Cost of digger hire

creedp

Hi

I have a fair bit of landscaping work to do to level front and back garden of new build. Mostly the work involves levelling the gardens and then spreading heaps of top soil over both gardens. I was wondering how much per day a track machine and driver would cost.

The builder has already carried out some provisional landscaping work involving dropping the levels of the front garden by drawing the soil to raise level of back garden and for about 5 days work he charged €1,600. He also had a small dumper to draw the soil although I thought it was too small as it spent most of its time speeding from front to back carrying what was not more that a couple of barrows of soil! In addition, I don't think the digger operator was up to much - he's not a professional/experienced operator and I think it shows. I think we would be better off getting in a dedicated digger person to do the work and it might work out cheaper and better.

RKQ

OP its always best to get 3 quotes before the work begins.
1600E sounds a little expensive but I don't know what was involved - 2 men, a Digger & a Dumper for 5 days. Changing levels can be complicated & can require detailed new drainage trenches etc.

Ring around in your area to guage local hourly hire prices. A JCB Digger & Operater would be around 30E per hour around here. Dumper would be similar depending on size of dumper. Whereas a 50 Tonne Hi-mac digger could cost 50E per hour.