Anyone ever heard of a business running with ONLY a grader? I might have a chance to pick one up local and push it around town doing snow and a bit of dirt on my off days. I know it sounds absurd (to me anyways) but who knows, gotta ask!
Don’t give up your day job..lol!! By that, I mean you might struggle to pay off the machine, maintain it and earn a reasonable income as well. We started the roadworks side of our business with a single grader but were able to help it along with income from another side. We now have a dozen bits of gear that, combined, are reasonably profitable but it certainly hasn’t been a get rich quick proposition.
Everyone has to start somewhere! I started mine with 1 truck...………...and 30 years later, I still have 1 truck. LOL
I would imagine that a smaller start-up might be better served with a skid steer or mini x, just because they're cheaper to own, easier to haul around, possibly more opportunity for smaller jobs, blah blah blah. But hell like someone already said, ya gotta start somewhere. Go for it, let us know how it goes!
If you can keep it reasonably busy, why not?
I know 2 guy's that did it in Washington. Rudy did custom grading with a 140 for commercial work for contractors that didn't own their own blade, or did own their own but didn't have an operator with Rudy's skill set and home owner associations that didn't have paved roads. Norm also did commercial work and buffed up timber sale roads for logger who didn't have a blade. Both those guy's did alright for themselves.
I think if you had a mini laser grader (built in Rhode Island) and a Compact track loader... you could probably develop horse arena clients and work at it forever until such time as you got bored, retired, or failed to launch one morning.
I know of one guy he started with 1 blade hired out to a large grading /civil contractor 4 years later he had 4 blades working for them he did good till that housing died then he had to get a scrapper to keep a blade busy But as busy as it's gotten here a guy could hire out a blade if he had the skill the draw back is now that you would need 3d GPS for most of the work around here and that is way spendy
You could make it happen all it takes is word of mouth and some hustling theirs quite a few guys around town that own a blade and a skip loader that hire out to bigger company’s i get some work here and there not as consistent with either a blade or a dozer but it does cost money to fix them and run them good luck what kind of a blade you looking at
One guy in the north end of the state started doing the logging road stuff. I know of another that does the access roads to the wind mills in south central Washington State. Owner operators can make it I guess but both had to expand and take on employees in other ventures to make any real money. Both made the comment to me that with one machine they were only buying a job and the boss was a real jerk.
Right on guys, thanks for the responses. Still in the very preliminary stages of this venture, considering everything very heavily before diving headlong into anything. The area is booming and money is here, just not 100% sure about anything (Nor will I ever be, surely). Mostly looking into structuring a business at the moment, got a good local mechanic who knows the machine (fixed it since it was new) that gives me a good rate, a list of potential clients (haven't contacted anyone......yet!) and a list of long shots, financing, and insurance/licensing requirements for the area. I know a skid steer and a truck are the more conventional ways of starting, but every local joe's already got one of them. Blades on the other hand........ well there's a few of them around too but we'll see!
The biggest thing with on your own as you can always get the point of view of buying a job on your own if it's not one thing it's another and if you want to work 40 billable hours plan that you personally as the owner will work like 60 consitiently to make that happen. But it's all what you want out of life I personally would not trade being the owner of a small excavation company but it has its day where it drives me up the wall Also remember you will have more than one customer most likely to keep busy so your trading in your one boss to have multiple bosses and some are really needy and most dont care about you just that your not there 2 days ago and the job is not done before it starts If your like me you will probably put years in and still not be sure how your going to make it work