When JCL Septic Service of Bennington, New Hampshire, formed in 2011, partners Jon Charlonne and Cory Lawrence had to rent all the equipment they needed for excavating work. They bought out a small septic pumping business that didn’t have useful excavating machines.

“We were renting equipment and hiring other contractors to use their dump trucks and equipment,” Lawrence says.

Since then, things have changed significantly. The company now maintains a collection of trucks and excavating equipment. Going from renting to owning the equipment was a big step, and a productive one, Lawrence says.

“Having your own equipment is pretty big,” he says. “If you need to rent a piece of equipment, it might not be available because someone else is using it. Then you’ve got to wait.”

The first piece of equipment JCL bought was a Caterpillar 312 excavator. Then the company bought its own dump truck, and their business grew.

“Owning the big excavator and owning our own dump truck was huge,” Lawrence says. “We didn’t have to wait anymore. If we had a job that came up, we’d just go do it. Now we’re self-sufficient.”

JCL currently has two Caterpillar 312 excavators, a Bobcat skid-steer, a Bobcat mini-excavator, a Caterpillar bulldozer and two Mack dump trucks carrying Bibeau bodies.

The septic pumping side of the business has a 1995 Kenworth T400 truck with a 2,800-gallon Progress Tank aluminum tank and a National Vacuum Equipment Challenger pump that came with the business. Recently, they also refurbished a 1979 Kenworth W900 that had been in storage for 30 years. They outfitted it in-house with a 4,000-gallon Amthor International aluminum tank and a National Vacuum Equipment Challenger pump.

Charlonne and Lawrence or members of their three-man crew do most of the maintenance and wrenching. “We do probably 75 percent of the repairs ourselves,” Lawrence says. “If we need help, we’ll call a local mechanic.”

Lawrence says this year the company may make its first purchase of new equipment. He expects to trade in the mini-excavator and the skid-steer on new models.

“We need to upgrade,” he says.