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Questions about an excavating business

Dan690D

Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2015
Messages
9
Location
Grass Valley, CA
Hey All,
Glad I found this site, seems to be the folks I need to be talking to.

I recently bought a 690D LC John Deere Excavator. Important note: I bought this for a mining project, and now the exploration is complete and I'll be waiting 2 years on the permits.

In those two years, I'm wondering about passing some of my spare time by running an excavating business on the side.

I'll be fixing up the machine a bit anyways in preparation for our mining project, so it should be in good running order. Right now, it runs well and moves material, but it needs hoses, a track master link, and a few other miscellaneous things.

To satisfy my curiosity, I have some questions I'm hoping you guys can help me out with.

1: What kind of insurance would I need in order to operate this machine? (I have a contractor's license that I can use if needed)

2: would I be required to have a heavy equipment certification as an owner-operator? if not, would there be a benefit to getting it anyway?

3: given that most construction around here is dominated by the itsy-bitsy excavators, what types of jobs might I look for with my relatively large (~40klbs) excavator? ( I have a ~7/8ths yard and a ~1/2 yard bucket, no thumb)

4: What other advice would you offer me?

Thanks for any and all info,
Dan
 

JDfan500C

Well-Known Member
Joined
Apr 7, 2013
Messages
56
Location
westchester NY
Sorry I cant help with question 1 and 2 it just depends your state/area. Big machine means big jobs. I'd say it's good for land clearing and digging foundations and pools.
 
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