86 | nzdairy DAIRY SERVICES » Rural Building Solutions Ltd A recently completed feedpad in Methven. Sue Russell Nigel Hodges established Dar eld-based Rural Building Solutions in 2009, seeing a need from farmers for a dairy building company to deliver small business values with a professional corporate process. Projects for the company very much follow the cycle of pay-outs for dairy farmers, as Nigel explains. “When there’s been a lift in pay-out then farmers look to undertake those larger projects on the wish list. Banks seem to either support the residential or farming sectors in terms of lending, so we can be busy at times and then quieter if borrowing is limited.” And with the changing nature of the banks lending policy and the current building boom Nigel says the effects ow on to those businesses, such as his, that concentrate mainly on rural builds. “There is a skills drain as experienced builders concentrate where the business is and that’s in residential.” RBS itself, however, is fortunate to have a stable team with very low staff turnover. Working with Nigel is a team of three part-time administrators and nine experienced builders. One team of builders concentrates on the larger projects extending from 3 – 12 months duration, while another team undertakes smaller jobs and moves around more. It gives Nigel the exibility to move his builders where the labour is most needed. Conversions to dairying have slowed down markedly and when once Rural Building Solutions would have built 8 dairies a year, this has reduced to 2 or 3. Balancing that is new growth in demand for sheep dairies with RBS already having built their rst in Ashburton. “We’re very excited about the potential for sheep dairy in the South Island” says Nigel. “We’re also concentrating more now on the environmental compliance projects, such as feed Catering for growing demand for sheep “There’s a lot of planning that goes into how we schedule the project. Often we need to build new races and tracks for animals and machinery to use while we’re doing the build.” pads, silage bunkers, ef uent systems and yard replacements. We go as far south as Otago and through to Marlborough.” Alan Deane is Rural Building Solutions’ Construction Manager and a shareholder in the company. Based in Canterbury, Alan takes care of these larger projects. Nigel is a quali ed structural concrete specialist, an expertise that has enabled Rural Building Solutions to build a reputation for constructing high quality t-for-purpose farm infrastructures. For example, building silage bunkers requires an understanding of what goes into the right concrete Proudly supporting Rural Building Solutions Ltd Call: 03 313 8606 f: @ReadIndustrial We are specialists in dairy milking technology Established in 1922 the Read family have 100 years’ experience designing and manufacturing dairy milking systems. YOUR LOCAL ENGINEERING COMPANY ENGINEERING • DAIRY • PUMPING HEAVY ROLLERS • AUGERS 03 308 8335 20 Watson Street, Ashburton www.engsolutions.co.nz info@engsolutions.co.nz Proudly supporting Rural Building Solutions Ltd mix and the best bunker design. If air-gaps form between the silage and the walls, this can lead to silage deterioration and to potentially impacting on the structures integrity when acidic silage juices
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