Not quite a year ago Dwayne Paisley kitted out his business with some cordless Kress gear. He’s never looked back.
“I have quite a large crew,” said Dwayne Paisley, a very cheerful bloke, and boss at Saints Landscaping and Garden Maintenance in Victoria. “I have about six or eight of us working on any given day – mowing crews, guys doing commercial work, some heavier jobs like trees and trimming, and we do landscaping as well.”
When Kress offered Dwayne the chance to trial its new commercial cordless gear and the CyberTank, he was happy to jump in – but he covered his bets.
“That was one of thoughts at the start,” he recalled. “Is it going to be as heavy-duty as the petrol gear?”
“The very first day I got it I had a big garden clean-up which I’d held back deliberately so I could use these tools. The property hadn’t been touched for two years and it had blackberries and grass up to our knees. Everything was overgrown and it was a disaster.
“I took all the Kress CyberSystem product there, but I took my petrol stuff too, thinking, ‘That’s my backup plan if it all goes pear shaped.’”
As it turned out, the petrol gear stayed on the truck. “The Kress battery product mowed through it absolutely perfectly,” beamed Dwayne. “We didn’t even touch the petrol gear.”
“We had the Kress Commercial 60V 42cm Brush Cutter which hit the blackberries and burst through them, the mower went through the knee-high grass – it was a wet morning as well, which made it a bit trickier – and the Kress gear cleaned up this property 100 per cent perfectly.”
The performance of the cordless Kress gear on that first day left him with no doubts whatsoever. It loses absolutely nothing to his petrol-powered equipment and is quieter and less fatiguing to use.
“That was a job I turned up to half dreading,” he remembered, “and the Kress equipment was magnificent.”
What downtime?
Once it was obvious the Kress equipment had all the power needed for Dwayne’s professional work, the next consideration was downtime. How much of the workday would be lost while batteries were charging?
The answer: none.
“I had a hand mower, hedgetrimmer, chainsaw, whipper-snipper, backpack blower, three batteries and the CyberTank,” glowed Dwayne. “The CybertankTM went on the back of my ute, and it’s like a mobile-phone charger for portability, but much bigger, obviously.
“Every night I charge that CyberTankTM, which takes between three and four hours to charge to 100 per cent.
“Most days we mow between 10 and 14 customers a day. We have our batteries on the CyberTankTM, and they charge in only 8 minutes. The battery in the mower would last 45 minutes to an hour on a standard lawn. If it was a big job and the battery did run out at any stage, we’d just take that battery out, grab the other one that’s already charged, put it back in the mower, put the depleted one back on the CyberTankTM and keep on mowing.”
“I’ve been using this equipment for nearly a year now, and I haven’t had any downtime whatsoever. And the batteries charge in 8 minutes every single time.”
Comfort
The CyberTank and mower were obvious winners. But how did the other gear perform? Dwayne’s excitement as he talks about the new Kress gear is clearly visible. “The whipper-snipper and other gear, instead of putting the battery on the tool, we had a backpack with a cord that plugs into the end of the whipper-snipper or the hedger,” he explained. “That means there’s no extra weight on the tool. If you’re whippersnipping or hedging it feels like you’re carrying something like a broom or a mop… something about that weight.
“All the weight’s on your back, so you don’t even feel that.”
Dwayne also found another interesting facet of the Kress battery as he worked through the long days.
“The old batteries used to heat up when you used them excessively. The technology Kress has meant the batteries do not heat up. Even in the middle of summer when we were giving these things a full go all day, they never heated up.”
Pro standard
After a short chat with Dwayne it was very obvious he’d become a huge fan of Kress cordless equipment.
“To be honest I think the mower, whipper-snipper and brush cutter are more powerful with the battery than the petrol versions I was using. They slice through overgrown areas like hot knife through butter.”
“I’m sold. I’m 100 per cent in! I have no negative thoughts on this product whatsoever.”
To see more Kress equipment log on to kress.com.
