[kkriha]

Looking to buy a bucket truck. I have been looking at mostly F550's with about a 40' reach or so. My question is, those of you that have bucket trucks, do you have an insulated boom or not? We will be using it mostly for checking/ replacing lights on buildings and poles and for running/ fixing overheads & masts to buildings/poles. Thank you.

 

[knowledge29]

Insulated

 

[electricbysullivan]

Go with insulated. Make sure it has a material handling boom on it too!

 

[electricmalone]

If it hasn't happened yet, watch for a huge auction. Sylvania Lighting Services closed up shop. They let go 900+ employees nationwide. If I had to guess, there were over 400 bucket trucks in operation. The majority were under 5 years old and in top condition. Mostly F550s, about 50 new Ram 5500s, a couple of Kenworths.

 

[Switched]

Did they really? They had a bunch of contracts around here. .....maybe I should be looking at getting one!

 

[MTW]

If it hasn't happened yet, watch for a huge auction. Sylvania Lighting Services closed up shop. They let go 900+ employees nationwide. If I had to guess, there were over 400 bucket trucks in operation. The majority were under 5 years old and in top condition. Mostly F550s, about 50 new Ram 5500s, a couple of Kenworths.

They simply closed up and didn't get bought out? Who is taking over that work?

 

[Lep]

Did they really? They had a bunch of contracts around here. .....maybe I should be looking at getting
I think pG&E has auctions on trucks in Lodi California also.

 

[electricmalone]

They simply closed up and didn't get bought out? Who is taking over that work?

From what've been told by a couple guys who held on to the last day here in New England, they are now concentrating on relamping projects through subcontractors. The only reason SLS was in business was to move Sylvania lamps. The monthly maintenance, at least in areas that require licenses, was a big time loser. As far as I know, they let the contracts expire. A couple of my buddies from there are on decent severance packages, but are looking feverishly for another similar company. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130930-708156.html

 

[electricmalone]

Did they really? They had a bunch of contracts around here. .....maybe I should be looking at getting one!

The parent company Siemens was trying to dump the SLS division when I worked there just over two years ago.

 

[MTW]

From what've been told by a couple guys who held on to the last day here in New England, they are now concentrating on relamping projects through subcontractors. The only reason SLS was in business was to move Sylvania lamps. The monthly maintenance, at least in areas that require licenses, was a big time loser. As far as I know, they let the contracts expire. A couple of my buddies from there are on decent severance packages, but are looking feverishly for another similar company. http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20130930-708156.html

I saw a brand new O.H. Burg truck today. I bet they will be picking up a lot of work from them as a result.

 

[electricmalone]

I saw a brand new O.H. Burg truck today. I bet they will be picking up a lot of work from them as a result.

Burg has been doing a lot of big work, getting bigger. They always seemed to do the opposite stores that SLS did. We did CVS they did Walgreens, we did Shaws they did Stop & Shop, etc.i be the picks up 75% of SLS customers and explodes in New England