Hiring a mini digger.

[conny]

I may need to hire a mini digger later in the year but want to know a few things first.

Do you have to have a driving licence to drive it if it is on private land? (My licence says I have 'Provisional' for a tracked vehicle).
Do the hire company give you instruction before handing over the keys?
What type would I need to remove about 4" of soil plus dig out some broken pavers/bricks and maybe a few small hedges?
What sort of price would I be looking at for around 5 days, (weekdays probably), hire?

 

[Tigercubrider]

Five days hire? Be cheaper to hire a couple of Polish guys.
They are quick

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Do you have to have a driving licence to drive it if it is on private land? (My licence says I have 'Provisional' for a tracked vehicle).

You don't need any licence at all to drive any vehicle on your own private property. A mini-digger is very easy to get the hang of.

 

[conny]

They wouldn't do it they way we want to do it and it is in a disabled old guys garden.
He has almost already lost his new home to some conniving builders who convinced him they were nice guys and offering to buy a 'small plot of his land' so he could have some money in the bank. If he had signed up for it he wouldn't have got any money until the house they were building had been sold and if it went belly up he would have been shafted for 50% of any debts. So, definitely no outside labour of any description.

 

[^woody^]

5 days? Do you only work 2 hours per day?

 

[Notch7]

What sort of price would I be looking at for around 5 days, (weekdays probably), hire

£80 to £90 a day

£400 to £500 for a week

On top you will need fuel and insurance

 

[^woody^]

Insurance for what?

 

[Notch7]

Insurance for what?

The hirer is responsible for loss or damage.

If you hire a machine and it gets nicked.....you gotta pay up. Potentially £14k for a mini digger

"Hired in plant" maybe on house insurance, maybe not.

 

[noseall]

Do you have to have a driving licence to drive it if it is on private land? (My licence says I have 'Provisional' for a tracked vehicle).

No.

Do the hire company give you instruction before handing over the keys?

No. But there may be idiosyncrasies. Some machines have a code or a switch that allows the hydraulics to work. almost all have to have the seat arm up to start.

What type would I need to remove about 4" of soil plus dig out some broken pavers/bricks and maybe a few small hedges?

Bigger the better and more stable/sedate. You need a grading bucket and a fair bit of skill to use a grader successfully. The hedges are best pulled out with a 300mm digging bucket. Ask for a quick-hitch if they have one - but they are easy to break.

What sort of price would I be looking at for around 5 days, (weekdays probably), hire?

You will get a favourable rate for a week - plus delivery and fuel. We'd pay about £400. The machine should come fully fuelled. Changing buckets can be tricky if you are new on a machine. If you don't have a quick hitch you will need a lump hammer and a long cold chisel and probably some replacement linch pins.

You biggest headache will be managing the spoil and keeping the green waste separate from the spoil, especially if you are low on skill.

 

[conny]

"5 days? Do you only work 2 hours per day?"

No, I normally work 8 hours+ per day in my paid job but this is for FIL who lives 35 miles away so will be doing around 6-7 hours a day.
This is what I have to clear. The pictures don't show the pot holes and craters. In reality it's like walking across an old battlefield scarred by bomb craters and shell holes. Not good ground for an 80 year old invalid so I want to get it as level as possible.

 

[charliegolf]

Noted your point about 'other workers'. But most areas have 'man with van' versions of a guy with a mini-digger. You could stand over him and he'd probably be done in a day. My legit waste mover guy has a digger, for example- if you found the same, you could get a cart it away deal included for a bit more. The sheds often have a freeads wall, that sort of contact place.

 

[noseall]

This is what I have to clear.

There is a lot of green waste there, that'll need pulling and heaping and getting rid of before you grade off the soil. Green waste grabbers are expensive compared to soil and rubble grabbers. I'd be happy on 1.5 tonne mini for that job - manoeuvrable and powerful. Don't forget to extend the tracks fully out before you start pulling on stuff.
You will be better off with a banksman/helper type with you to help shift and heap the green waste, otherwise you'll be on and off the digger like a jack-in-a-box. As I said, the skill is in managing the small space and heaping what you have pulled out. The digger will make heaps of green waste appear lightweight - until that is you jump off the digger and attempt to shift a bucketful by hand!

 

[Tigercubrider]

What is it at the back?
Looks like a yard?

 

[conny]

What is it at the back?
Looks like a yard?

Behind the wooden fence a new housing estate is being built. They built the wooden fence at the rear and have said they will rip out the bushes on the left hand side and replace with the same style of wooden fencing that is at the rear. He is the end bungalow in a row of about 12 and the narrow lane on the left, (not in the picture), is the access to the new estate. They have to instate a new road with pavements etc and this fencing was part of the proposal apparently. I have considered asking the site foreman if, when the rip out the bushes, someone could come in, (maybe over a weekend), and level the ground off then we could get a few tons of top soil to put down afterwards. I'm willing to pay and for the hire of a skip of course. Do you think they may be amenable to this? Difficult question to answer I know, but if any of you guys work on these type of building sites do you ever get requests like this?

 

[Tigercubrider]

That's what I'd do
Never done anything like that but when I was a kid my dad would spot diggers on his way home and several times we had a digger come evenings or weekends and weekends to do stuff. Things may be a bit more corporate now but worth a try.

Someone who knows what they are doing will be so quick compared to you that even if you sit in a deckchair and watch, it will be cheaper