Our company is well-known as a specialist in the development and installing cultivation floors. In order to be a specialist in that respect, we also need to be experts in earthwork. After all, that is the basis of every floor. So it is not so astounding that people are increasingly approaching us with inquiries about earthwork. Not just any old earthwork, but both large-scale and specialist projects.
For more than half a century we have been busy moving earth. And, as a consequence, we know what we’re doing. It started back in 1958, digging with spades for growers and horticulturalists. Manual labor that, over the years, has been taken on by machines. In the meantime, we built up our expertise and know-how with all kinds of soil.
When, in the nineteen-nineties, we laid our first ErfGoedFloor®, we were all the more aware how important that knowledge of the substrate is. Preparing the underlying surface is not just something you can ask anyone to do. After all, the substrate and soil surface forms the basis for everything that you want to put on top. Which is why we always devote attention to the compaction and grading of the soil surface. Only then do you have the right basis for a stable, durable cultivation floor, on which you won’t have any problem with subsidence or rutting.
In addition, it is important to know what type of soil (sand, clay, peat or silt) we are dealing with, so that we can take it into account when installing the floor. For instance, take an ErfGoedFloor with undersoil heating. The flexible heating pipes are installed under the cultivation floor. As soon as the pipes get warm, condensation is created. If this is not taken into account beforehand, the soil under the cultivation floor will become soft. And that irrevocably leads to rutting.
People are requesting ErfGoed’s knowledge and experience more and more often. And not just in terms of laying cultivation floors. Hortensia grower Kees Eveleens, in his nursery in Angers, France, chose ErfGoed because an even soil surface and good drainage are essential to a successful crop. “In the past, we often had problems with plant loss, because water was collecting in different places. So at our new sites, we let ErfGoed do all the earthwork. They really know what they’re doing on that score.”
Half-way through last year, a customer asked us to do the excavation and earthwork for the construction of an enormous tomato glasshouse in Australia. Over 20 hectares of earth had to be cleared and prepared by us in a relatively short time. According to the customer, a job like that could only be taken on by a company such as ErfGoed. What was decisive was not just our knowledge and experience in earthwork, but also the strength of our company, the modern plant and equipment that meets all the requirements of Australian legislation, and our knowledge of the local conditions. It is hardly any wonder that interest in our expertise is growing…