History in the Making

The South Australian Government defines a State Heritage Area as a “clearly defined region with outstanding natural or cultural elements significant to South Australia’s development and identity”.

These could include early or significant settlements, towns or suburbs of heritage value, or natural landscapes, which are all notable for their “distinct heritage character”.

These structures, spaces, and landscapes in SA – 17 of them in fact – are all protected under legislation by the Government. Reflecting heritage values of importance to all South Australians, some popular examples are Arckaringa Hills, Belair National Park, Moonta Mines and Mount Gambier Cave Gardens.

Though Ashford House, located in the Adelaide suburb of Ashford, South Australia, is among the oldest of them all.

Ashford House was originally built in 1838 by Dr Charles Everard, with the building in its current form completed in 1882. Behind the house even today lie the remains of an old gum tree which was in place when Everard arrived almost 200 years ago.

It’s on treasured sites like these that Adelaide business, Trubild truly thrives. Since establishing in 1998, the SA-based company has cemented its legacy by providing solutions for an extremely wide variety of challenging tasks.

The company focuses on specialised market works in the commercial sector, primarily in weighbridges, concrete silo repairs and similar operations. This is one side of its operations, however.

Another niche for Trubild carves out ongoing business from stonework and brickwork for renovations on heritage listed buildings.

While Trubild is run by Managing Director, Adrian Krollig, a small but highly trained team of five workers means he is often out on the frontlines by their side.

On any given day, he says, he could be on site or even taking care of the paperwork. “I just sort of fell into this line of work in the early ‘90s,” he says.

“My day typically includes being out on site with the guys setting out and measuring, supervising or even just getting my hands dirty. Then in the evenings I’ll be doing a bit of administration, a bit of quoting and that sort of thing. That’s how it’s been for almost 30 years since we started.”

By doing the odd renovation in spaces which house significant heritage value to SA and the entire nation, Trubild has proven that it can apply the brick and stonework techniques to refurbish old buildings in an era-appropriate manner.

“Most of these buildings are well over a century old,” Adrian says. “Residences of all the old officials and other old houses, people love to see them brought back to life, but you have to use all the old techniques. There’s legislation saying it all needs to be done in a certain way. It’s not easy.”

Trubild has become one of the very few businesses that can specialise in building and reconstructing these unusual and bespoke structures in South Australia.

That makes it essential the fleet is across a whole range of skills and applications.

“We generally contract out to one of the major builders, like a company called Marshall and Brougham here in Adelaide, and they seem to have the ins to getting into this work,” Adrian says. “Then we go along and contract the stonework, plastering, masonry and the work frames.”

Thus, the relationship with Isuzu started through its concrete pump truck when Adrian took the pump to Northeast Isuzu and asked them to put a truck under it. Having already purchased Isuzus back in the early ‘90s, Adrian knew he could rely on them this time a gain.

“That’s exactly what they did,” he says. “I must say they did it very well. I knew they’d look after me because they’ve always been so reliable for us.”

The net result was an NLR 45-150 fitted out with a genuine Isuzu bullbar with the concrete pump on the back. Given the many different applications it is used for, in a variety of operating conditions, the Isuzu, with its agility in and out of awkward spots and appropriate responsive power is considered a near-perfect truck.

“We bought it around two and a half years ago and since then it’s just primarily been very reliable for me,” Adrian says. Along with the load on the tray that can be weighed up to the 4.5-tonne Gross Combined Mass (GCM), the latest generation NLR now has up to a 4.0-tonne towing capacity, meaning it can cart huge amounts of equipment when it comes to building weigh bridges.

The NLR also has a Gross Vehicle Mass (GVM) of 4,500kg, which means it can be driven on a standard car licence, running at 110kW at 2,800rpm and 375Nm at 1,600 – 2,800rpm. Attached to the engine is the NLR’s Automatic Manual Transmission (AMT), with both clutchless manual and fully automatic operation modes available.

The NLR’s active safety features include Isuzu Electronic Stability Control (IESC), Anti-Skid Regulator (ASR), traction control and Anti-lock Braking (ABS). Passive safety features include driver and front passenger air bags, driver and front left hand passenger seatbelt pretensioners, an ECE-R29 cab with side anti-intrusion beams, overhead self-restraint netting and door-mounted cornering lamps.

In terms of the vehicle’s general features, the NLR gets heavy duty anti-slip steps underneath 90-degree opening internally reinforced front doors. Bolted to them are heated and powered exterior main mirrors with adjustable convex ‘spot mirrors’ as well.

Inside the cabin, a driver’s bucket seat is equipped with mechanical suspension and weight adjustment to 130kg accompanied by a passenger bench seat with two seat capacity. Storage is handy with an overhead shelf, twin cup holders and front door pockets.

Front and centre, the MyISUZU CO-PILOT audio visual unit measures in at 10.1 inches with 1080p High Definition and capacitive touch. The multimedia unit is Android Auto/Apple CarPlay compatible, with Wi-Fi connectivity and 32GB of internal storage capacity.

Following Adrian’s purchase of the NLR 45-150, Trubild was one of six trade businesses to have their names plastered across giant billboards in their respective capital cities last year –as part of Isuzu’s 50th anniversary of operation in Australia.

To enter the competition, Isuzu owners had to come up with a slogan for their billboard celebrating the reliability of Isuzu Trucks, by describing how Isuzu Trucks has helped them in their business and upload an image of their Isuzu truck. The eventual slogan for Trubild,

“We’re celebrating reliability by getting from A to B every time”, found favour with the Isuzu judges.

A to B for Trubild is quite often moving between beautiful, historic properties that have been recognised by the nation for their ongoing cultural relevance.

These tasks for which the business is responsible, are much more than just jobs but artefacts of great value that will last for generations to come. Isuzu’s customers court a not dissimilar longevity.