Based in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, Hunter Bros Earthmovers is a third-generation family business that specialises in a range of earthmoving services including residential, commercial and civil projects.

The company uses Topcon lasers to achieve the tight accuracy tolerances that are now required on a lot of jobs.

“Nowadays, our clients are specifying higher accuracy requirements,” said Hunter Bros’ Managing Director, Scott Hunter. “We are often asked to achieve a plus or minus 5mm tolerance, so we use a range of Topcon laser and GPS equipment to ensure we meet those targets.”

Hunter Bros uses the Topcon RL-SV2S dual grade laser for a number of applications, ranging from small plots such as tennis courts right up to large substation projects.

“The RL-SV2S is extremely accurate,” Scott said. “It was recently used on a 90 metre-wide by 180 metre-long substation job and at first we were a little concerned about its ability to achieve the high accuracy required on a large site. It came through with flying colours and the as-built survey when we’d finished showed we were well within the tolerance levels.”

Scott says that although the company has tried other brands in the past, the Topcon lasers can’t be beaten for reliability, accuracy and ease of use.

“We did a direct accuracy comparison between a Topcon laser and another brand on a surveyed site, it was amazing to see both how accurate the Topcon laser was and how far out the other brand was,” he said.

Although the Topcon lasers all come with a five-year warranty, Scott can’t remember a time they have had to send one back. “Despite strong winds, torrential rain and harsh sun, they just keep going and never let us down.”

“I suppose the saying ‘if you pay for peanuts, you get monkeys’ holds true,” he adds. “We’re purely Topcon from here on in.”