Man with a mini digger - daily rate?

[ey143]

How much can one expect to pay a man with a mini digger on a daily basis around the London area for garden landscaping / foundation work?

 

[Rabmac1]

Probably more in London but in Glasgow it ranges from about £140 to £180 a day.

If you are competent at doing it yourself you can hire one for about half the price. I even seen one you could hire for £130 for the week.

If you want to keep cost down do it yourself and ask your neighbours if they need any work done and split the cost.

 

[ey143]

I was paying £270 a day here but felt that was getting expensive after 2 days.

Thx.

 

[limerockconstruction]

Bristol is about 220-260. But in reality it all depends on the Driver, if he's on it, you'll get your monies worth.

 

[noseall]

If you are competent at doing it yourself you can hire one for about half the price. I even seen one you could hire for £130 for the week.

If you want to keep cost down do it yourself and ask your neighbours if they need any work done and split the cost.

All great fun until you hit a cable or pipe, then you will wish that you had never seen a mini excavator.

Also bear in mind that a lot of these machine drivers insist that the customer have the area surveyed and scanned for services and that anything below ground is the customers' responsibility.

This is not something I would explore on price, rather I would be looking for recommendations from friends etc and be looking for an experienced and insured driver.

When we dig on domestic sites we are uber vigilant and are watching the front bucket like hawks. If I get chance I'll upload images from our most recent dig. We had four gas pipes (three of which turned out to be dead) one water and one electric service to contend with. Great fun!

I also benefit from having contacts in both gas and electric. Water I can deal with myself. Hit a fibre optic cable and you will end up re-mortgaging your house.

 

[ey143]

Thanks all, some good points here. I wouldn't want to do this on my own and thankfully the guy I'm using had both insurance and a licence to drive this but was wondering if the daily rate was reasonable.

 

[noseall]

Untitled

• noseall
• 14 Aug 2014
• 1

 

[terrypin]

Thanks all, some good points here. I wouldn't want to do this on my own and thankfully the guy I'm using had both insurance and a licence to drive this but was wondering if the daily rate was reasonable.

We pay £280 for the first day and then a sliding scale per day thereafter but never less than £200 per day.

Take in to account tax, various insurance cover, maintenance, initial purchase price and getting the digger to site I think they're pretty reasonable.

Echoing what noseall said, they are great fun to use yourself until you hit a cable of water main etc. Not worth the hassle IMHO.

 

[ey143]

I wouldn't consider using one on the front garden but would love to "play" with a mini micro digger if there ever was one, in my rear garden where I know where all the utilise are. But it's not going to happen.

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Best place to 'play' is here, http://www.diggerland.com , you're under supervision and there nothing buried to hit, so safer and cheaper fun all round!

 

[terrypin]

Best place to 'play' is here, http://www.diggerland.com , you're under supervision and there nothing buried to hit, so safer and cheaper fun all round!

Just phoned a couple of mates about this, looks like we're gonna book.

Thanks for posting, never heard of it before?

 

[Hugh Jaleak]

Think it was initially set up by Hugh Edenlau, owner/founder of H.E. Services who are probably one of the biggest digger hire companies in the U.K. He wanted somewhere people could 'play' legally I think, with H&S nowadays no-one can get near a machine on a site unless they've done months of training, the days of jumping in a machine and 'having a go' are sadly long gone.

I was given a JCB 805 on full throttle at the age of 16 and told to 'have a play', picked it up and still drive machines today when needed. Unfortunately unless youngsters can try, (under supervision of course), and get the bug to drive machines, then young blood isn't and wont come into the industry.

 

[cannonfoder]

i hire our own machines now only with a operator as to many wanner be (digger driver) about just dont care about machines london id say £220 is a good price for a 0.8 up to 1.5tonne anything over that then the price goes up a little then add attachments breaker normally £70 a day the first day will be the most out lay then the price of the machine drops but never will the op's wages if you was to use H.E plant hire your looking at £220 just for the machine then the op on top then attachments then hired in insurance ect ect

We go up to 8tonne then hire in bigger up to 30 tonne demo an work in london all the time