Is buying a mini-excavator a good investment if you're building a house by yourself or would you rather get some other type of heavy machinery?
Is buying a mini-excavator a good investment if you're building a house by yourself or would you rather get some other type of heavy machinery?
Buy a broken one. If you can fix it, and store it as you fix it, then you're prolly the right person for one
Well i guess I'm the right person for one!
fpbp, you can get these REALLY cheap and you can fix them for a few thousand. Sped a few more and you can make it look great, too. For a big boy win, sell it for x2 what you bought it for plus x4 the material and $150/hr of your time. Then you can either start over and get another excavator in similar condition, upgrade, or get an old dump truck or skid steer to go with it.
no just rent unless you are planning to own a farm or something
Dude you just rent machinery.
Either call an excavator out for the day, rent an excavator if you can drive one.
If you can't drive an excavator (see: never driven an excavator), I'm going to say you don't have the skills to maintentain one, you don't know what they're worth, and even if one fell out of the sky you still couldn't drive it.
What KIND of machine do you need?
A dozer, bobcat with a bucket, a grader? Some combination of the above?
You you know anything about subsidence, drainage, civil engineering?
Hur dur make land flat.
I'm a ruralgay and let me tell you you're talking about a whole profession people spend decades in. I could buy a surgeons kit tomorrow and google "how to do surgery", but it wouldn't be very clever would it?
good question OP i'd like to hear some thoughts on the topic as well.. prices and all the other considerations. I think you could do some personal estimates regarding cost of machinery and maintenance vs cost of hiring out all the projects you intend to do over the lifetime of the property.. there is a lot of stuff you could do with one and like someone else mentioned if you can find one cheap, fix it, use it, and then sell it one afterwards, it could be a no brainer.. but like
mentioned, be careful and shit and follow the rules..?
what do you suggest someone who wants DIY build a house and either buy or rent a piece of machinery do to learn about the machinery and it's use?
>What KIND of machine do you need?
>A dozer, bobcat with a bucket, a grader? Some combination of the above?
What would be the most useful for building a house?
A hammer
>still couldn't drive it.
homie its 2 pedals and 2 sticks, it's not rocket surgery
>Is buying a mini-excavator a good investment if you're building a house by yourself or would you rather get some other type of heavy machinery?
Had a teacher once (he taught us electronics) who took a year off work, bought a used excavator and a small crane, and build a house himself.
Here we build houses with concrete and brick tho, and lumber for roofs is like 10 by 15", so you need tend to need such things.
He said he sold both for about the same price he bought them for after he finished the house, so certainly beats renting.
If your IQ is above 110 you can figure out an excavator in a few hours mate.
They're fairly simple machines to fix as well, and these days even for detailed component repair there's always youtube.
>If your IQ is above 110
That is a pretty tall order for most of the homosexuals on this board...
This. Construction Black folk try to gatekeep heavy equip online, but the average operator MIGHT have a hs degree. They don't understand that there are people out there that don't need a certificate from devry and 10 year apprenticeship to learn how to pull levers and do basic trig.
PrepHole - Don't Do it Yourself.
You're doing the digging yourself you numb digger.
Smart people do what is most cost-effective but you cannot resist trolling the ignorant.
The objective of equipment is what it does, not who it belongs to. Rentals ensure you won't get stopped in the middle of a job by an expensive repair requiring replacement of a hard to source part.
I've the background, skills, tools and equipment to fix any reasonably common piece of heavy equipment. I don't buy them because unless used constantly they're a maintenance sinkhole and because if I need something different than what I owned the equipment I owned was of no use. Rent, work quickly and be done.
How many excavators do YOU own and maintain? IDGAF who you thought was cool.
One of OPs concerns is probably that he needs some time to figure out how to use it. If he has a large plot of land and multiple projects in mind it could make more sense to buy. Rental can get expensive fast. Just one week could be about 5% of the cost of purchasing one in almost new condition.
He'd better be at least decent at wrenching. Most who wrench forget what the learning curve looks like but at least today they have videos.
>How many excavators do YOU own and maintain?
Zero.
>I've the background, skills, tools and equipment to fix any reasonably common piece of heavy equipment
See that's the difference between you and me.
You were trained to fix one thing, in this case heavy equipment.
It took you years to learn the basics and get experience to solve typical problems that come up.
I often fix things I see for the first time and have zero background fixing, and I'm not scared about it.
I'm usually successful in fixing whatever I come across, and often I get to fix things which "the experts" in the field deemed unfixable.
An excavator to me is not an excavator. It's a diesel engine, a hydraulic pump, valves, hydraulic cylinders, lever arms, in a specific arrangement.
I've never fixed an excavator. But I've fixed diesel engines, hydraulic pumps, valves, cylinders and plenty of other stuff.
The notion that something I can't fix exists is laughable, and you having that sort of idea shows how limited your mindset is, which reveals your ability to think in abstract concepts and thusly your IQ.
tl;dr - smart people exist on a plane you can't even fathom. Your small minded posts are nothing but a pitiful nuisance, they don't belong here.
Pretty much this. All machines are just a bunch of sub-components when you break it all down.
I bought this excavator last year. Still in the process of working on it to get it all fixed up. I haven't had a ton of time to work on it though so progress is slow. The get the place I bought it from to include a bucket in the deal. Picture is from when they were selling it.
The cab is in my shop right now, stripped down, drilled out all the spot welds and separated the inside skin from the exterior shell and got the cab all pushed out and straightened up pretty good IMO. Might do a bit more straightening, and then re-weld the inner skin back in, a bit of bondo work where needed, and then paint the entire thing in 2 part epoxy bedliner to cover some of the smaller dents/dings.
Basically the entire machine was in excellent condition except for the cab was smashed. Only 4000 hours on the machine and it was a Union Pacific machine, so it had an easy life. Had a rotator clamshell on it at one point in time so it has dual auxiliary hydraulics. They probably used it for grabbing bundles of ties and setting on or off of train cars. Hell it may have even spent most of its time on a train car because the undercarriage is clean and has hardly any wear at all.
New cab shell would have been in the neighborhood of $10,000, so I opted to straighten this one out the best I can. Some of the interior plastic pieces need replaced and others need fixed. I think I have them all sourced and bought now. Windshield and frame were missing when I got it, and I am going to replace the entire front glass with a sheet of 1/4" lexan set in a gasket. Won't be able to open the front glass anymore, but I'll be running it with the a/c on 99% of the time.
You however have a shop etc as I do. Does OP have one?
Of course rehabbing construction equipment is fun but PrepHole tends to go off on mentally ill tangents. Not you but the previous autspergic ranter homosexual who mispresumed my background because he's insane.
OP, EXACTLY what are your skills and abilities and resources? Do you have shop facilities, tools and equipment suited to working on construction equipment? Nothing is really mentally difficult but people forget not all parts are cheap.
I could do it but it's not going to put money in my pocket and the proper purpose of every process that builds a home is to build the home, not jerk off on the way. Money doesn't lie so use it to measure everything. DIY exists as a less expensive alternative to doing the same task.
Type of house and work required are relevant as is equipment cost including paying a rigger to deliver it (unless you already own a suitable truck and flatbed in which case you don't need PrepHole for anything).
It takes about 5-10 minutes to learn the controls of an excavator and you can be doing actual work after a half hour of practice.
This won't be the deal-breaker for someone buying their own heavy equipment.
Shit's expensive though, personally the times I needed an excavator I just rented. When something went wrong (electrical problem in my case) the company sent over another working machine right away.
That's why I rent. If I wanted another hobby or had a seriously large project well beyond a couple of homes it would both pay and be fun to hunt down a deal on a decent machine (after asking experienced mechanics which they prefer) then make it pay for itself.
If my objective is single house now then time to rent and return, which also gets me a wide choice of equipment.
Buying an excavator doesn't get me a dozer etc.
>Buying an excavator doesn't get me a dozer etc.
Nah but the money you save by owning the equipment (If you need it for long enough) vs. renting sure can buy you a dozer!
I don't wanna burst your bubble man but heavy machinery is absolutely not that hard to figure out. You could be proficient enough to use almost any of them with a couple hours practice and by the end of a couple of days of use you'd probably be about as good as the guys who have been using them for a long time. Imagine living in a world where you think yourself too incompetent to figure something out even if you are given the opportunity to try it (re: falls out of the sky). I didnt have a fricking clue how to use a trencher until I rented one, spent twenty minutes figuring out the controls, then successfully dug the entire trench I needed dug pretty easily. it never once occurred to me that if I had the machine I would be too stupid to figure out how to use it. that's a ridiculous thought to have.
>If you can't drive an excavator (see: never driven an excavator), I'm going to say you don't have the skills to maintentain one, you don't know what they're worth, and even if one fell out of the sky you still couldn't drive it.
This post was brought to you by big excavatorist. The best way to learn is to rent it and learn by doing. Kys shill
moron, even video games are more complicated than operating heavy machinery
You can even learn how to use one playing videogames!
>I cant into surgery
NGMI, lad. People online are posting successful self-surgeries and dental work all the time.
Renting ain’t hard
Builders normally rent. There isn't an enormous amount of digging involved.
>Builders normally rent. There isn't an enormous amount of digging involved.
I can confirm this is generally true. I work for a small residential construction company and about 10 years ago we sold our backhoe and our skidsteer because it was used for such a small percentage of the work that it was more cost efficient to just rent the equipment when it was needed.
If you're building a new house you might need an excavator/backhoe/skidsteer for 1 or 2 weeks at the beginning of the job to dig the footers, basement, etc. and maybe another week near the end for final grading. Buying equipment to do it for just one instance just doesn't seem logical in any way.
What kind of attachments are the most useful / most commonly used in construction work? Think building a house on a farm
I think you shouldn't buy any heavy machinery that you will use only once.
Rural or suburban? If rural with farmland...You know you can just get a backhoe attachment for a farm tractor, right?
Urban/burbs, just rent one from Home Depot.
>You know you can just get a backhoe attachment for a farm tractor
A backhoe attachment for a tractor would be not even close to comparable to an excavator.
Anyone with an excavator do side work? Wondering if it would be feasible to do a small job or two a month, make some extra cash which would pay for the machine over time. Easier jobs like digging a trench or pulling some stumps, things like that
Just don't use/buy case, they're shit
t. unfortunate user of case excavator, skid and loader
What is your reasoning for not liking Case?
that and probably a skid steer if you can afford it or borrow one
yes
Then sell it for the same price as you bought it.
You'd be surprised how many MF do this. Be sure to sell it though, don't be the moron that leaves it rot in the yard.
>don't be the moron that leaves it rot in the yard.
Or the rather unhappy fellow a few miles from me whose trackhoe died his yard (he had one of the hydraulic motors out, I didn't ask) and sat there over a year before it went away.
Maybe. You'll be tempted to do things that wouldn't make sense if you had to do it by hand.
best investment is a back-hoe. but only if you have about 10 acre+. if you are a millionare with 100+ acres then yes.
a back hoe is less mobile and smaller in scale but you can do more with it.
a kabota back-hoe can do everything a tractor can and has a back hoe. so you can bush hog, level your property and landscape, use most tractor attachments like plows, cutters, scrapers, and many other things. it also has a bucket so if you are doing things like lifting a post, using it as a crane, need a pair of heavy lift forks, it does it all for the low cost of whatever you are trying to use.
I would only get a track-hoe for use on a small farm if that costs less than $20,000-$5000 to get it there and everything else to make it run.
generally any form of tack-hoe is a bad idea for a farm, Track-hoes are a specialized tool for construction and only profitable for use on construction. it however is a piece of equipment and if you have nothing and this is the cheapest option it is an option. having done civil construction, it is in my opinion for a small family, a back-hoe will provide more on return, it will be slower and less agile, but it will be more versatile.
to give you an idea of all the equipment that makes sense for construction that that I can do if every so more slowly on a back-hoe (without special equipment):
>Track-hoe
>Front-end loader
>Scraper
>Trencher
>Forklift
>Small crane
>Small Dozer
with special attachments:
>bush-hog
>compactor
>truck (wagon)
>harvester (certain crops, various wagons and rear attachments)
>water wagon (PTO +wagon)
>trencher (trencher)
>generator(generator)
>something you red-necked to use off of the PTO
>a first transport for your children to and from school/groceries. (farm implement law)
>an "ATV"
I'd buy a tractor with a bucket on the front and digger on the back
Trench and grade without swapping heads
I would consider a skid loader with a trenching attachment but would def prefer a tractor with both and support legs