Feedback / reality check on idea for a machine hire business catered to the arb industry

[DeadTom]

Good morning Arbtalk,

 

As the thread subject, I was hoping to get some feedback and / or a reality check on whether there would be enough demand to support a business that hires out semi specialist equipment to small arb businesses; I'm thinking of the typical sole traders or small companies that typically work in teams of 2 or 3 on domestic work rather than the bigger companies who do mainly commercial stuff.

 

How often do you find yourself thinking, either when quoting for work or turning up to site on day one, 'This will be a total pig of a job, I wish I had a machine to do the heavy lifting / clearing / stump removal'? 

 

The idea is initially to buy a tracked mini skid with grapple / stump grinder / flail / rigging bollard mount / winch attachment, and hire it out on a short term self drive basis, where I would deliver and collect the machine to site. If the business did work out then next on the list would be other stuff of a similar size; mini excavator, tracked chipper, MEWP, spider crane, that sort of thing.

 

The main idea is that it would be self drive hire, but I do have some experience as a groundsman, and I have B+E license so I could also offer it as a machine + operator + extra groundsman as well if needed.

 

My thinking is that the larger companies will have their own machinery because they use it all the time, but a small company would struggle to justify the expense of such a machine that might only get used a few times per month.

 

For a bit of context, about 9 years ago I spent a couple of years as a groundsman for a local tree surgeon and for the most part thoroughly enjoyed the work, but the day we got our very own ditch witch, it just transformed the amount of work we were able to get done in a day and made some jobs possible that just would not have happened at all with muscle power alone.

 

These days I have an office job which is slowly eroding my will to live. I miss working outdoors and working with mechanical stuff so I am considering cutting my hours to part time and seeing if the above business idea would have potential, and if it does work out then I would likely leave office life behind entirely.

 

I am based in the south downs in the Meon valley, Hampshire

 

Thank you if managed to get through all of the above rambling drivel, any and all thoughts gratefully received even if it's 'no chance, bugger off back to your office job'

 

[Shaunpaul]

My biggest concern would be someone trashing your kit, or having a breakdown on site. Are you good on the tools and would you have spares or the knowledge to fix it?. Imagine someone hiring it in for a large job and it goes down, who would be liable for the job being on hold?. Just seems a bit risky for the return you’d get. That’s just my opinion though. It may go smooth and be a great start to setting up your business. Is there any local competition or money to be made?.

 

good luck though if you go for it 👌🏻

[waterbuoy]

Plenty of others are already doing the same kind of hires - you just need to know where to look.  That means you need to be sure you can compete with them to make it worth your while as (a) they already have their own customer base, and (b) they usually have their own in-house engineers etc.

 

I recently did a small job for my parents who live just north of Liverpool - I live in Scotland 350 miles away, and didn't want to have to tow anything down.  Their local tool hire place,Hodgsons in Ainsdale, just 10 miles from where they live, had everything I needed - and more.  Tracked stump grinders, chippers, Avant (with flail etc) etc etc.

[NJA]

Sounds like you have a fairly clear vision of what you want to supply and your target customer so you stand a good chance, good luck.  Smaller customer base but less competition than general plant hire so hopefully better gross profit.

Speaking of competition in your area you've got cutting edge plant hire in Eastleigh and Exsel plant hire in Winchester who both specialise in arb equipment hire. (Although Exsel are pushing to larger companies).  They're very careful about who they hire to, and insist on hired in insurance to make sure they're covered against damage or theft etc.

 

Would a chat with them do any harm?  Owners of both are nice people.

[topchippyles]

Very small market and most have their own gear. Keep your money in the bank and look at something else with less hassle, To many pitfalls 

[Steve Bullman]

its doable if you get yourself a good relationship with locals, along with a reputation for being reliable. But the reality is these types of ventures were killed off around 20 years ago when finance became so cheap and readily available.

 

[JLA1990]

As a few have stated above, it comes down to geographical location and if anyone else is supplying that type of equipment. In Hampshire there’s already a few companies doing it so most of the client base is sewn up, unless you can provide a similar service for cheaper! In the hire game it’s the service not so much the machines that will hold clients for example my preferred suppliers will

allow me to collect the machine the afternoon before or return the machines the next morning without charging an additional day, they also have excellent machine support if the machines go down!  Good luck if you do take the jump. 

[DeadTom]

Thanks all for the replies.

 

My thoughts on a couple of points that have been well made; 

 

- theft or damage. Is this a significantly higher risk in the arb industry? outside of the arb industry I know it is a problem, but I suppose it must be manageable. The fact that there are profitable hire companies shows that. 

I know arb work is hard work for both people and machines, so I would expect and accept a certain amount of wear and tear and cosmetic damage, but there must be insurance and security measures available to mitigate the risks well enough

- maintenance and repairs. As above with theft damage; it must be manageable? I am reasonably mechanically minded and can learn fairly quickly. My first job out of school was a tractor mechanic / fitter, and I have been a been a farmhand, bicycle mechanic, I do a lot of my own car maintenance and my current day job is an engineer in the automotive industry, so I have a reasonably good understanding of mechanical and hydraulic systems, so I'd be reasonably confident to do basic repairs and maintenance stuff myself, and I guess I would rely on either the supplying dealer or approved repairers for difficult stuff. Any machine I bought would be a known and well supported make, I would avoid any of the chinese stuff that is admittedly temptingly cheap.

- breaking into a saturated market, competing with existing companies. Alongside a lack of demand, this is my biggest worry. Thank you NJA for identifying a couple of companies nearby who do similar. I had a look at their websites and it looks like they have a variety of excavators and various arb attachments, but neither offered a tracked mini skid steer. So while it's a bit niche, it might be something that would be in demand? Certainly when I was working as a groundsman our mini skid was much more versatile and useful for most things than the mini excavators that we also had on a couple of jobs.

 

I am hoping that building a good relationship is where I would be able to do OK. I would be a sole trader operation with quite a narrow focus, so I would hope that my overheads would be lower and that I could be cheaper and offer decent flexibility than the bigger players.

 

I am also very fortunate in that I have a wife who earns enough, as well as having my office job to fall back on if it all goes pete tong, so I could afford to start small and build slowly. I wouldn't need it to immediately pay off; to begin with I would set merely being cost neutral as a target, then if/when I achieve that I could aim for profitability (or if it's a total failure I could pack it in and know that at least I tried).

 

As I touched on in my opening post my current job is making me pretty unhappy in general and despite being an engineer, I very very rarely get to do anything other than sit and stare at a monitor. I like working outdoors and doing something real, so if I could make some money by trundling around the countryside with a machine in tow, or occasionally doing basic work on the tools again, that would be great.