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Dave Olson

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Posts posted by Dave Olson

  3. Posted · Report reply

    Sometimes we do Government type work! :lgcold:

    Last week had my guys doing stuff around the house.

    Today we reinstalled a head on one of my old tractors. The tractor is 77 years old and we've got it running like a youngster!

    This is a picture of the tractorsitting on this flatbed truck. Last year we worked on the engine of this truck. The year before we worked on the body of the truck. :lgmoneyey

    Dave Olson

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  5. Posted · Report reply

    My office is in my house. My commute is 14 steps from the easy chair upstairs! My shops are about 6 blocks from my house.

    We have a 1900 sq ft shop for our equipment. It is insulated, 14" overhead door and 16" eves. Also has sky lights. We use infrared heaters in the back of our trucks. K1 heaters when we are working in the shop. Has a bathroom and we have hooked up so we can fill our water tanks before we leave on a job.

    We have a second building a couple blocks from the other one that is about 1100 sq ft. Keep mainly toys here but at times it is an overflow for the other shop. I bought a container a couple years ago and use it for our water blaster and my old White truck.

    We built a storage room out of 2x12's and used the walls for shelves. Wrapped it in plastic so we can keep our chemicals warm. Use florecent lights inside.

    All of our equipment is stored inside except my Old Dodge and a couple flatbed trailers.

    Dave Olson

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  10. Posted · Report reply

    Hello Alan,

    Here is a picture of some of the Green Stuff we have around here! Corn and soybeans. I think you were refering to a different kind of green stuff :-)

    Have a Great 4th of July.

    I took this picture last year when I had the company car out on the 4th.

    Dave Olson

  16. Posted · Report reply

    Originally posted by beyoungsr

    Tony,

    The dreaded Wants and Needs.

    We do have to be realistic don't we.

    Used it many times to keep myself on course!

    It is going to be sunny and in the upper 40's tomorrow! I want/need to take the company car for a ride ;) Sometimes I'am realistic:D sometimes I'm not!:)

    For us here in East-Central Illinois it really feels like Spring! And yes I use it many times to keep myself on course.

    May need to putt around on a tractor or two, too! :D

    Dave Olson

  19. Posted · Report reply

    Hello beyoungsr,

    Thanks for your kind words. You know you really don’t need to envy my equipment. You don’t even need money just good credit! :-) And you can build your own, or buy mine and I’ll build another one! :-)

    Seriously, it has taken many years of planning and spending to get to this stage. And even though I’ve assembled it (paid for it) it can still Wow me when I see it out working. It has and still does a terrific job for us.

    Thanks again for your kind words about out equipment,

    Dave Olson

  20. Posted · Report reply

    Hello Scott,

    We need the 1000 gallons on many of our jobs, but of course not all. We have to equip ourselves for the worst-case scenario! This means water as well as power. We do not use well water so we must bring our own.

    Our customers understand because they have problems with their own equipment because of their water!

    As far as needing a new truck, we only have about 85,000 miles on our Red. It’s good for many years yet.

    As far as what I drive, I’ve had Suburban’s for the last 15 years or so. This is a picture of my current one. It is a ’95. I bought it used, $11,500 four years ago. By some it would be considered pretty plain, but it fits my needs real well. I can haul supplies or people, or some of both. It currently has 205,000 miles on it and still going good! Knock on wood!

    Took this picture of it today. Yeah, it is dirty. That’s ice under it parked next to our shop! We hope to be able to clean some fleets tomorrow. It’s been 6 weeks since we have been able to go out and do fleets!

    Dave Olson

  21. Posted · Report reply

    Hello Scott,

    Specifications were the force behind my selection of a replacement chassis. Needed to stay under 26,000 GVWR so my technicians aren’t required to have a CDL. A heavy front axle so we can carry our water tanks in the front of our van bodies. And be able to maintain interstate speeds when fully loaded.

    I first looked at International Harvester. They would not build me a chassis with an 11,000-pound front axle and keep the GVWR under 26,000! I kept checking around the other nametags and finally found a salesman that understood what I was looking for, he was a Kenworth, Freightliner, GMC salesman. I even had other GMC sales people say, “You can’t do that!” These chassis have 19,000 pound rear axles with 23,000 suspensions. 80,000 pound rated and reinforced frame rails. Both trucks carry 1000-gallon water tanks. The Red carries about 12,000 pounds in the 1st 4 feet of the box and the White carries a little over 8,000 pounds in the front of the box.

    The gas engines 427 in the Red and 454 in the White both do a fine job for us. These are just basic trucks, but do have air conditioning and AM/FM. Bought the Red in the fall of ’97 and the White in the winter of ’99. Cost about $30,000 each including the Governor without van bodies.

    Dave Olson

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  22. Posted · Report reply

    We have always had Lp. I didn't realize just how clean Lp was until I set up my White truck that burns K1!

    In this picture our Red truck is working at the coal mine. We have 2-90 gallon water capacity Lp tanks mounted to the frame rails of the chassis. We have about 140 gallons of usable fuel with these tanks.

    We fill them at a local distributor, we also clean their trucks. We have a key to the lot anyway and we have been self-filling for I guess 18 of the 20 years I've been in business. The large tanks provide us with several days running and of course we can refill at anytime.

    Notice the large muffler on top of the roof. We were running it at a local hospital (next to patient rooms) for several hours on a Sunday night last month. No noise or fume complaints from anybody.

    Dave Olson

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Hello Ron,

    I plan to apply for Social Security later this year. You can start collecting when your 62. Don’t have any plans to stop working just stop getting paid.

    My business has also been my hobby for most of the 20 years. Much of the time we have not been as profitable as we should/could have. Some of that is because the business has become an extension of myself.

    Health is of course always a concern when you become an “Old Fart”! I don’t/can’t do as much as I once did so my costs have been higher since I’m paying someone else to do these things. Becoming more visually challenged 12-13 years ago has taken its toll on my little business.

    We have lost customers to economic conditions in our area for the last several years. My closest market area has lost 20% of its population in the past 25 years! At times it has been tempting to just put a lock on it and walk away. But, I have spent too many years doing this to just quit! I would drive my wife (of 42 years) crazy if I didn’t have this little business to keep me occupied/frustrated! If nothing else it gets me out of the house!

    Of course if someone came along and offered me way more than it is worth :) that might be a reason to figure out something else to do with my remaining years.

    Dave Olson

  24. Posted · Report reply

    Wow!

    This is the first I’ve heard.

    Great people and great products I sure hope they will recover and rebuild.

    We drove our Red truck (about a 15 hour drive) to their plant 3 years ago. I had them install our new boiler. They are the only company that I could find that uses a modulating fuel valve in their burner system. We have always run variable volumes and other setups just could not handle running 8 gpm one minute and .5 gpm the next!

    They (Whitco) took the challenge and the boiler has been doing fine. We have not had to replace any components and no down time at all!

    The boiler is on the left side of this picture. 980,000 Btu Lp fired.

    Dave Olson

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