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What is an Excavator?

An excavator is a machine group used for activities like demolition, earthmoving, excavation, dredging and trenching. It is one of the most widely-used and popular machines in Australia.

Our directory offers a huge volume of qualified excavator hire suppliers throughout Australia, with both wet and dry hire options available. These suppliers offer a diverse catalogue of excavator types and builds, with a machine to suit any project or operation across the nation. iSeekplant offers a number of excavators for hire including; amphibious, chameleon clamshell, demolition, hi-rail, high reach, long reach, track mounted, and wheel mounted.

What excavator do I need?

Excavators come in an assortment of sizes and configurations, with a variety of builds covering a vast number of projects and environments. Range includes amphibious, chameleon clamshell, demolition, hi-rail, high reach, long reach, track mounted, and wheel mounted, with each offering unique skill sets across a range of projects and environments.

Demolition, high-reach, long-reach, and chameleon clamshells are used across a range of demolition activities, along with dismantling, plate shearing, steel shearing, secondary processing to crushing and far more, whereby the specific excavator type used is determined by the particular task at hand. Amphibious excavators are ideal for shallow water work, covering tasks like drenching, removing salty clay, shallow water operations, and clearing salted tranches. The choice between tracks or wheels depends on project terrain, with track-mounted excavators needed for boggy, sandy and muddy conditions.

How does an excavator work?

Excavators use hydraulic motors to control a front-placed arm, to which a bucket is attached. The arm acts as the main feature of the machine, whereby its ability to dig, lift, and pour are fundamental to its purpose. Excavators are driven by shift and level, powered by a diesel, electric, or petrol engine, where they move via continuous tracks or wheels.

The different types of excavators

What is a Chameleon Clamshell Excavator?

A chameleon clamshell excavator is a long-reach excavator and is often used for demolition, digging vertical shafts, and underground and high rise car park construction projects in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Nationwide. The chameleon clamshell excavator has a telescopic boom which extends and bends through the knuckle joint at the midpoint. Chameleon clamshell excavators have a base, a boom, a cab and a bucket, and the cab will usually have bulletproof glass, protecting the operator from any falling debris. The base of these excavators can have either rubber-wheeled tires or crawler tracks, depending on the type of terrain.

Image Credit: Pronto Projects

What is a Long Reach Excavator?

A long-reach excavator is a demolition excavator that specialises in scrap metal salvaging and digging out rubble. Long-reach excavators typically have a reach of 20 to 150 ft, where their main feature is their ability to extend sideways to reach into buildings and scoop out rubble. iSeekplant's long reach excavator hire suppliers are available with a wide range of attachments at great rates across Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Nationwide.

Image Credit: Wanless Machinery

What is a Track Mounted Excavator?

Typically known as crawlers, since they can drive on surfaces that are less stable, a track mounted excavator utilises a continuous track, similar to that of a tank, for movement. Compared to the wheeled excavators which struggle with driving on sand and mud, a track mounted crawler excel in boggy, sandy and muddy conditions. Crawler excavators and diggers have a mechanism similar to a conveyor belt instead of wheels, and since it evenly disperses the weight of the machine across the ground, it won’t sink down into wet or muddy terrain. Since it can only be used on site, this machine requires transportation to get from one job to another. For crawler excavator hire suppliers throughout the country, search the iSeekplant platform today for suppliers in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Nationwide.

What is a Wheel Mounted Excavator?

Wheel mounted excavators, as their name suggests, utilise wheels for movement rather than tracks. The digging performance of a typical wheeled excavator is quite like a track mounted excavator. However, the lifting performance of a wheel mounted excavator exceeds that of tracked models, with the wheeled digger capable of lifting more because of its stabilisers. The versatile and manoeuvrable wheeled excavator can also perform most of the work that a crawler excavator can do with the added advantage of being able to drive the machine between work areas. We have thousands of wheel mounted excavator hire suppliers across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Hobart and Nationwide, run a search for a wheel mounted excavator to hire today!

What is a Hi Rail Excavator?

Hi rail excavators are capable of completing projects on your usual worksite, as well as train lines. Equipped with track friendly attachments, these excavators can drive to any worksite and then be used for operations on train lines. Hi rail excavators, short for Highway Rail Excavators, are not suitable to take the impact of heavy rolling stock and are required to only work on tracks that have been cleared of all usual coming traffic. Highway rail excavators are capable of working on roads and train tracks, where they are always insulated as a precaution and therefore are not required to use active track signalling circuits. Many operators that are required on lines that are not benefited by boom gates or other train halting services, still choose to use these technologies in order to be detected by train safety systems. Search for hi rail excavator hire suppliers throughout Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Hobart and Australia on iSeekplant.

What is an Amphibious Excavator?

Amphibious excavators are capable of performing a very specific kind of excavation project. Different from other types of diggers for hire, they are designed to complete dredging in water because their chassis crawler can float on sealed pontoons. Amphibious excavators are able to complete excavations such as swampland operation, removing salty clay, shallow water operations, and clearing salted tranches. Track mounted and often with a longer reach than your common excavators, these amphibious diggers are still capable of completing a number of earthworks and land-based excavation projects. They are able to rotate 360 degrees as well as having full hydraulic operation. If you have a water dredging project, iSeekplant has a range of amphibious excavator hire suppliers capable of completing the job in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Nationwide.

What is a High Reach Excavator?

A high-reach excavator is a demolition excavator that specialises in demolishing the upper floors of a building. It’s key feature is its ability to extends upwards, with a reach of 50 to 160 ft, to dismantle the top floors of a building. They are known for their precision when demolishing within tight spaces. There's many high reach excavator hire suppliers in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Canberra and Nationwide on the iSeekplant platform, search today!

What is a Demolition Excavator?

A demolition excavator is an excavator that specialises in demolition, as the name suggests, as well as general dismantling, plate shearing, steel shearing, secondary processing to crushing and far more. Attachments play a big role in hiring a demolition excavator and depend on the type of demolition job it is required to do. Some attachments are best suited to crush concrete or steel shearing. Most attachments, however, are versatile and can complete a number of demolition works with a small and simple adaptation to the device. Furthermore, it is necessary for the clamp arm of the demolition excavator to be as powerful and as flexible as possible in order for the machine to hold a tight grip and grasp its maximum power. If you are looking to hire a demolition excavator that can fit in small spaces, look for one that has a small short rear swing so that the upper frame does not go beyond the crawler when it is required to swing. Search the iSeekplant website today to see our range of demolition excavators for hire in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Nationwide.

What are Common Excavator Hire Rates?

Excavator hire rates vary depending on the digger's size, weight, attachments, mobilisation costs, ground engaging tools (GET), demand for the machine, the rarity of the machine, whether it's rented on wet hire and dry hire, and much more. The larger the excavator often results in larger costs. The rates of an excavator for hire is also heavily influenced by the attachments that you find on the machine.

Rates for an attachment could be anywhere between $5- $25 per hour for smaller machines and $290+ for rippers and hydraulic hammers on larger models. Suppliers offering excavators for wet hire, with a skilled operator, usually require a minimum hour usage such as four to eight hours. We've seen their rates vary from $90+/hour for a 1-2 tonne excavator up to $140+/hour for a 22-24 tonne excavator.

Our directory offers a variety of qualified trenching services from suppliers throughout major cities like Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth, Canberra, Hobart, and Darwin, along with hundreds of regional centres throughout Australia.