Average cost to hire a mini digger

Summary: How much does a mini digger cost to hire, average price and cost to hire a mini digger.

A mini digger can be useful for a wide range of DIY projects and certainly cuts down on the time spent with a spade digging a large hole. Landscaping, digging foundations or making a garden pond can all be achieved more efficiently with a mini digger.

You can either drive and operate the digger yourself or choose to have an operator come and do the work for you as part of the vehicle hire contract. Whatever you choose, make sure you know the price packages that are available from the hire firm, whether they require a deposit and if there are any additional surcharges for fuel or delivery.

Average Cost

Factors to consider

Mini digger hire is best done locally as the digger has to be delivered to where you will be working. Delivery is either charged for the round trip mileage or the hire firm may have a banding system in place and charge a flat haulage rate depending on how far you are from their depot.

You can usually look at a map on their website or at their warehouse and clearly see which band you are in so that there are no discrepancies in distance and haulage charges. Hire firms don’t tend to work too far out from their depot and banding will usually go in 10 mile radius increments up to about 40 miles.

Costs to consider

On average, mini digger hire prices start at around £60 per day plus £30 for delivery within 10 miles increasing to £60 or more for the furthest point that a hire firm will deliver to.

Mini diggers are available in a range of sizes suitable for most home DIY excavations and a midsized 1.5 ton JCB is a sound choice for most landscaping work or small home based projects. Prices are usually listed as a day rate but discounts are available if you need a digger for two days or more. If a standard day rate is £60, two days could be £105, three days hire £145 and four days £180, so there are significant savings to be made the longer the digger is hired for.

If you don’t feel up to the challenge of operating a mini digger yourself, you can hire an operator as well at an additional daily rate of about £200. They will get the job done in a fraction of the time and as they do this type of thing day in day out you can ask for a bit of friendly advice and guidance on the best way to go about other aspects of the project, such as spoil disposal, drainage issues and the like.

Operating a mini digger isn’t as easy as you might think and they do get a bit difficult to control when extended to their full reach. It takes a fair bit of practice to use them efficiently, but anyone with plant driving experience will pick it up straight away. For the amateur DIY’er, you could end up with a cheaper more efficient job by hiring a professional operator along with your mini digger.

The biggest expense that you will encounter when hiring a mini digger is the upfront deposit. This can be a bit of a shock as it’s not unusual to be asked to pay £750 or more before you can take delivery of your digger.

The deposit may be taken in the form of a refundable credit or debit card transaction and the hire costs deducted on return of the equipment. So, for example if you hire a mini digger for two days at £60 per day and live within the band that costs £30 in delivery charges, your total bill would be £150. A deposit of £750 is paid on day one and when you’ve finished you are given £600 back onto your credit or debit card (£750 less the £150). It may sound like a lot for a deposit, but when you consider the value of the equipment being hired out and the nature of the business, it’s understandable that hire firms have to charge such a fee, so be prepared for the temporary expense.

A mini digger hired for personal use must be used for the intended purpose and you will be required to sign a contract to say that it will not be used commercially. Insurance should also be covered as part of the contract and the hire company will explain who is liable for any damage to equipment.