The excavator is undoubtedly among the most crucial machines to have at a construction project site owing to the versatility, flexibility, and practicality elements of the excavator which is able to perform a wide variety of tasks. Latest developments within the sphere of hydraulic technologies that have brought various extended hydraulic tools have rendered the excavator ‘essential’ to projects.
These machines these days are however rarely purchased by contractors or construction companies as most of them choose to rent or take these excavators for hire due to the practicality of this strategy. By renting or taking an excavator for hire according to Jim Brooklyn, a well-established contractor in Melbourne, contractors gain the advantage of choosing the right type of excavator for the right type of task.
According to him, when we purchase an excavator, we are ‘stuck’ with the machine, if we don’t use it, it is basically money ‘rotting’ in a garage, if we purchase a mini excavator and need a standard excavator or vice versa, what could we do? By renting this problem is solved, we take excavators for hire based on the project requirements which ensures that we have the right type of machine for the task at hand.
However, according to Mr Brooklyn, there is the issue of choices that makes it difficult for contractors to choose as there are so many choices of different excavators from different suppliers that sport different features that it could get complicated.
For example, the recent launch of the 50-ton EC500 crawler excavator launched by Volvo CE matches the Volvo 36.85-ton EC 300E, the difference between these two crawler excavators is the size and cycle time. Hence, inexperienced project managers would be between capacity and cycle time, and without having a good perspective on the project environment (from a geographical perspective), renting the wrong excavator could happen.
If the project site is spacious, then the larger model would be a good choice, however, if the environment is spacious but congested, the EC300 would be the better choice. The same applies to choices between electric excavators and diesel-powered excavators normally for mini excavator categories which are also available for hire, the choice is the price difference with battery-powered machines costing slightly more than older mini excavator versions.
Now depending on the workload, charging facilities, and operator experience, project managers must weigh every aspect of the task, if the project is located in a residential area, then using an electric-powered machine that is quieter and has no emission would be the right way to go, the higher cost is a given, however, if the project is in the outskirts or rural location, precedence could be given to cost and renting an excavator would be the more cost-effective choice.
The point that is being made here is that choosing an excavator is not always about the cost, it is more about optimizing the project elements which include, time, excavator hire prices, project schedule, workload, type of tasks involved, and a variety of other factors that must all be taken into consideration as they are all equally important.