Boxer skid steer opinions

[Jonny69]

9 hours ago, Joe Newton said:

A guy I sub to has one. Ill paraphrase him:

It cost around £20k, which is basically a groundies wage for the year with holiday tax etc.

It does the work of multiple groundies, doesn't need holidays/ sick pay/ the shop/ etc.

After the first year three machine will still be worth maybe £17k, whereas the groundies wage is gone.

They're really versatile. I've taken out trees for him which would have been a solid 3 man day by morning break. Stack 10 armfuls of brash and let the loader take them to the chipper in one. Cross cutting stems is minimised, as is clearing sawdust and humping timber is long gone.

Get a tipping trailer to transport it in.

Difficult to know whether that's good for you being subby climber 

[Joe Newton]

Difficult to know whether that's good for you being subby climber [emoji4]

If it could climb I'd be worried...

[woody paul]

8 hours ago, Thesnarlingbadger said:

A large part of the work would be back a forth work across long gardens and such like.
I’m kind of thinking at least the Boxer won’t call in sick and can carry more weight.
Obviously I am restricted with access a bit but most jobs will lend themselves.
It’s also going to be a useful tool around the yard for shifting and lifting. Plus will a new house on the horizon I can see it saving my back with any light building work.

If you run a tracked machine you will need ply to run on lawns as it will rec it. My wheeled loader will run all day across lawns with no marks or very little which means no ply to carry about and lay down, all down time at start of job and finish. I asked a lot of my customer when I was looking at buying loader would they what a tracked machine running about on there lawn the answer was NO so decide wisely by for buying. 

[Jonny69]

1 minute ago, Joe Newton said:

If it could climb I'd be worried...

I mean, you end up doing more work when a skid/digger is on site. 

[John Shutler]

Diggers are certainly more versatile but that’s probably for another thread sometime

 

in short I’ve never regretted getting rid of my boxer, I found that you could easily get large pieces of timber onto a arb trolley or similar then we would lift them into a trailer with the roofmount at the other end all without damaging a lawn, that said a skid steer changed the way I worked and I probably wouldn’t be working the way I do now without it

 

i did wrote a blog post for treekit a couple of years ago on the subject if anybody’s interested 

 

http://www.treekit.com/blog/investment-in-big-machinery-is-it-worth-it/

[Matthew Storrs]

37 minutes ago, John Shutler said:

Diggers are certainly more versatile but that’s probably for another thread sometime

 

Maybe, but for the uses he wants it for, namely tree work and a house build. I could see both a digger and a wheeled loader could be ideal for both tasks, my gut tells me a boxer might be a disappointment in comparison.

 

The thing about lawns is. A tracked machine going in straight lines isn't a problem and with a digger you can keep turning to a bare minimum (turn on a board if necessary) but a tracked skid steer is going to have to a lot of turning to do the same work.

 

i think if it was me I'd toss it up between the wheeled loader and the digger as I can't see what benefit the boxer would really have over either? Perhaps in very confined spaces it might have the edge as can spin on the spot...

[John Shutler]

3 minutes ago, Matthew Storrs said:

Maybe, but for the uses he wants it for, namely tree work and a house build. I could see both a digger and a wheeled loader could be ideal for both tasks, my gut tells me a boxer might be a disappointment in comparison.

 

The thing about lawns is. A tracked machine going in straight lines isn't a problem and with a digger you can keep turning to a bare minimum (turn on a board if necessary) but a tracked skid steer is going to have to a lot of turning to do the same work.

 

i think if it was me I'd toss it up between the wheeled loader and the digger as I can't see what benefit the boxer would really have over either? Perhaps in very confined spaces it might have the edge as can spin on the spot...

We always used to take 4-5 track mats with us on the trailer for the boxer to turn on

[Mark Bolam]

Nice little blog that John.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Maybe, but for the uses he wants it for, namely tree work and a house build. I could see both a digger and a wheeled loader could be ideal for both tasks, my gut tells me a boxer might be a disappointment in comparison.
 
The thing about lawns is. A tracked machine going in straight lines isn't a problem and with a digger you can keep turning to a bare minimum (turn on a board if necessary) but a tracked skid steer is going to have to a lot of turning to do the same work.
 
i think if it was me I'd toss it up between the wheeled loader and the digger as I can't see what benefit the boxer would really have over either? Perhaps in very confined spaces it might have the edge as can spin on the spot...

All I could discern as an advantage of a boxer was its relative small size in comparison to the other options. I spent 2 years looking and thinking about it.

For me, that was not enough of a ‘plus’ point to outweigh the other options.

It has to come down to personal choice and circumstances. I’m sure if I’d taken the boxer route I’d have been looking to trade in and upsize within 12-24 months.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Diggers are certainly more versatile but that’s probably for another thread sometime
 
in short I’ve never regretted getting rid of my boxer, I found that you could easily get large pieces of timber onto a arb trolley or similar then we would lift them into a trailer with the roofmount at the other end all without damaging a lawn, that said a skid steer changed the way I worked and I probably wouldn’t be working the way I do now without it
 
i did wrote a blog post for treekit a couple of years ago on the subject if anybody’s interested 
 
http://www.treekit.com/blog/investment-in-big-machinery-is-it-worth-it/

Looking forward to reading that (tomorrow!)