While this past year has been challenging for many, business at New Hampshire Hydraulics, Inc. has never been better.

“When COVID-19 first hit, we saw a little bit of hesitancy and then business boomed,” said Kevin Peverly, Sales Manager, who has been with the company for 32 years. “We are very busy right now. Some of our customers took their down time to go through their machinery and now those customers are placing orders to add to their equipment. Everyone is back to full work. We anticipate a good year.”

This Merrimack, New Hampshire-based company houses 45 employees who are made up of hydraulic specialists, technicians, machinists, fabricators, and engineers. This team of experts builds and repairs all types of hydraulic components.

The company sells or repairs industrial equipment cylinders, pumps, motors, valves, and accumulators. The heavy equipment cylinder repair list includes repacks, new chrome rods, re-chroming, new barrels, glands, piston heads, in house machining, honing, welding, fabrication, and more. The company specializes in large bore/long stroke cylinders.

One area of expertise is the selling and rebuilding of attachments. Because of their longevity and proficiency in the hydraulics business, New Hampshire Hydraulics offers the best in quality hydraulic breakers and construction machinery attachments on the market today. The company is a factory authorized repair and service facility for Montabert hydraulic hammers and other attachments designed for heavy-duty jobs in quarries, mines, trenching, demolition, and public works.

“We are a long-standing attachments dealer and have serviced hundreds of attachments,” Peverly said.

The Montabert rock breaking hammers and attachments include premium heavy range, heavy range 2-speed, medium range, SC-series compact range and CPA rock drill line. The state-of-the-art rock breaking hammers are instrumental in hydraulic demolition while the drilling attachment feature is convenient for hard-to-reach locations such as blasting holes, trenches and road openings, utility works, rock bolting, draining and tie back, rough terrain construction and high reach drilling.

When approached, New Hampshire Hydraulics has experienced technicians on hand that are well trained to inspect the internal components of hydraulic hammers for damage and wear. Anything worn beyond factory specs is either replaced or reconditioned. Most hammers are given a free evaluation and a free estimate with no obligation to proceed. Each hammer is then repaired, tested and painted to bring it back to like-new condition and offered back to the customer with a one-year warranty.

If a repair estimate is refused, the hammer is either scrapped or returned to the customer completely apart at no charge. Free pick-up and delivery are always available for most hammers in most areas of New England and Eastern, New York.

While Montabert is a favored attachment brand, the company offers repair and rebuild services for other brands of hydraulic hammers as well.

New Hampshire Hydraulic Owner Anthony Halvatzes pointed out that because the company is an independent dealer of multiple product lines and are not tied to one brand or another, they can offer the best solution to any hydraulic problem or need.

“We utilize raw materials to make parts,” Halvatzes said. “We can also save our customers money and we hydraulically test and warrant all repairs.”

Peverly said the smaller hammers are the biggest sellers as they attach to mini excavators to increase the versality and productivity of the machine.

“We offer various brands in order to have all the different tools so that we can match the compatibility between the machine and the job,” Peverly said. “For instance, we just put a thumb, a hammer, and a ripper on a machine and called it a swiss army knife.”

Peverly said the attachments are used for all ranges of jobs from major hurricane damage to building swimming pools.

“Most big pool outfits actually own a hammer,” Peverly said. “When hurricane Irene came through, the storm washed out roads and bridges just north of Rutland, Vermont. We sold a hammer to the contractor that broke things up, and they were able to put in a new culvert and restore the roads back to good order.”

The company also rebuilds shears used in scrap metal processing.

“They go on the end of the excavator and look like a pair of scissors,” Peverly said. “The shears break apart metal into pieces and are then fed into a shredder.”

In 1978, this fast-paced and ever-expanding business first opened its doors in a garage and employed only Halvatzes and his father-in-law, Al Poliquin.

“I was between jobs, so I decided to return to mechanical repair and troubleshooting,” Halvatzes said. “I found there was a tremendous need for reliable quality repairs in the hydraulic repair marketplace. That type of demand continues to this day.”

The business quickly grew to include the repair of all sorts of hydraulic components including hydraulic cylinders, pumps, motors and valves. In 1995, due to the steady increase in the volume of business, Halvatzes decided it was time to expand.

“After going to three shifts at the original shop in Merrimack New Hampshire, we found and purchased our current Merrimack facility,” Halvatzes said. “The 10,000-square-foot facility accommodated the growing list of employees and the various new pieces of machinery required to perform the hydraulic repairs, which have fueled our growth over the years.”

By 2017, Halvatzes realized that they had once again outgrown their space, so they committed to adding an additional 10,000 square feet of shop to bring the facility to a total of 20,000-plus square feet. The new addition broke ground in December of 2017 and was completed in the fall of 2018.

“It was a long time coming”, said Halvatzes. “We needed more room to grow and to be able to continue to take care of our customers. We wanted to be able to add more machinery and other capabilities. We needed to stock new components and allow for a larger distribution of new and remanufactured components as well. We also added more hydraulic grade raw materials so that when we have an item that we need to make, we have the materials right here and ready to go.”

Peverly pointed out that the new addition is ideal for their role as an attachments dealer. With plenty of extra room, workers can take advantage of the spacious area that includes a fabrication shop, machine shop, mechanic shop, honing and polishing shop, and more.

New Hampshire Hydraulics has salespeople in the field that travel all over New England and parts of New York providing free pick-up and delivery of new and repaired hydraulic components.

“We have six salespeople on the road and four drivers that will meet them to transfer equipment,” Peverly said. “We have a fleet of vehicles that includes pick-up trucks, flat bed trailers and one international boom truck. Offering free pick-up and delivery and free estimates is how we built the business.”