How to build your own home and I wanna talk about heavy equipment. I think a lot of a lot of owner builders out there kind of don’t know, the options, the benefits of certain pieces of equipment. When I became an owner builder, 30 years ago now, I eventually bought myself a tractor. And I I wasn’t in the business. I just wanted a tractor because I got tired of trying to wait for some excavator or someone else to do a job for me, and I saw all the benefits of heavy equipment. The family could use it, my dad used it, my mom my sister used it on her house.
It was a huge savings for the family. So what I want to talk to you about are the pros and cons of doing your own excavation and the kind of equipment you might want to think about. Now why am I going this route? Because excavation is the 2nd best place to save. If you are not using a general contractor and you are organized and there are thousands of you out there on or building your own homes, one of the next best places to save is excavation.
I’ve seen excavation costs go anywhere from 10,000 to 60, 70, $80,000 based upon the geotechnical report of the land. That’s what I want to talk about and whether or not you might want to think about getting some heavy equipment. Either renting some heavy equipment or buying some heavy equipment. I like to buy, I’m going to tell you why. This here is a tractor I bought several years ago.
I have done the excavation on that on for multiple garages, a couple of homes, and each one of those was roughly anywhere from 8 to north of $16,000 just to do the excavation for those projects. I’ve made my money back on that many, many times, if not even just over what I paid for it, and I’m just selling it. I’m selling this for just a few thousand less than what I bought it for and yet I’ve made all that savings on the the equipment. This here equipment, is a piece of equipment I purchased. Now I wanna this is called a skid steer and this is a backhoe.
Again, based upon the geotechnical report, it will tell you the kind of equipment you need. If you’ve got some heavy rock in your equipment or in your in your soils and you have to go down deep, none of these will do that for you. You’re gonna need an excavator with a large excavator or even a mini x. I’m not a fan of mini excavators or even large excavators, they’re great for digging pools, they’re great for digging basements, but that’s about it. As an owner builder, you’re gonna need a lot of different tools.
With both of these, they both have forklift attachments. You can put them on and off within just minutes. A forklift is very invaluable because you’re constantly moving material here and there, especially if you’re in a tight space, you’re constantly moving material. When I’m at a when I have a job, I actually leave one of these, actually this, it used to be this, but I leave it on the job site with a fork so my framers could move sheets, take the sheets up so they can take them up to the roof top and just unload them there. It’s great for that.
It’s also great for moving dirt. Both of these will move a lot of dirt. I’m very handy at both of them, but I can do a nice final grade with both of these. However, the mini excavator, which is what you call a skid steer, not a mini excavator, a skid steer. It’s great for tight quarters and turning around on a dime, it’s really phenomenal for that.
If you’re moving a lot of dirt, as far as from pile to pile or if you’re just piling up a road and building a road, both of these will do that for you. A mini excavator is also great for that, but a mini excavator can’t put forklifts on and it can’t move a lot of dirt. So I always strongly recommend the thing that you can scoop up dirt and a forklift, those are 2 of the most important things you’ll do on the job. The next most important thing you’ll do is dig your trenches. Well, if a nice backhoe like this, even if it’s a small one, I can go down 8 and a half feet on that backhoe.
I can dig my sewer lines with that. And you want to ask, rental a house or even if you’re buying, can that go down to dig for 8 feet? Now when I get close to the street, a lot of times that sewer line’s gonna be 10, 11, 12 feet. But as that sewer line gets closer into your lot, you’re once you get to 8 feet, you can reach down with that. You may need to get an excavator to do the rest.
I’m not saying that these are the the only tools that that are allowed that are that are out there that I would recommend. There’s a lot of great tools out there, but you want to have something that can have forks. You wanna have something that might be able to trench. With this one, I have a trencher adapter. I can put a trencher and I can go to 48 feet down.
I can do all my all my water lines, I can do all my power lines, I can do all my low voltage lines and I can even do my gas lines all with the trencher adapter that comes onto this. So why am I talking buy heavy equipment? Why do I kind of say that’s a cool thing to do? If your excavation cost is north of 15 dollars 1,000 it’s almost beneficial to buy one of these, or buy some heavy equipment, or rent even, buy something, utilize it for the hours that you need and sell it back, or after you’ve used it on your job, guess what? You’re a heavy equipment operator.
You now can move some heavy equipment, either a skid steer or even a mini backhoe. You now have a second job, you have a second income. During the winter, you can push snow with this. If a friend down the road needs a trench, and he’s got a huge cost from an excavator, guess what, you can come in and do that. There are some stipulations with regard to that, licensing and certifications and all that, but one of the things that you you can do is you can be of service to family members.
You now have I’ve I’ve saved my family a lot of money over the years just by having a tobacco on-site, for for their needs over and over and over again. So you have to weigh the cost, the pros and cons. If you look out in the future and you say to yourself, I’m going to need this for x y z, and if I hired it out, it’s going to cost me xyz, but if I buy this, then maybe at the end of that I could sell that or trade it in or what have you. I want to give you the option, and the option is is that doing your own excavation, if it’s amenable, again, if your geotech says you can do this, which means do you have an over excavation on your site?
Is it 3 feet? Is it 6 feet? Is it 10 feet? I’ve seen geotechnical reports to say, I need to go down 11 feet, dig it all out and then recompact it. None of these would do that.
Doing that would require an excessive amount of time. I need some big heavy equipment dude. Now the geotechnical report is telling me what I can and cannot do. But if I have a geotechnical report that says, oh, this it’s it’s great. You just over and scrape it off in the first, you know, foot and a half then recompact it, you’re good to go.
Both of these would do that. And if you don’t know that and your excavator comes in and gives you a high price and they look at the geotechnical report, they know what the real cost is. And so if they’re giving you a high price on your excavation and yet the geotechnical report is saying, hey, this this this site is pretty ready to go minus a couple of things that need to be done, and if they’re giving you a high price and you keep getting that over and over again, look at these options. Either rent something or buy something, but keep one thing in mind, if you do buy something and you resell it, heavy equipment is not sold on the miles they rack up, they’re sold on the hours that you rack up. So you wanna keep that in mind, when I’m on a job site and I’m done with that, I do not let it run, I turn it off because I don’t need to rack up those hours.
I’ve gone on job sites and I’ve seen a lot of contractors just run their equipment just sitting idle because they’re talking with somebody. That’s racking up hours on that machine and it’s doing some value depreciation when you don’t need to be doing that. So as soon as you’re done with it, turn it off, and that’s going to keep your hours low. Anyway, I’m I’m not here to to talk about, John Deere, I just happen to buy them. Find a local dealer.
I happen to have a local dealer that’s great at maintenance, great at up creep up keep on these machines, and the service they have is impeccable. It could be Kubota, it could be Case, it could be Cat, it could be just about any of those. But this was a price point that’s great for me. I bought this with 0% interest with 2 payments a year, and they have deals like that, especially in the early spring when they’re trying to get rid of the next model. And I got this, as a great deal as as well.
So think about all the tools that you need, what your your soil report really requires, how much over excavation are you really gonna do. If you’re not gonna do a basement, and you’re just doing some over minor overfill, and maybe some trenching, something light like this would be would be great. I I love having equipment like this around because, it really solves a lot of problems. I didn’t have to rent, a forklift on a previous job I did because I left it there, and I just charged my clients $40 a day. Really, really affordable.
And other people are going to charge you that, talk to your framer. Does your framer require forks on-site? Are they going to bring their own forklift on-site? If they are, you say how much is that going to charge, and if I had my own forklift there, how much can I take off your forklift? And you start adding it up from forks to excavation to trenching, even your utility lines.
Your electrician is going to charge you a trenching fee to trench from the source to the house. He’s going to subcontract that out to another excavator, so it starts to add up. When you know how much this is gonna be of use from all the different trades, you can start saying, oh, I’ve got that taken care of. I’ve got that taken care of. Can you take that out of your budget, out of your bid, etcetera, etcetera.
That’s why these to me are more powerful than a band saw or a screwdriver or even a router. These will save you more money than just about any other tool that’s out there. That’s why I’m a big fan of renting or at least buying your own heavy equipment. This is my best shot at helping you save another big chunk of your home, and excavation is the next one. After your general contractor fee, that you’re not paying because you’re being an owner builder.
The next best place is heavy equipment. This is Keith Kelsch with how to build your own home. Oh, and one more thing, don’t be a biscuit head. Just because you can bite doesn’t mean you can use it. For example, if you’re going to dig your own trenches, don’t dig wide trenches and cost your concrete guy a huge amount of concrete.
Go out there and practice on it, spend some time on it, have some fun, and if you have all that land out there, go out and play in it for a while, get to use the equipment and know how to use it. So just wanted to say that real quick. Don’t be a biscuit head.