How To Operate A Skid Steer Safely

Publish date: 2024-03-31

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How Much Does It Cost to Rent a Skid Steer vs. Hiring a Pro?

A medium-size skid steer costs about $200 to rent for one day (not including the trailer or delivery fees), or about $600 per week. A pro operator will charge $65 to $95 per hour. So think it through. It may cost less to hire a pro than to rent a machine and operate it yourself. If all you have to do is smooth out some black dirt in a customers suburban backyard, hire a pro. Achieving a smooth, dip-free grade is trickier than it looks, and it will likely take you much longer than a pro and end up costing more. And it takes many hours of practice to become proficient at complex jobs like working on slopes or building boulder walls.

Digging and moving dirt are relatively easy, and you can get the hang of them pretty quickly, so renting a skid steer makes sense for those jobs where you have to move copious amounts of soil from point A to point B. Renting also makes sense if there will be a lot of downtime between uses of the skid steer, like intermittently hauling sand and pavers for a large patio or other landscaping projects. Renting isn’t cheap, so make sure everything is ready to go the minute you get the machine to the site.

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Which Skid Steer Is the Best to Rent?

Bigger isn’t always better: Smaller machines work great in tight areas (to backfill inside basements, for example), and in wooded areas where the trees are fairly close together. Smaller machines also do less damage to finished lawns. Bigger machines often have bigger buckets and can obviously lift heavier stuff.

Skid steers with tracks are often called compact track loaders. Tracked machines are gentler on lawns and less likely to get stuck, but they will cost about 25 percent more to rent.

You use levers to steer a skid steer, and either hand joysticks or foot pedals to control the bucket and lift arm. You’ll find pros that prefer one over the other, but the learning curve on both is similar. Go with the hand controls if you’re still bothered by that old high school knee injury, or do the opposite if you have trouble with your wrist.

Skid steers are available at some rental centers, and most heavy-equipment dealers rent them as well.

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