Hire a Micro Digger?

[seanf]

We’ve got a reasonably large area at the bottom of our garden that was home to a couple of very poor hedge sections that have been removed and the stumps ground. I now want to level this out. I have so far been doing this by hand, bagging up the waste and taking it trip-by-trip to the local recycling centre. I’ve reached a point where I know it is going to take too long to complete this way. I tried getting several local landscaping companies to come and price up just sorting it out for me, but they either ignore my request or arrange to come and view and then don’t turn up (multiple times!). I am thinking now to just continue sorting this myself. I can hire a skip and continue by hand, but it would be quicker, and let's be honest more fun, to hire a micro digger. Has anyone got any experience with these? Is it possible to go from never having driven any sort of digger before to doing a job like this? Any tips?

Thanks

Sean

 

[clive griffiths]

You should get the hang of it pretty quick with a bit of practice if the ground is level also keep away from the green house and conservatories.

 

[Stanleymonkey]

Sounds like fun.

Are you planning on using the digger to move stuff around and level the ground or dig stuff out and transfer to a skip?

Where will the skip go and how far from the digging site? Will you need wheelbarrow and space for a ramp up to the skip?

Can you get the digger to the bottom of your garden without trashing the rest of your garden? Will the hire company provide boards to drive it over when they drop it off?

 

[Dibs-h]

I hired a mini digger (one size up) years ago to do the base for my shed and I was off and away within a few minutes - but in all fairness, I had driven forklift trucks during my summer jobs.

As long as you haven't got 2 left feet, not anywhere near your house, outbuildings or boundary fences\walls - you should be fine and after an hour or so, good enough.

Just don't tip the thing over.

 

[Garden Shed Projects]

I hired one from Travis Perkins last year for a week to dig out an in ground trampoline. I spend a lot of time at work watching digger drivers making it look easy but it takes a bit of getting the hang of it. That being said if you take your time and give yourself plenty of room it can be a fun and rewarding experience. By the end of the week I had the wife and my 7 y o driving it. Loads of fun.

Just be aware you get a suprising amount of muck out of fairly small hole.

 

[BucksDad]

If you want it done quickly and aren't bothered about the experience of using one, there are quite a lot of experienced digger drivers who will just hire themselves out on a daily basis - some even have their own diggers and you can hire them + digger. Post on some local facebook groups and you should get some offers.

 

[Jones]

You can get the hang of one fairly quickly, but an experienced operator will work twice as fast and work in a more logical way making less of a mess. If you can get access for a mini digger they're better on every level.

 

[Tris]

Unless you can get the skip right alongside I'd consider getting a power barrow or mini dumper too

 

[Homeless Squirrel]

We’ve got a reasonably large area at the bottom of our garden that was home to a couple of very poor hedge sections that have been removed and the stumps ground. I now want to level this out. I have so far been doing this by hand, bagging up the waste and taking it trip-by-trip to the local recycling centre. I’ve reached a point where I know it is going to take too long to complete this way. I tried getting several local landscaping companies to come and price up just sorting it out for me, but they either ignore my request or arrange to come and view and then don’t turn up (multiple times!). I am thinking now to just continue sorting this myself. I can hire a skip and continue by hand, but it would be quicker, and let's be honest more fun, to hire a micro digger. Has anyone got any experience with these? Is it possible to go from never having driven any sort of digger before to doing a job like this? Any tips?

Thanks

Sean

Hi what area are you in? and what access do you have?
Issues with diggers is you can soon do a lot of damage very easily!
Are you looking to lower it or just level? if level you could hire a Rotavator which will break it up then rake it out.
There are many hire with drivers out there one man bands.
but if going to hire a machine and do yourself don't forget marker poles and string to set levels/gradients.
Driven many just one we had was a three tonne Kubota as used to dig graves plus landscape

 

[ajs]

Is it going to be fun? Yes.

Are you going to kill yourself? Unlikely.

Is it cost effective? No one can possibly know, depends on how wide the roots are but they sound like some mechanical assistance is in order.

Would I do it? Yes, refer to the first answer.

 

[seanf]

Thank you very much all, you’ve given me plenty to think about. Glad to see lots of you agree it would be fun if nothing else! To answer some of the questions, I need to reduce sections of the soil down by about 150ml and then level the whole thing. It is at the end of the garden, so well away from the house but is right up against the fence on one side. I would have to have the skip on the front drive and then barrow the soil out to it, I can hire a skip with a door to make that easier. I would need to drive the digger over the grass down to the area, but would not plan to move it multiple times, just in and then out once complete

I will measure up for access tomorrow and then see what our local hire place can supply that would fit

Sean

 

[Dibs-h]

Thank you very much all, you’ve given me plenty to think about. Glad to see lots of you agree it would be fun if nothing else! To answer some of the questions, I need to reduce sections of the soil down by about 150ml and then level the whole thing. It is at the end of the garden, so well away from the house but is right up against the fence on one side. I would have to have the skip on the front drive and then barrow the soil out to it, I can hire a skip with a door to make that easier. I would need to drive the digger over the grass down to the area, but would not plan to move it multiple times, just in and then out once complete

I will measure up for access tomorrow and then see what our local hire place can supply that would fit

Sean

Sounds very similar to what I did some years back but had 6 foot wide access - got a guy in with a full size JCB. He charged £150 (he drove it) and was done in 2.5hrs.

As has been said - there should be guys local to you who do the "digger with operator" for somewhere between £150-£250 for the day. Might be worth a look on Google\FB\etc.

 

[Seascaper]

We’ve got a reasonably large area at the bottom of our garden that was home to a couple of very poor hedge sections that have been removed and the stumps ground. I now want to level this out. I have so far been doing this by hand, bagging up the waste and taking it trip-by-trip to the local recycling centre. I’ve reached a point where I know it is going to take too long to complete this way. I tried getting several local landscaping companies to come and price up just sorting it out for me, but they either ignore my request or arrange to come and view and then don’t turn up (multiple times!). I am thinking now to just continue sorting this myself. I can hire a skip and continue by hand, but it would be quicker, and let's be honest more fun, to hire a micro digger. Has anyone got any experience with these? Is it possible to go from never having driven any sort of digger before to doing a job like this? Any tips?

Thanks

Sean

Hello,
If you are familiar with machinery you will soon get the hang of operating a micro digger, however when it arrives they do assume you know what you are doing and won’t be given much more instruction than turning it off and on. From the health and safety aspect, it is easy to damage yourself, your property and the machine. A friend of mine for example hired one to dig out a pond, he had not used one before, the machine slipped into the pond with himself on the machine and the turned over onto its side. There is a lot of information available from government website reference h & s aspects on operating small diggers. I have hired them many a time and owned one for foundation digging and got the job done. The other useful tool to consider is a tree stump removal tool, Forest Master make one which I have successfully used. It is a powerful lever operated jack which one uses with a choker chain to lift the stump and roots out of the ground. To use it successfully one has to get the chain around the roots starting at one side of the trunk and use it to uproot them. The stump removal tool is about £80 and the choker chain is about £25. You may also need a metal foot plate for the tool. I sold it all on after I had finished using mine.
https://forest-master.com/forest-master-fm3-lp/Regards

 

[Garden Shed Projects]

You will need to be certain that there are no services in the ground around where you are digging too. If in doubt assume there are. If you hit something it can turn into very expensive job.

When I did it I ordered a skip with a door but the one that turned up didn’t have one which turned it into a much bigger job. Use a skip company local that you call direct and not one of the on line agents.

 

[Homeless Squirrel]

Is it going to be fun? Yes.

Are you going to kill yourself? Unlikely.

Is it cost effective? No one can possibly know, depends on how wide the roots are but they sound like some mechanical assistance is in order.

Would I do it? Yes, refer to the first answer.

But does he know where the Services are?

 

[davethebb]

If the remaining stumps in the ground are 3" in diameter or more you may be better off contracting a stump grinding company to come and remove them for you, or, you could hire a grinder and do it yourself. These will break up the soil as well for you.

 

[Homeless Squirrel]

If the remaining stumps in the ground are 3" in diameter or more you may be better off contracting a stump grinding company to come and remove them for you, or, you could hire a grinder and do it yourself. These will break up the soil as well for you.

mini diggers and tree stumps/roots are akin to trying to boil kettle with a candle!
Did a job for someone know.he was yeah we have a Machine on site you can pull rest of tree out!. Thing couldn't pull it'self, let alone root mind oppo's had taken tree down a bit too low to use high point leverage on it so in end deposited digger elsewhere and got it out with chainsaw and axe.

 

[owen]

If you need to get rid of the soil, grab lorrys are normally cheaper than a skip. Just put some old ply down on the front drive and make a pile ready for them to collect

 

[GweithdyDU]

Lots of sensible comments above and yes, you will get the idea quite quickly. Well at least I sort of did when I purchased a towable Powerfab digger. The best advice I can give,and it was given to me years ago when I first started using small diggers, is to not have anyone within reach if you accidently use the wrong lever (or at least push the joystick with more modern diggers) going left instead of right for instance. They may be mini, but the hydraulics still have immense power and it only takes one wrong move to hurt and a clout on the side of the head from a digger can easily kill or cause serious head injuries and the same with clouting limbs and abdominal/chest areas. I'm not trying to put yu off at all and they ae great fun. Also, even a rubbish digger with a novice operator is still way faster than a shovel and a barrow.

 

[dickm]

Son-in-law hired a minidigger to grub out the stumps of a dreadful 30m length of Leylandii hedge along the back of their garden, with a public path alongside. He and my daughter seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly and with me wielding the chainsaw, the job was done in less than a day. Followed by several days with two chippers to dispose of the brash. Big stuff saved for the woodstove.