Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

[Hay Dude]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Looks like my insurance has me covered....I hope :laughing:
I owned a backhoe off and on for over 20 years, dug many a full basement and sewer line trench. I dont recall any special insurance.:reading:

 

[bob112]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Yes guys, 27T as in 54,000lbs. 34", 48", and 60" buckets, hydro thumb, and would like to work. I think most are just talking about insurance. I will deal with that, but I am more interested in what work I might consider. I know the type of work I have done in the past which is very large municipal storm sewers, roads, bridges, etc, but I am not looking for that level of work. I think ponds are a free for all where any hooptie digger can show up and make a hole.

 

[Hay Dude]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Yes guys, 27T as in 54,000lbs. 34", 48", and 60" buckets, hydro thumb, and would like to work. I think most are just talking about insurance. I will deal with that, but I am more interested in what work I might consider. I know the type of work I have done in the past which is very large municipal storm sewers, roads, bridges, etc, but I am not looking for that level of work. I think ponds are a free for all where any hooptie digger can show up and make a hole.

What about land clearing? Always seems to be the need for digging out stumps, yet not too intricate. Machine could remain on site for quite a while if many acres being cleared. Thumb will give great joy in that task.
Buddy of mine does that and uses local heavy hauler to move his machine around. Saves him a ton of $ in not having to own a heavy hauler

 

[LD1]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Most of the work for a machine that size is gonna be basements and ponds. Possibly some septics, but depending on where you live that might require a license.

Basements have to be coordinated with builders for blueprints and layouts, where footers need to be....or pads for posts/columns, etc.

Ponds are the easiest as is land clearing.

But again.....many of those tasks are complemented greatly by a dozer

 

[Hay Dude]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

I dug all my own basements with a machine less than 1/2 that size.
Someone shows up with a 54K machine to dig a house basement, I’d hesitate letting them unload. Thats a big machine.

 

[MossRoad]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

I dug all my own basements with a machine less than 1/2 that size.
Someone shows up with a 54K machine to dig a house basement, I’d hesitate letting them unload. Thats a big machine.

Time is money. I remember my dad having a house built for his parents next to us in the 70's. The excavator he hired showed up with a huge machine. He dug half the basement from one corner, moved to the opposite corner and finished it from there. Seemed like only a couple hours and he was done. Only two piles of dirt on the site to work around made for easy access for the concrete guys and carpenters.

 

[dodge man]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Through my work as a land surveyor, I was around a lot of construction projects. The machine you have seemed to be the size that most decent sized contractors were using. As already pointed out, you usually need other equipment, a dump truck, dozer etc, plus another person or two as a laborer, grade checker etc. Other than projects like land clearing, ponds, basements and such where all you need is your machine, I don’t see a lot of work.

Two other things that come to mind, a larger contractor that has a machine break down. They usually rent but you might be able to fill in, but unions could be a problem. Another is field tile. They often have a lot of equipment but not a big excavator that they just need on occasion.

 

[bob112]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Good thoughts and ideas guys! This at least did give me the idea of piloting septic work. I actually have a lot of hands on and design experience in this field, having designed and installed remediation systems and recovered every system so far. Our county requires a license but I am on a first name basis with the only county guy that inspects these. It is just a paper test. He knows I work on these already regardless the license. Also in our area, our county guy has been pushing for massive size upgrades in lateral fields. many being 1000ft of pipe in the ground with a 3ft wide trench. Sure, a smaller machine can do this, but getting a field open, then closed up before rain can be tricky. I really would enjoy new system installs because it would give me an opportunity to use my experience with this stuff. I have seen and heard so many falsehoods from installers, it just makes me cringe, but half the battle is educating the home owners about how to use their system.

I do own a D7 dozer as well but I might want to run it more on the farm to ensure I am confident with it. Just don't use it enough and I don't want breakdowns on a jobsite.

I also have high end lasers and a total station.

 

[Industrial Toys]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

You seem in good shape.

Yeah, maybe you need some boots on the ground too. Amazing how mny machine operators these days refuse to get on the end of a shovel, let alone get out of their cab..

 

[JethroB]

Re: Man with an excavator here. Considering doing a little "for hire" work.

Thats about the size excavator my dirt guy has, along with a small dozer & a dump truck. He does quite a bit of work mucking out or rimming existing farm ponds. Of course after you dig out that goo you have to to find a home for it, ideally where it wont make its way back into the pond.