Pumper Rewind: An Eye on Future Trends Keeps Kuettel’s Booming

Pumper Rewind: An Eye on Future Trends Keeps Kuettel’s Booming
The Kuettels take pride in their up-to-date and large tanker fleet including a new hoist tanker truck.

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We celebrate the continued dedication and hard work of septic service contractors by revisiting companies profiled 10 years ago in Pumper magazine. Check out the original story on Kuettel’s Septic Service company we featured in the March 2004 issue: “Bigger is Better.”

Owners of Kuettel’s Septic Service don’t own a crystal ball, but they work very hard at predicting future trends and taking action to prepare for them. A decade ago, when they were featured in Pumper, they were recognized for installing a 720,000-gallon Harvestore Slurrystore tank as backup sewage storage. 

The tank has allowed them to diversify into cleaning more grease traps, which can be blended at a regulated percentage with sewage and injected into the Kuettel’s farm ground according to DNR regulations. 

It’s just one example of recognizing change and turning it into opportunity to make the business successful. 

Team players

Duke Kuettel started the business in 1988 with one truck servicing septic systems in Wisconsin’s Fox River Valley. It wasn’t long before brothers Doug and Dale joined him as well as their father, Richard. Richard has since retired, but the brothers now have Duke’s son, Carson, and three technicians (Travis, Eric and Ryan) on the crew. The 35 services per day in 2003 now total close to 60 services on some days. 

Cheryl Kuettel, Kris Kuettel and Kelsey Nennig hold down the office, answering phones and staying up-to-date on all the record keeping the industry requires. 

Working together, the whole staff follows the same professional standards — being courteous and maintaining a trustworthy reputation. Despite a potentially “dirty job” image, the technicians prove that it’s possible to be clean, with neat uniforms and driving clean trucks. 

Tricked-out trucks

And those trucks are all supersized now, and the Kuettels continue to emphasize the importance of up-to-date professional equipment that is also efficient. The only truck remaining from the four-truck fleet 10 years ago is the 2003 Volvo 6,000-gallon tanker truck. Since then the Kuettels added 2004, 2009, 2010 and 2014 models of the same truck, plus a 2007 Sterling Actera 4,000-gallon tanker truck. 

“It’s so much more efficient,” says Cheryl Kuettel, Duke’s wife and office manager of the business. Technicians can make multiple calls before unloading, and some have aluminum tanks (T-Line and Imperial Industries) so they aren’t much heavier than smaller trucks. “Also, the residences we service are high-end, well-kept residences so it’s important to keep our trucks looking nice.” 

The newest addition, a 2014 Volvo 5,500-gallon hoist tanker truck, is one of the Kuettels’ latest buys that has already proven its worth, in combination with a Wastequip dewatering box. The Kuettels take the truck beyond their typical 50-mile radius to clean sand traps at car washes, convenience stores and repair stations with floor pits. They dump the contents into the dewatering box, filter out the liquid to haul to a wastewater treatment plant and take the leftover solids to the landfill. 

The new rig replaced a smaller 2006 hoist truck. The larger capacity of the 2014 model makes it more efficient to travel longer distances. 

Keeping up with the times

Since 2003, the Kuettels eliminated their portable restroom service, due to competition and the goal to expand the pumping operation. 

While the majority of the work is residential septic pumping, demand for industrial work has grown, and so has waterjetting. A newly purchased 2013 Ford E-450 with a Cam Spray van-mounted jetter, and video inspection cameras from Electric Eel and RIDGID round out the equipment.

“Our jetting van is out all day long,” Kuettel says, noting this past winter there were more frozen lines than usual. Video inspection work has also increased over the years. 

With a customized database of records of every customer’s system and service history, technicians can access the information (and directions) on smartphones to make their job easier. The after hours/emergency technician has an iPad to access information on a bigger screen.

Creating the routes is low tech, based on common sense and knowledge of the area.

“Every night after the trucks are in, Duke sets the schedule for the next day,” Kuettel says, noting that the routes usually have to be adjusted according to calls and emergencies that come in the following day.

Staying ahead of regulations

“We’ve always made a goal to stay ahead of the industry,” Kuettel says. “We pride ourselves to think ahead of how can we make this better for our customers.”

Often when the Kuettels attend pumping workshops, expos and conventions they learn that they are already doing the practices being discussed. So it wasn’t surprising that they were on top of a new Wisconsin regulation before local counties were even on board.

“We saw that the industry was changing in the state of Wisconsin, especially when they started mandating the three-year maintenance program, so we adapted to it right away,” Kuettel says. “We focused on good record-keeping. We were on top of it, and we were even helping the counties because we had so many records.”

Wisconsin’s regulation requires records of every septic system in the state and proof that they are pumped at least once every three years. Kuettel regularly sends information to the seven counties where they have customers so customers never receive letters from the county saying they are not in compliance. She also sends reminder cards to customers so they meet the three-year requirement.

Customers appreciate that Kuettel’s keeps good records so they are never hassled or fined by the county.

Giving back for the future

Kuettels celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2013 and showed customers their appreciation by giving back. They purchased 25, $25 gift certificates from local businesses that are also customers and gave the certificates and the grand prize of one free holding tank pumping away through an online raffle. They also gave gift certificates to regular customers who have been with them since the doors opened in 1988.

“We like to do that because they make us who we are. Most of our work is from word-of-mouth referrals,” Kuettel says.

To make booking service or maintenance appointments even better and easier for customers, the business hopes to upload its upgraded website soon.

“It has more capability to allow people to pay bills and order products through the website,” Kuettel says. “The information is similar, and we’ve added more and streamlined it to be more user-friendly.”

She admits that a decade ago, the business owners couldn’t have foreseen all the industry changes and growth of the business. While some things never change — increasing costs, low-ball competitors who don’t follow regulations, ever-changing regulations — Kuettels will continue to look to the future and plan ahead.

Good service and taking care of customers’ needs always wins, she says.



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