If you need earthmoving equipment for a building project, here are a couple of tips that you might find useful.
Rent it instead of buying it
If your construction project is likely to go on for quite a long time (i.e. a year or more), you might be thinking about buying the earthmoving equipment you need, instead of renting it. However, this is probably not a good idea.
There are several reasons for this. Firstly, much like cars and other road vehicles, the value of new heavy construction equipment depreciates rapidly.
As such, if you buy your equipment with the intention of selling it on at the end of your project, it is highly unlikely that you will be able to recoup your initial costs, as by that point the equipment will be worth just a fraction of its original price.
Secondly, there is no guarantee that you will actually be able to sell it on after you have finished using it. If you struggle to sell it, you may end up having to pay to keep it in a storage facility until you can find a buyer.
Thirdly, if you buy your equipment instead of renting it, you will have to shoulder the burden of repairs and maintenance alone, without any support. This could be stressful, time-consuming and expensive.
Conversely, if you rent your machinery from an earthmoving equipment hire company, you can contact their support team whenever you need advice regarding maintenance or when repairs need to be performed which you are unable to carry out yourself.
Additionally, when you no longer need the equipment at the end of your project, you can simply return the machinery to the rental company, instead of having to try to sell it or pay for it to be kept in a storage facility.
Only allow experienced individuals to operate the equipment
Bulldozers, excavators and other types of earthmoving equipment are challenging to drive; they require a great deal of skill, experience and knowledge to operate safely.
Allowing untrained and inexperienced people to use this type of powerful machinery could have disastrous consequences. For example, if a person who has never operated a bulldozer before uses this equipment to knock down a tall tree, because they are unaware of the risks associated with doing this, the tree could land on the cab of the bulldozer and in doing so, crush both the cab and the operator sitting inside it.
As such, if you want to minimise the risk of this equipment causing an accident, it is vital to ensure that you only allow individuals who have the relevant experience to operate it.
