Joseph M. Troffa Landscape & Mason Supply aims to be a one-stop shop for its clients.
In that vein, the family-owned business features an on-site recycling facility, which allows customers to discard unwanted construction debris and leave the site with new materials and supplies.
Located on the north shore of Long Island in Setauket, the company, centrally located to serve points east and west from Montauk to Manhattan, is on a 10-acre site, which allows it to keep a large inventory of materials and supplies in stock and to serve all of its customers’ needs from one location.
In With the Old, Out With the New
Troffa accepts and recycles thousands of tons of material every year, from tree and yard waste to concrete and asphalt. Even brick and cobblestone are recycled.
When the project is completed and the contractor needs a place to take recyclable materials for disposal such as concrete, wood pallets and dirt, as long as they are separated, Joseph M. Troffa Landscape Supply will accept them for recycling.
Roll-off containers also are available to remove debris from the job site.
Screening equipment allows the company to turn the waste products into soil and compost.
Round-the-Clock Access
Troffa’s outdoor stone and mason product showroom is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week so that contractors, along with their clients can come and grasp the actual look and feel of many different materials installed in a variety of applications, and do that at their customers’ convenience.
In addition to a massive variety of decorative stone, natural stone, pavers, and decorative retaining walls, it also offers an assortment of bulk materials, including various sizes of aggregate, screened topsoil, and various mulches, all of which can be delivered to the contractors’ job site.
Tight Spaces
Moving all of these bulk materials, especially in a yard with very little maneuvering room, is a challenge for Troffa and requires a fleet of strong, reliable and maneuverable rubber-tired loaders.
Recently, Troffa purchased a Kawasaki 70Z5 loader from All Island Equipment in Babylon, N.Y. Troffa’s fleet already included four loaders of various sizes that he, his son and their employees operate on a daily basis, so Joseph Troffa had a very good feel for exactly what he was looking for in a loader.
One of the biggest considerations was a very tight turning radius. The company has 45 different bulk items stored in bins and maneuverability is critical.
The loader that Troffa wanted from Kawasaki came standard with a 3-1/2 cu. yd. (2.7 cu m) bucket; however he wanted the machine to be matched up with a 4-cu.-yd. (3 cu m) bucket. This larger bucket would allow a ten-wheel dump truck to be filled with just four trips from the loader.
Because of the type of work Troffa’s loaders do, the amount of weight on the rear axle of the loader was critical to the company, particularly when putting an oversized bucket on the machine. The new loader would have to have enough weight on the rear axle to allow maneuvering with a full bucket load.
Troffa also wanted oversized tires on the loader. He equipped his loader with 23.5 x 25 Michelin tires, the tires that would normally be put on the next size larger machine, rather than the 20.5 x 25 that would have been standard.
The end result was increased reach and improved stability, according to Troffa. This improved traction and climbing ability helps the company when it is making a stockpile with the loader and need to drive up a large pile of material with a full bucket load.
The Kawasaki loaders come equipped with torque proportioning differential (TPD), which also improves the machine’s traction when climbing, according to the manufacturer.
“I like the direct hydraulic pilot controls in the Kawasaki versus the electric over hydraulic controls,” Troffa said. “This type of control gives me a much more consistent response when I am adjusting the tilt on the bucket. Unlike electric over hydraulic controls the Kawasaki bucket always gives you the same proportional response from a movement of the joystick. You can rely on what it’s going to do every time.”
“We started the process of buying this loader at ConExpo in 2008. Convincing us to make the switch to Kawasaki took a lot of hand holding on the part of All Island Equipment. But when we found them to be more than willing to make all sorts of modifications to the machine, like the tires and the bucket size, they had us hooked. Our loaders work in a lot of tight places. Kawasaki was even willing to change the hinges on the door so that they opened flush with the machine cab and did not extend out beyond the fenders, again helping the machine fit into tighter spots,” Troffa added.
For more information, call 631/928-4665 or visit www.troffasupplies.com. CEG
Today's top stories
