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'
