EQUIPMENT: Core Issues

The days of backbreaking lawn aeration are over.
 
Long a lucrative but laborious ancillary business for landscape contractors, aeration has undergone a technological revolution during the past decade. The service, performed in the spring and fall, entails driving tines into the ground (almost always mechanically these days, although some contractors still use hand implements for small areas) to pull up cores of earth. This relieves soil compaction and allows lawns to better soak up and retain water and nutrients. As labor becomes scarcer in the industry, contractors demand easier-to-use and more efficient machines and manufacturers have delivered. While succeeding push models have served their owners well for decades, these classics have been joined by ride-on models and pull-behind units.
 
The results – more versatile, efficient and powerful aerators – have inspired contractors to increase this portion of their business, often to quick success. Depending on how often a contractor performs the service, a new aerator can pay for itself within a year. And even before it improves your company’s bottom line, it will improve the productivity of your employees. “The guy at 2 o’clock in the afternoon is going just as fast as he is at 8 o’clock in the morning,” says Bob Brophy, director of lawn products for Turfco Manufacturing, Blaine, Minn.
 
But this increase in options means that contractors have to make smart purchasing decisions. A contractor who doesn’t carefully consider the machine he’s buying could become stuck with a $2,000 to $8,000 or more tool that doesn’t fulfill his needs.

VARIETY. Chris Hurlow, the lawn care manager at Fast Eddy’s Grounds Maintenance in Mount Vernon, Ohio, raves about his new ride-on aerator.
 
“With the new ride-on machine, I did what would have taken me three weeks in one week,” Hurlow says. “We’ll pay it off in a year. That was the whole thing: If I could justify it by selling as much as the machine cost, we’d buy it,” and he says he’s confident he’ll be able to do that.
 
For big properties, a ride-on aerator is awesome, Hurlow says, adding he can cover about 100,000 square feet in 30 minutes using the unit. But that’s not all. It also includes attachments for spreading seed, lime and fertilizer as well as other functions. “It doesn’t just get used one time a year,” he says.
 
But while Hurlow is happy with his new purchase, it’s not the only aerator in his fleet. Fast Eddy’s serves a variety of lawn sizes, some of which are too small for a ride-on model. “I have to have two or three different machines,” he says. “We take care of properties, 10 to 20 acres down to 5,000-square-foot lawns. I couldn’t live with one machine.”
 
This is in line with Brophy’s rule about buying aerators: One size does not fit all. Before buying a machine, contractors need to examine their business to determine the size they need. “What size lawns is he going to aerate? There are different sizes of aerators,” Brophy says. “If his customers have small back gates, he doesn’t want a big machine.”
 
Contractors should also look at the type of terrain they’ll be covering. “Your larger machines are great hillside machines, “Brophy says, but “the machines that do well on hills won’t do well with the gates.”
 
Which means contractors who do enough business should consider diversifying their fleet. “Not every machine is designed to work on every property,” Brophy says. “He may be better served by spending the money on a smaller and a big one.”
 
Hurlow doesn’t have any complaints about his new aerator, but he wishes the machines in general would perform better on hills. “It’s just taxing to run the machines on hills,” he says.

VERSATILITY. Curt Hughes admires the tank-like quality of his walk-behind aerators. He just wishes his employees were as durable. “I still have some models that are, heck, 20 years old,” says the owner and president of Hughes Landscaping in Parker, Colo. “They have some problems but you could shoot the thing five times, and they still run.”
 
Over the years, Hughes built up a fleet of six walk-behind models, because he enjoyed the durability so much and because he was so used to buying those machines. But as his business grew and the nature of his labor changed, he knew he needed to diversify. “It was tough because you have six aerators but you need six guys to get behind those dudes,” he says. “Labor is getting tougher to find.”
 
In the market for an aerator that could handle larger properties, Hughes came across one manufactured by a mower manufacturer that can be attached to the front of his zero-turn.
 
“Most yards we aerate twice a year. Some lawns three times,” he says. “With this aerator attachment, it’s so fast, and it pulls just great plugs. We’ve increased our productivity. Because you ride on it, you don’t walk behind it. You just turn that zero-turning radius machine around.”
 
While the front-mounted aerator attachment has allowed Hughes to increase the number of aeration jobs he does per season, it’s not without its drawbacks. He points out that this type of aerator requires a specific mower. He’s also learned that training is key for this type of equipment. “If you leave the tines in and back it up – bad things, man,” Hughes says, referring to the damage done to lawns when tines move one way and the machine powering it moves another. 
 
Employees who have used riding mowers before are used to quickly throwing the machine into reverse, and it’s those employees who end up damaging the equipment. “I was the first one that bent the tines up,” Hughes says. “We’ve figured out what to do and what not to do.”
 
Training takes 10 minutes to teach somebody how to run a front-mounted aerator, he says. And within an hour they’re pros, he adds.
 
FEATURES. Eric Johansson, plant health care manager at Landscape East and West in Portland, Ore., has three push aerators. He’s a contractor who knows what he needs from his equipment, and doesn’t overbuy. “The push-behinds are more versatile, a little more compact,” he says. “They allow us to use residential sites with stairs and grades to negotiate.”
 
Johansson likes his smaller aerators to have removable weights that make the machines lighter and more compact for transport. Push-behind models have become better ergonomically designed in the past few years, he says, and the maintenance on them is minimal. “The machines don’t have a long down time,” Johansson says. “It’s a no-brainer. We’re doing a lot more of that in house. They’re lasting a lot longer.”
 
Another improvement to push aerators in the past decade has been to their turning ability, which amounts to a small revolution. Older models had to be picked up, or at least the tines had to be disengaged from the ground, when the operator turned the machine. This procedure but a drain on productivity. Then a split-drive push model debuted that allows turning without having to lift up the aerators, says Linda Beattie, public relations specialist for Classen Manufacturing, Norfolk, Neb. “That turning ability is essential,” she says. “Since these are often one-man crews, this guy will have to use this unit by himself.”
 
When shopping for an aerator, Johansson pays close attention to the tines. He says they should be at least at the standard diameter of three-quarters of an inch.  

“Look for ones that are going to remove a core, not just punch a hole,” he says. “They should do six to eight holes per square foot; if you’re doing less than that you’re going to have extra work for yourself.” LL