Skid loader’s are easily rented. They even deliver them. How difficult are they to operate?
Im considering a typical landscape job. Peel off the old grass. Smooth out and correct a few drainage issues and spread three yards?? (Not sure how much is needed) of fresh topsoil. Then lay St Augustine sod.
I’ve never used one of those mini skid steers, only bigger ones. Still not much experience myself on them.
They can easily do what you want. They are not hard to operate…but they do take quite a bit of practice to operate well. Landscaping might be tough until you get the hang of it, but you will. To smooth things out, it’s often easier to back up and drag the tip of the bucket along the ground.
If the ground is wet or sloped, you will have traction issues, depending on the tires. If it’s on tracks you’re probably just fine. Be aware that they tend to be very unstable if moving fast and depending on loads, don’t lift too high until you get used to the “feel”.
Be aware that they do tend to tear up the ground when turning more then the smallest amounts.
If you hit a rock, nothing special will happen unless you’re REALLY moving fast, which is doubtful. Mostly you’d just bounce a little, or just plain stop.
If the dirt is tough, get the largest most powerful tractor you can - and also be able to fit it into the areas you need to get to. If all loose dirt you are spreading, then a less powerful Bobcat will do.
Tearing up an old tough packed down lawn, forgetaboutit!
I had wondered if peeling off the old grass would work with a small machine. I’ve seen big dozers clear land with brush and small trees. A skid loader can’t do a dozer’s job.
I could just buy extra dirt and spread thickly. Instead of trying to scrape down.
It takes less than an hour to really get comfortable with it. As long as you’re just tearing stuff up, there’s no fine skill required. Those things are super fun!
From my experience, the most important thing is to always get the largest tool available (that’s what she said!).
I have done a lot of landscaping of the kind you mention and I have used a variety of skid steers, tractors, bobcats, and excavators. They are all pretty easy to use. If it were me, I would not get that mini skid loader you linked to; I doubt it will have the oomph to take up the sod, at least not here in Colorado as the ground is all clay. Sandy soils may be different to work with. If you just have a small area you are working on it may be OK, but for most projects I would go a step up from that.
One thing that I have found to be very important when taking up sod is the addition of tines on the bucket (like this). With a flat bucket edge (like this), it is much harder to take up the grass, though it may be easier to smooth things out. After doing this several times and completely flailing, I would make the addition of tines a necessity unless you have something like that rototiller on the back of the tractor to break up the soil. Again, this is based on experience in Colorado…
And let me just say it again: you should get the largest tool you can reasonably use for the job. I have never regretted this strategy and many times when I did not follow it, I ended up regretting that I had not rented the larger piece of equipment.
In general terms, operating is so easy a 7 year old can do it pretty much cold. Don’t believe me go visit Diggerland USA and watch them do it.
The real question is can you operate it safely where the work needs done? What is the lay of the land? What things are close in terms of property lines, trees, power lines, gas lines, anything else? What kind of area do you have to load and unload it? Even back when I was much younger, doing basic operations with a backhoe even were not that difficult but producing a good finished result can be another thing with a lot more variables involved.
They aren’t particularly hard to operate. If you want to bang around in one for the experience it’s worth trying it at least once.
I’m comfortable running excavators. If my operator isn’t available and their machine is, they’ll leave me keys most the time.
Being fast with them is something different entirely. A skilled operator familiar with their machine can do the same job in a fraction of the time. It’s not uncommon to see someone rack up more rental cost then it would have to cost to pay an excavation company to do the entire job for them.
