PDCA ASSOCIATE MEMBER
stocking locations and one manufacturing
facility in the U.S., all set up to deliver certain
types of piling products and working
within the group to provide customers with
complete integration of facilities, planning
and service.
Sheet piling rentals
But it didn’t stop there. Always looking for
ways to provide whatever products and
services the heavy construction industry
may need, the Roll Form Group committed
to adding the option of offering sheet piling
rental to their customers.
“Once we got set up in Mississippi,
we started looking into the growing piling
rental market in the Southeastern U.S.
and in 2009, bought one of the largest
players in that market – Piling Products
Inc. out of Green Cove Springs in Florida,”
said Mulveney.
Over the next 10 years, the Roll Form
Group grew a large selection of rental piling
out of its Florida and Mississippi locations
as well as adding rental inventory to
its yards in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New
York and California. Altogether, the company
offers over 13,000 tons of cold and
hot rolled sheet piling for rent with multiple
shapes and lengths shipped on flatbed
trucks for the most cost-effective and convenient
shipping options.
“Most rental piling is taken out along the
coastline through Texas, Louisiana and on
up the East Coast; that’s where the soil conditions
are good and where a lot of the work
is right now,” said Mulveney. “Depending
on the type of project, rental might be the
best and most cost-effective choice for temporary
use of sheet piles. Right now, steel
pricing is very high, so instead of investing
in new piling and having to deal with the
leftover piling at end of the job, a contractor
can rent for one or several months. Once
the job is finished, they can extract the piling
and return it to us.”
New online rental quoting tool
One month ago, the company made it even
easier for contractors to look at renting
options with the release of the industry’s
first online quoting tool for rental piling.
Using answers to a few simple questions,
the easy-to-use tool instantly provides an
estimated rental cost (not including freight)
so the contractor can calculate a project’s
profitability on the spot.
“Basically, it works like a calculator with
formulas in the background determined
by what the customer enters,” said April
Bennett, business manager, Rentals. “For
example, if they are dewatering, then they
would only get the few options of a certain
type of interlock that is more watertight; if
not dewatering, all the sheet pile options
available would come up with pricing.
“The customer needs to know what
they’re looking for up front, but as it is, 90
percent of the time when people call us
for an estimate, they already have all that.
We would write down everything, type up
an estimate, run it by another associate
to make sure the math and everything is
correct, and then send out the quote to
the customer.”
Bennett notes that although preparing
this estimate takes very little time, oftentimes
the customer needs information
immediately. In that situation, the online
quoting tool can handle everything instantly
and with complete accuracy. Afterwards,
the rental sales team follows up, checking
inventory to see what is available, what the
freight time and charges would be, and asks
for feedback on the customer’s experience
with the new program.
“The concept for the online quoting
tool came from our marketing team,” said
Bennett. “They brought the idea to me
a couple of months ago, and right away
I thought it would be perfect. We have
extensive inventory in our used sheet piling,
which is what we use for rentals, and
the cost of steel for sales is extremely high
right now. Rental can be a good option for
The plant in Iuka, Miss.
Photo courtesy of Samuel Roll Form Group
Bergerson Construction, Inc.
Marine & Heavy Civil Construction
55 Portway • Astoria, OR 97103
(503) 325-7130 • CCB# 63328
72 | ISSUE 3 2021 www.piledrivers.org
www.bergerson-const.com
/www.bergerson-const.com
