operator visibility, while smaller pieces require less processing space on the ground and are much easier to handle, often capable of being directly transferred to a chipper or truck.
Meanwhile, the Total Tree Control (TTC) system enables operators to keep or hold a tree section in position, via a unique tilt and swing blocking feature only found on GMT Equipment grapples.
“The GMT050 TTC is extremely easy to learn to operate over a short period of time and is very versatile,” Chris said.
“It’s got so many points of articulation, and the rotation and the way the tilt function works means you can get the saw in behind vertical branches, as opposed to a normal grapple saw, where you can only work directly in front of you.”
Chris said that on an average day the GMT050 TTC is racking up around 10 hours of operations, with it making projects much less labour-intensive, paving the way for safety benefits and an improved crew mindset.
“I can split guys up to do another job because I don’t need that much man-power while it’s on site,” he said.
“Another thing it does, is when there are trees that have fallen by the roadside, we eliminate as much chainsaw use as possible, because it is able to reach out, cut the material and then feed it directly into the chipper.”
For more information on Diverse Property Services call Chris on 0427 559 622 or email dpsmudgee@gmail.com. For further details about the GMT grapple saws visit forestcentre.com.au/tree-care or go to www.gmt-equipment.com