The question is this, what do you think the most profitable machine to own is. Basis for evaluation is original purchase cost combined with hourly expenses versus hourly return. For instance a skidloaders costs 30k new and fuel + tires + maintence + depreciation are say $25 per hour, and You can charge $60 per hour of use. My thoughs are that a ctl will be the most least profitable because of high undercarrige costs combined with the fact that they are a faily common machine so you can't get top dollar for them. I'm thinking that a ultra mini excavator and a medium sized crane will be on the top of the profitability lists. The ultra mini's because they use like 3 gallons of fuel a day and you can still get the same $$ per hour for a machine thats 2-3x its size. The crane because maintence costs are less than an earth moving machine of simular cost, and not everyone has one. What do all of you think? Oh, and hand tools like shovels and hammers dont count.
we have the smallest mini hoe that Kubota makes (K008-3) I think my lunch thermos holds more fuel then it does yet it will run the day on one tank..... we charge the same amount for it that we do a fullsize backhoe...because it is a "specialty market"
I would have to say our little takeuchi 135 mini excavator. You can run the thing all day on probably $25.00 worth of fuel. Machine is billed out for $75.00an hour. The excavator had been paid for, for a while, so everything it makes now is straight profit. 2200 hours and the only 2 problem that have happen was the starter had to be replaced along with the battery. That's it, besides regular maintaince. It's pretty much a problem free machine.
If you can keep an 8,000-12,000 mini excavator busy all the time, you're laughing all the way to the bank. The hoe is about $50K+/- a little depending on how you spec it and what brand you go with, but the joke is that you can get about 70% of what you charge hourly for a 120 and the mini is easily half the cost. The logistics of owning that machine and moving it around are much, much less whe compared to having a hoe at least twice the size. For $100K, you could have a brand new truck, trailer, and machine for what it would cost for a near-new 120. I've watched my dad do this for the past 3 years. He bought a 3 ton mini in '05, he's a landscaper, but it ends up doing some light utilities and "excavation" jobs. He uses it daily on his jobs, he'd be lost without it, but it still wrangles up side jobs here and there. That thing makes more money than ANYTHING he's ever owned. Minis are money makers, skid steers are not far behind, but they are somewhat limited even though everyone claims that the hundreds of attachments keep them busy, I beg to differ a little on that. Skid steers are almost too specialized with the attachments, but excavators are a different story. I can do a bunch of work with a 5 ton mini, everything from clearing the site, to digging footings for an addition, to busting the driveway in, running the utilities, to compacting the footings and finish grading the site on the way out. A one machine show with 1 guy, 1 truck, and owning a 10 yard dump truck isn't necessary, just contract large amounts of trucking out. What you're missing with cranes is the amount of insurance you need to carry to operate a crane. Let me assure you, cranes have tons of maintenance, even if it doesn't actually include physically replacing something on the crane. The inspections that need to be done to assure it's ability to operate burns almost half an hour, easy. Cranes don't weigh out, they cost more to operate than what meets the eye.
My boom truck crane hires out at 110 an hour. doing all the math subtracting all the fuel and maintenance and the unit has been holding its value steady for the last 3 years. After its all said and done it put 66.5 dollars an hour in my pocket. Its an older unit only a 12.5 ton with 65 foot of main boom. SLLLLLOOOW as the speed of smell but reliable as anything I have been around. Its not steady work but I don't really advertise or try and wrangle work. don't even have the phone number on the side. Its an addition to my main business of structural steel. Mainly a tool for the work I do but I will sub it out for general crane work and services.
I got one, Tough machine to justify owning, because it does not get a lot of use, yet you cannot do the job without. I have to say, a smooth drum roller on a dirt crew has to be tops. It doesnt cost much upkeep and fuel wise. Its not an super expensive machine to operate or purchase. The thing is if you are in an area with heavy clay soils you need the machine to "seal" the site off before rain. For that purpose it would get used for maybe 2 hours a week. It doesnt get much better working in sand or stone. For every 8 hours, the dozer gets 6.5 hours of spreading and grading while the smooth drum gets 1.5 hours of operation. Yet you cannot complete the job without it. The last company I worked for thought they had a way around this. Our grading crew usually consisted of a D5, A cat tracked skidloader, and a smooth drum roller. This was fine grade work. So you always need a machine to bucket material here and there as finish an area. The owner decided to get a roller attachment for the skid steer. It didnt move enough material with the bucket, and it wasnt heavy enough to achieve compaction numbers. So we spent a week spinning our wheels. Where as if we had a small loader or backhoe, and a smooth drum, we would have been done in that week.
I would have to say Our Jcb js160 excavator. Bought it for an excellent deal in February with 160hrs on it . We use this machine for everything . It has payed for its self already with only 800 hours on it.