Once you start to plan a full property renovation it won’t be long before you see the need for plant hire or equipment hire. Most renovators find such equipment far too expensive to buy outright, especially when it won’t be in use all the time. It would never pay for itself by sitting in a shed waiting for the next project to pop up.
If your block of ground is on a slope, it is highly likely that you will need to level off at least some of the ground before you can complete the renovation, especially if you intend to add another room or deck. You might even want to have a veranda going right around the house.
If you are also going to do some landscaping to go with your new renovations, get that work done at the same time you hire the machinery for the other work. It just takes a bit of planning ahead to save money. Hire rates are usually by the hour or the day, so if your building project only takes a couple of hours with the machinery, you may as well use it while it’s there to level off the driveway, fill up a hole, dig a hole for the swimming pool or do whatever else you have planned for the future.
Hiring the right excavator is essential. It has to be able to fit into the area, so if there’s not much room, the excavator will need to be small and agile enough to work in a tight area. There might be trees, fences, the house or someone else’s house or fence to dodge. There may be plumbing pipes or landline phone lines just under the ground. All these things can be dodged easily when you hire the right plant.
When speaking to the hire company, make sure you have a list of measurements to tell them. This way they can choose the best excavator or other machinery for your project. Don’t forget to measure the distance between the side of your house and the boundary fence if you are in a residential area. This is the area that is usually the narrowest and sometimes the fence needs to come down in order to fit the machinery through.
Make sure you notify your neighbour and tie your dog up, if you have one. Assuring the neighbour that you will pay to have the fence re-erected should help to smooth things over with them if you do need to pull down part of the fence. You might even suggest that if they wanted anything excavated in their own yard, now would be a good time to do it. They might be willing to go halves with you in the cost of hiring the machinery.