Hire equipment - beware

[Eastie]

In Victoria worksafe is blitzing equipment hirers and their hire yards to weed out unsafe, non-compliant and un-maintained equipment.
Unfortunately like any industry a small minority of hirers may be taking advantage of this and offloading their crap onto unknowing backyarders. There has also been rumours about of bodgey hire equipment being moved to ‘quieter locations’ and interstate. Don’t waste your $’s on unsafe equipment.

Here are a few key questions to consider before hiring equipment:

Are you provided with appropriate advice about the items you intend to hire?

Is safe-use information provided?

Are machine/blade guards in place and operable ?

Is there evidence that items are inspected and maintained between each hiring?

[Pulpo]

It annoys the crap out of me hiring a piece of equipment only to find it does not run like it should.

You hire the equipment to usually save time, however much time can be wasted stuffing around trying to make it work properly.

I could not agree more; check to see if the product looks like its been well maintained: clean, sharp blades, proper safety gear. etc

I think the prices paid for hiring are certainly not cheap, which supprises me how badly maintained the hire equipment can be.

Decide wisely

Pulpo

[Iain]

I think the worst offenders are the Backyard Blitz etc shows who show the gear, in pristine condition of course.
After watching one show, putting in posts with a post hole digger, at only about sixty bucks a day, I went to hire one, the team were a little under of the cost for a dingo with a post hole digger, Two hundred and bloody sixty dollars for one bloody day.
Always cautious of the prices quoted now.
The other point is for about three days hire on most tools you could buy a new one so why bother, unless its a dingo which I have no need for (also closer to two weeks hire on that one).

[Dean]

It amazes me how they can charge sometimes up to 60% of the costs of actually buying the tool to hire it for a day...Just outlay a bit more, buy one new and you not only get a brand new tool to use, you also get to keep it for next time

[q9]

Plenty of times we have bought secondhand tools - cheaper in most cases than hiring, can take as long as we like using it, and nearly always able to recover 85% of the purchase price by selling when finished.

[Markw]

Whilst I am disgusted at the prices some of the major hire co's charge, considering many of the users are absolute knuckleheads who shouldn't be trusted with a childs plastic hammer. I can see why they charge so much because tools do not last. Maybe there should be two differing rates, one for tradesmen and one for unskilled renovators.
But then again I have seen some pretty poor tradesmen in my time.

Please note that this is NOT targeted at anyone in particular but just a general observation

:confused:

[Sir Stinkalot]

Originally posted by Iain
I think the worst offenders are the Backyard Blitz etc shows who show the gear, in pristine condition of course.
After watching one show, putting in posts with a post hole digger, at only about sixty bucks a day, I went to hire one, the team were a little under of the cost for a dingo with a post hole digger, Two hundred and bloody sixty dollars for one bloody day.
Always cautious of the prices quoted now.
The other point is for about three days hire on most tools you could buy a new one so why bother, unless its a dingo which I have no need for (also closer to two weeks hire on that one).

I too was looking at hiring a Dingo Digger to redo our backyard. I had a look around the web for some of the bigger hire companys as I thought I would get a better deal and the price was huge as mentioned above. I then stumbled upon a very small hire outlet here in Geelong that mostly hires party goods .... they have assorted tools as well ... the Dingo Digger can be yours for $140 day including fuel and the post hole digger $40 .... so it pays to shop around and not always look for the biggest outlet. They actually have two that seem to get little use so when I am looking at hiring I will ask for a deal over two days ... I am sure that they wouldn't say no .... I think around $250 for two days sounds good.

Stinky

[journeyman Mick]

Stinky, the hire company I used to deal with (no need now I own at least 1 of everything ) gives from last thing Friday afternoon till first thing Monday morning for the usual 1 day hire rate. Most of their customers are trade so they don't tend to hire on the weekend. You might try getting a similar deal.

Mick

[Glen Bridger]

Hi,

Well I must say I agree with everything. The cheap companies usually have crap equipment. And the good places forget they are hiring and not selling the equipment.

I hired a trench digger once from a cheap place, it was the only place which had half day hire. Well this thing really looked the part. Three cylinder diesel, hydraulic drive motor, self propelled, came on its own special built trailer and not to mention it weighed nearly a tonne. I thought this was the sh*t, look out here comes another Grand Cannon.

What a piece of crap. As soon as I tried to dig anything deeper than about 6 inches the hydraulic drive unit just stopped. I only got half of the 14 metres of trench dug to the required depth of 600mm.

When I took it back and told the guy what I thought, his reply was "I hope you weren't trying to dig in clay". I told him if I had nice soil in my yard I wouldn't need a bloody trench digger.

I would have been better off having someone come in with a small digger and have it done.

Glen

[Sir Stinkalot]

Fair call about the smaller cheaper places .... I have checked out the Dingos in question and they both appear to be near new so I assume that it will opperate as such. I will check about the weekend hire deal ... anything to save a few dollars as this backyard makover is going to cost the earth ...

[journeyman Mick]

Just a couple of tips, re hire equipment not working. Make sure you get their after hours mobile phone number and if you don't have an account with them pay by credit card. The few times that I've had dramas with hire gear I've rung them and screamed blue murder, told them to come and bring a replacement immediately. Just beacause you're not hiring the machine to make a living doesn't mean your time isn't money. If I'd been given a trencher that didn't trench I would've rung immediately (starting off nicely of course) and then if they didn't come to the party returned the machine and told them I wouldn't be paying for it. So you either don't pay for the item on your account at the end of the month or you contact your credit card company and get them to stop payment. It isn't always neccesary to get stroppy with them, but sometimes you really need to keep pushing your point to get your way.

Mick

[John G]

My advice for hiring equipment: hire an owner/operator instead.

I was recently landscaping my sister's garden, and needed to do a fair bit of leveling, trench digging, and post-hole-digging.
I wanted to hire a dingo, but the dingo, plus all the attachments, would be over $400 a day (I'll name names Mr Kennard!).
Then I called some of the Dingo owner/operators that advertise in the local community paper. Found a guy who worked for $55/hr.
This was my choice: Hire it myself, I would have to collect and return it, learn how to drive it etc. As a novice I figured I wouldn't work very fast, so it would take me 2 or 3 days. ($800-$1200)
or
Hire the guy, he arrives, I spend 10 minutes explaining the plan to him, telling him where to dig etc. He starts work, way faster than I would work, he already has all the attachments. On the first day he did 3 hours work. I got him back a couple of weeks later for some follow up work (back-filling, some extra holes etc). About 3 hours again. Total cost $320. Which is less than 1 day's hire!
I had to do a bit of planning so it was all ready for him to go (i.e. do all the marking out), but I was very impressed.
This was awful hard clay (in Nth Canberra), and at times the Dingo struggled, but it all got there in the end.

[pete152]

Gidday,
I am new to all this handy man stuff.So when some one said they buy second hand gear to save money then sell it afterwards.Where do you buy from?
I have looked at Cash Conversayons(something like that!!)and the prices are nearly at new price levels.
Thanks,
Peter

[journeyman Mick]

Peter, over the years I've bought a lot of second hand gear and the number one rule is to know what it costs new. Cash Convertors is generally expensive but they do have a 3 month warranty. I have gotten a few bargains off them over the years but it's a matter of constant looking. Then there's garage sales, for sale classifieds and auctions. I've probably gotten the most bargains at auctions but I've also seen people get caught up in the heat of the bidding and pay better than new prices. On the other hand at a recent auction a stack of demolition saws (like a chain saw, but with a 14" cutting disc) went for $50ea. You need to know what you're looking for, what it's worth and be prepared to keep looking and looking.

Mick

[pete152]

Thanks for the reply.I will check out the week-end shopper in the courier mail,did not even think of that!
The cash covertors prices near us seem to so close to new it would not be worth it.
any way thanks again,
Peter