NCPIPELINE
Senior Member
Before I had a dozer or excavator I had a skid steer. Found out real fast that just a skid steer was limited as just a mini ex is limited. If you live in a booming area with lots of new home construction than just one machine could work. Find a niche and stick to it like retaining walls, concrete work, or pavers. If you live in a area that is not building alot of new homes than you have to do alot of things from trucking, excavating, dozer work, putting in lawns, drives, septics, new homes, drainage work etc. A mini ex is great for specific jobs as a skid is. I used to use a skid steer for grading but found a dozer is best. Coundn't move enough dirt fast enough. I used a mini ex for small excavating jobs but what do you do if you start to get alot of larger holes to dig. Then you need a trailer and truck to move machines around with. If I was to start all over again I would start with a dump truck, than a trailer, 16,000 lb excavator rubber track, 18,000 dozer, skid steer, and a Backhoe in that order. With this mix of machines you can do just about any job. Don't forget about all the small stuff, tampers, had tools, demo saw, chain saw etc. I though that I could do smaller jobs with just a skid steer but not enough work so had to get to a size that I was able to compete with the others. Here every landscaper, or mason has a skid steer and mini ex.
We use the skid steer a lot for than our X, I guess it boils down to what kind of excavating you would be doing, like most of the guys have said it is "what work will YOU be doing" we have an MT55 with a great trencher that is an absolute monster. Again but does have to have the back up of a good skid steer to move dirt and grade back. Loved the post about the dump truck and trailer, we have been getting rid of a lot of our smaller trucks and opting for '07 and never F650 4 door dump trucks with a nice contrail trailer to tow our machines nothing like have all the tools you need on one rig.