Canberra Tradies: When Owning a Mini Excavator Beats Hiring
Plumbers, landscapers, fencers and builders in the ACT hire a machine most weeks. The break-even, the tax position and the machine that fits the trailer already behind the ute.
Most Canberra trade businesses that hire a mini excavator hire it often. A plumber trenching services, a landscaper doing retaining walls, a fencer on acreage jobs at Murrumbateman: two or three hires a month is normal, and that is where the maths turns.
What hiring costs in the ACT
Dry hire for a 1.7 to 2 tonne excavator in Canberra runs roughly $300 to $400 a day or $1,200 to $1,600 a week, plus delivery and pickup ($150 to $300), damage waiver, attachments at $50 to $150 a day each, and fuel. Three hires a month with a breaker and delivery is comfortably $1,500 to $2,500 a month, or $20,000 to $30,000 a year.
What owning costs
An R22 PRO at the current price, financed over four years on a chattel mortgage, costs a monthly repayment in the same range as one or two hires. Running costs (diesel, servicing, tracks, insurance) for 400 hours a year are a few thousand dollars. See the running cost estimator and finance estimate for the exact figures at today's price.
Billing the machine
The part hire never gives you: when you own the machine you bill it. A day rate for the excavator on every job that uses it, at or below the hire rate the client would otherwise pay, turns the machine from a cost into a line of revenue. At two billed days a week the machine pays for itself well inside a year.
Tax
A business buyer claims the GST, deducts the interest on a chattel mortgage, depreciates the machine or uses the instant asset write-off if the machine is under the threshold in that financial year, and deducts the running costs. Ask your accountant; the thresholds move annually.
The trailer question
Most Canberra tradies already tow. A dual-cab rated at 3,500 kg with a 3.5 tonne plant trailer carries the R18 PRO or R22 PRO with margin; the R32 PRO wants a heavier trailer or a tilt tray. The towing check does the arithmetic against your vehicle.
Which machine
- Plumbers and service trenching: R18 PRO, narrow bucket, towable.
- Landscapers and retaining walls: R22 PRO, tilt bucket, ripper for summer clay.
- Fencers on acreage: R22 PRO with an auger and a grab.
- Builders and full-time operators: R32 PRO with a cab and zero tail swing.
See the Trades and contractors page and the comparison table.