Four Questions and Answers for People Thinking About Hiring Excavators for a Home Project
If you are building a shed, putting in an extension or doing similar work, you may need to excavate part of your land. You can hire someone to do the work for you, or you can hire an excavator and do the work yourself. If you're leaning toward the latter option, you may have several questions.
Here are some of the most common questions and their answers.
1. Do You Need a Special License to Operate an Excavator?
In the past, you needed a special certification to operate an excavator, but that rule is a thing of the past. You no longer need any special licenses. However, if you have experience with forklifts or other types of heavy machinery, that generally makes it easier to operate the excavator.
2. How Do You Know What's in the Ground?
Whether you're an experienced excavator operator or not, you may be wondering how to tell what's in the ground. If there is a lot of bedrock or hard clay, it may be hard to do the excavating work. To be on the safe side, consider doing a core sample.
You can rent the machinery to do the sample yourself or pay someone to do it. The boring machine basically inserts a hollow cylinder into the ground. That lifts out a plug of earth, and by looking at that, you can see how the different layers of ground stack up under your building site.
3. How Much Room Do You Need?
The amount of space you need varies based on the scope of your project and the size of the excavator you hire. Talk with the hire company about the turn radius of the excavator; that will give you an idea of how much space you need.
If there are fences around the area you need to excavate, you may need to cut in a service door or remove part of the fence.
4. Do You Need Any Special Safety Equipment?
In most cases, you don't need special safety equipment to operate an excavator. However, to be on the safe side, you may want to have friends or relatives on the ground, and you may want to set up hand signals to communicate about directions and obstacles. Those individuals should wear highly visible vests.
You may also want work boots—if you unearth any glass or metals whilst excavating, the boots protect your feet when you walk through the site.
