RM Online - What you need to know about mini-excavator attachments

"Sandbox toys - I can carry one in my back pocket..."

Mini-excavators used to be the butt of some rough rental-yard humor. Not anymore. For good reason, these tough little giants are some of the hottest machines around.

"Minis are pretty amazing," says Clay Eubanks, national sales manager, Takeuchi Manufacturing (U.S.), Atlanta. "They have become the edge that makes people more productive - everybody is looking for a better way to get things done these days - they find it with minis.

"A big reason why they are so hot is versatility. You can do just about any type of construction with them - from using a hammer to break up concrete for demolition and recycling to digging holes for landscape work."

Dahl's Equipment Rental, San Jose, Calif., knows exactly what that means. The store has two 2,500-pound minis in its fleet, says Yard Manager Jeff Ramsour. "They practically rent themselves. Customers really like them because they can get into tight spaces - they're so light they don't tear up the ground as much. Our machines are only 38 inches wide yard gates around here are usually 4 feet.

"As an example, one of our rental machines was put under a house that was jacked up to replace the foundation," says Ramsour. "Another time we had one of our machines inside a mall. While the people shopped, the operator used a hydraulic hammer and dug out a pipe that ran alongside a wall. That was really tight."

Dahl's Equipment Rental arms one of its machines with three and the other with five different-sized buckets.

"We're in an urban environment - that makes the mini-excavator a really good tool for us," explains Ramsour. "Most of the time, our machines are used in backyard jobs to dig up a sewage pipe or an electrical conduit. That's where most of their work is done."

Jax Construction, Jacksonville, Fla., carries 15 mini-excavators in its inventory. Its machines range from 3,800 to 9,800 pounds.

"Rubber-tired backhoes and some of the other construction equipment are just too cumbersome for some jobs," explains Jeff James, president.

"The operator can swing the excavator cab 360 degrees and the boom 60 degrees to either side. There's a lot of applications that require this wide range of movement."

Along with 10 buckets, which have widths spanning from 12 to 24 inches, Jax Construction carries a hammer to break up concrete and an auger attachment.

"We find that a lot of our rentals are to customers like strip-mall construction companies," continues James. "They like to put up their walls and roof so their potential renters or buyers can see what the facility looks like - it's easier to sell space that way.

"Then, after the contract is signed, the mall company will go in with a mini-excavator and build to spec. They'll break up concrete, set up the plumbing and finish the inside of the building to fit the needs of the particular store.

"The most unusual job I've seen with our minis is the time a contractor, who builds large water treatment and sewage plants, had to dig deeper than any excavator could go," recounts James. "He dug the first part of the hole with a bigger machine, then set our minis down inside. The two smaller machines dug the rest of the way and dumped their dirt into the larger excavator's bucket."

James says that after seven years of steadily increasing rentals, there is still great potential in his area for the versatile machines. He sees an especially strong marketing opportunity when he teams his minis with agile skid-steer loaders to move dirt around congested plumbing, landscaping and electrical work sites.

James adds that all of Jax's mini-excavators are rubber-tracked to help reduce impact on the environment.

"Rubber tracks are good for a few important reasons," says Takeuchi's Eubanks. "They are much quieter when you cross over cement and hard surfaces. Rubber doesn't scrape and grind the surface like steel. And rubber doesn't slip as much while you are loading the machine for transport. About 90 percent of the minis in the marketplace today are rubber-track machines. The rest are on steel.

"Overall transportability is another big reason why these powerful little machines are hot right now," says Eubanks. "They are small enough to fit on pull-behind trailers already in use for skid-steers and trenchers ... and they can be transported with as little horsepower as you have in a pickup."

Some minis are so small that they even fit into an extended pickup bed, says Eubanks. More important, the low weight of some small excavators cuts red tape by eliminating the need for special highway-hauling permits and commercial driver's licenses.

"Besides transport, another real advantage of a mini is that it is set up to run just like a big excavator," Eubanks notes. "A contractor used to running a larger excavator can run these smaller models without a lot of instruction. Anyone can get in and learn how to operate them in a matter of minutes."

"One of the hottest features that make mini-excavators so easy to use is the quick-coupler attachment," says Ron Peters, Compact Technologies, an OmniQuip Co., Port Washington, Wis. "It allows the operator to quickly exchange any dipper-mounted attachment. Your rental customer can go from a 12-inch bucket to a 24-inch bucket at the job site quickly and easily with a quick coupler. It's also great for the store owner. A machine can come in from a landscaper in the morning and go out just as fast to a utility contractor with a different type of attachment."

Compact Technologies entered the mini-excavator market a year ago.

The outlook for the future growth of these versatile machines is bright for manufacturers.

"A strong housing-start projection and the new national highway bill that has been approved over the next three years will provide growth for mini-excavators," says Peters. "As our cities get older and more congested, you'll continue to see an increase in rehabilitation of existing structures. Mini-excavators are great for rehabilitation. Some contractors have even put them into elevators and taken them up into buildings for remodeling and demolition - their flotation is so light.

"Those are just some of the reasons we are confident these machines will do especially well long-term."

Takeuchi's Eubanks adds that available technology in minis makes them perfect for the long-term rental market. "They can be equipped with a shut-down that turns off the engine when it gets too hot or loses oil pressure. That's really important for those extended contracts.

"Another thing rental stores like about them is a rental customer isn't too likely to get into a speed-caused problem with a mini that can go only two or three miles per hour," says Eubanks.

"And some of the minis have a control pattern selector valve. It lets you switch between operating patterns [these patterns are often referred to as the 'John Deere' and 'Caterpillar' operating patterns]. If you have this feature, you can service both rental customer preferences with one quick flip of a switch."

Machines on the market range from well under $20,000 for the smallest, most basic designs to $50,000-plus for the larger models. Minis can be loosely defined as a machine weighing between 1,600 and 17,000 pounds.

Attachments are numerous and readily available. "If you can think about a job to do, you can usually find an attachment you can put on a mini that can do it," says Eubanks.