Restoration Station: Isuzu and Trubild Tackle Tricky Refurbishments

Variety, as they say, is the spice of life and for Adrian Krollig of Trubild, this certainly holds true. For Trubild, no two days are ever the same and that’s exactly the way Adrian likes it.

Trubild is a South Australia-based company that manages to juggle many difficult tasks with its small but highly trained team.

Helmed by Managing Director Adrian Krollig, who describes himself as “more of a working director”, Trubild is dedicated to providing solutions to an extremely wide variety of challenging tasks.

Jack of All Trades

Trubild is a company that wears many different hats. On any given day you might find Adrian and the team on site repairing silos, doing brick and stonework or even performing the rare renovations of old and important heritage buildings.

An unusual string to their bow is the construction of weighbridges. Trubild are one of the few companies that specialise in building these unusual and bespoke structures.

“I just sort of fell into this line of work in the early 90s,” Adrian said.

With such variance in the work, the full team needs to be across a whole range of skills and applications.

“I might be out on site with the guys, setting out and measuring, supervising or even just getting my hands dirty. In the evenings it’ll be a bit of administration and quoting, a full day.”

The Essentials

Undoubtedly the things of greatest importance to Trubild are the staff, a highly trained and hard-working team that Adrian can rely on to get through any job, and the equipment.

“It started with the pump,” Adrian said.

“I took the pump to Northeast Isuzu and asked them to put a truck under it, and that’s exactly what they did, and I must say they did it very well.

“I knew they’d look after me. I’ve had Isuzus right through from the early 90s because they’ve always been so reliable for us.”

With the simple request to “put a truck under the pump”, Adrian left the rest to the expertise to the staff at Northeast Isuzu. They were then able to take the worry and effort out of the purchase, providing him with the exact truck he needed, leaving Adrian to do what he does best, and get on with the job.

Northeast Isuzu were able to sort Adrian out with an NLR 45-150, kitted out with a genuine Isuzu bullbar and, of course, the pump on the back.

The NLR is the perfect truck for an operation like this, maneuverable in awkward spots but with more than enough power to get the job done. With the many different applications it’s used for and the sites they must visit, it was important to get a truck that could handle the difficult spaces.

Late last year Adrian and his trusty Trubild Isuzu were up in lights on a giant billboard in Adelaide after winning the South Australian category of the Isuzu 50th Anniversary Billboard Competition.

Rebuild and Restore

The criteria for heritage buildings in Australia is described by the Department of Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water as a place that has outstanding heritage value to the nation and has stood for over a generation.

Trubild has proven that they can apply the brick and stonework techniques to refurbish these old buildings in an era-appropriate manner.

“Most of these buildings are well over a century old,” Adrian said.

“Residences of all the old officials and other old houses, people love to see them brought back to life, but you have to use all the old techniques. There’s legislation saying it all needs to be done in a certain way. It’s not easy.”

Along with the load on the tray that can be loaded up to the 4.5 tonnes gross combined mass (GCM), the latest generation NLR now has up to a 4.0 tonne towing capacity, meaning they can cart huge amounts of equipment when it comes to building weigh bridges.

Weigh To Go

Weighbridges are a staple of businesses across Australia, from mining to grain and fertiliser suppliers to sand and metal retailers. It’s far easier to weigh a truck before and after it is loaded than to weigh what’s added.

“They’re much more common than you think,” Adrian said, going on to say that Trubild completes about one weighbridge a month throughout the year along with the rest of the work on their plate.

“Businesses can’t sell in volume anymore, it has to be by weight,” Adrian said.

“Retailers can’t sell a trailer of firewood, they’d have to price it by weight, for example 350 kg of wood instead of just saying a trailer full.

“Laws like that and, of course the Chain of Responsibility stuff, have really kept us busy.”

Chain of Responsibility

Amendments to Chain of responsibility (CoR) requirements of the Australian Heavy Vehicle National Law in 2018 meant all organisations using heavy vehicles had to take a more proactive approach to work safety. ​ 

Regardless of industry, everyone involved in the journey of the heavy vehicle share responsibility for the safety of the truck, from fleet managers, right through to the forklift team that unloads. ​ ​ 

The National Heavy Vehicle Regulator (NHVR) has indicated it’s doubling down on efforts to prosecute breaches of CoR regulations. ​ As a result, business has increased massively for anyone with the skills to make businesses compliant with the law.

The law has a heavy focus on the weight of a truck, harshly punishing companies that dangerously overload their vehicles. An individual who breaches the CoR regulations can face up to five years imprisonment and a fine of up to $300,000 while companies can be fined up to $3 million. ​

Ends

​