THE STORY OF "CROMMELINS" - THE BUSINESS THE BUILDERS BUILT!

Initial activities involved the direct selling of portable and semi portable equipment to the building and allied industries in Western Australia, expanding to all other States as new agencies were acquired and demand grew.

Equipment sold consisted of concrete immersion vibrators, soil compactors, electric tools and electric demolition hammers.

In 1964 as a result of attending a Trade Fair at Osaka Japan, the agency for Makita Electric Tools was negotiated. At the same time the agency was negotiated for the range of "Robin SUBARU" petrol and diesel engines manufactured in Japan by Fuji Heavy Industries who are also the manufacturers of Subaru motor vehicles.

Over the years, further national agencies were obtained from overseas Companies.

The business the builders built

Terry Crommelin would lend new equipment to various builders, concrete contractors, roof carpenters and other tradesmen to try free of charge.

This inspired him to offer a "Try Before You Buy" scheme, based on a "hire before you buy", so allowing potential buyers to trial the equipment with a sale option written into the hire contract. This worked extremely well and made CROMMELINS a strong name in the building industry. In turn, this springboarded CROMMELINS into being a leader in the Hire Industry in Western Australia.

In 1964, CROMMELINS opened their first machinery Hire (Rental) Depot in Perth, Western Australia. This grew to 13 branches throughout the State over a period of fifteen years.

In 1969, a new division. "CROMMELINS Waste Disposal Service", was formed to give added service to building contractors in the Perth Metropolitan area. This division developed to 13 skip trucks and over 500 skip bins. The service extended wider than the building industry when CROMMELINS BINS became a household name. The innovation of these skip bins led to many businesses adopting this form of rubbish removal.

Both the Hire (Rental) Division and the Waste Disposal Division were sold in 1981 to a Repco subsidiary, Wreckair Hire, who have since been taken over by Coates Hire.