Pavers to fill the gaps

Hastings Deering is working with Weiler to offer smaller pavers and transfer vehicles into local construction businesses in Australia.

Major road paving projects often call for larger machines able to cover wide sections accurately.

This same principle can be applied to smaller projects. Compact machines are often required in enclosed areas to fit onto small job sites, while producing the same attention to detail.

Traditionally, contractors on smaller paving jobs have produced asphalt work by hand. However, this can produce less accurate results as opposed to using a small machine, with quality often the essential difference for local companies to ensure a continuous project pipeline.

Hastings Deering, a distributor of parts and equipment to the construction industry, has supplied medium to large pavers and other machinery to the asphalt industry across Queensland and the Northern Territory for more than 85 years.

After discovering a gap in the industry for small pavers, Hastings Deering expanded its Weiler offerings from remixing transfer vehicles, road wideners and screeds to include Weiler’s range
of pavers.

Hastings Deering is one of the largest suppliers of Cat® machines to the Australian market. The Weiler and Caterpillar dealer agreements allow for the machines to complement each other and for machine parts to be easily transferable where possible.

Hastings Deering is consequently able to supply Weiler’s four new pavers, ranging in size, alongside the Cat pavers to cover the market. Ryan Van Den Broek, Sales Manager for road construction and infrastructure at Hastings Deering, says the Weiler pavers enable the company to round off its offerings in Australia.

“The Weiler pavers really fill the market gap for smaller pavers. This will enable accuracy for smaller businesses working on small sites and help them move away from manual work,” Mr. Van Den Broek says.

Weiler has created four new machines. These include the P385B, the largest paver of the group, the P195 which features a narrow design (1.6m), the P265 which enables a 4.4 metre maximum paving width and the P65, the smallest machine that still paves out to 3.4 metres.

Mr. Van Den Broek says the Weiler P-Series pavers are a lot shorter than the Cat models. All of the Weiler pavers are just under 1.8 metres in height.

“It comes up to just above shoulder height so it’s perfect for working in enclosed areas such as underground carparks where a larger paver would have difficulty fitting,” Mr. Van Den Broek says.

The P265 and the P65 were both created with a transport width of just under 2.5 metres. This ensures the machines adhere to Australian transport rules, which restrict machines over 2.5 metres in width from being transported during business hours.

“The smaller machines are capable of working on multiple projects per day so, to really get value for money, customers need to be capable of transporting these machines between work sites,” Mr. Van Den Broek says.

When it comes to safety, he says the Weiler machines have all of the basic features of the larger machines, with a simplistic design. Some of the safety features include electric screed and interlocks on certain functions to ensure correct and safe operation. The P65 is operated from the back by a single operator who can drive and change levels instantaneously, minimising the amount of people on site.

“We try to keep the machines simple while ensuring up-to-date safety features as they are suited to smaller companies. Many owners will be self-servicing these machines with support from Hastings Deering, so simplicity is key,” Mr. Van Den Brock says. .

One major benefit of providing the machines, he says, is supporting local contractors.

“This will enable small businesses to upgrade from manual laying techniques and allowing to get the accuracy they couldn’t have before because there is now a specific machine to assist them,” he says.

Mr. Van Den Broek says the reason Hastings Deering chose to offer the pavers was to help cater to the industry as a whole and not just the medium to larger players.

“One of the things I love about my job is being able to supply smaller companies with the equipment they need and watching them grow and transform their business. I think these machines will really help them do that.”