Tools of the trade

Builders’ Business is a column by builders for builders. Its objective is to provide a forum, particularly for small business operators, in which to share knowledge, experience, tips and ideas

Q. When and why do you hire tools rather than buying them? 

 

Firm: Planit Construction 

Interviewee: Rowan Hannah 

Role: Director 

Location: Wellington

Staff: 45

We own a wide range of tools, so we don’t need to hire anything very often. When we do, it will be specialist tools that we don’t own. It’s not usually worth it for us to invest in bigger, more expensive pieces of kit, because we don’t use them very often, so it’s uneconomic for us to buy them.

We probably hire tools out once every two months. We’ll generally hire heavy-duty tools such as concrete cutters, floor saws, or 16mm steel benders that we use on our residential projects.

If we do need to hire tools out, we’ll charge that back to the job. As a PlaceMakers customer, having access to Hilti Hire in Wellington would make the hiring process more convenient if the right tools are available. 

We don’t really have a brand we always stick by – I’ll usually just look at what’s available on the day.

 

Firm: W Hamilton Building  

Interviewee: Bill Hamilton  

Role: Director 

Location: Dunedin

Staff: 24

We hire tools pretty regularly across our residential and commercial work. We tend to hire compactors, concrete gear, vibrators, concrete breakers – anything along those lines. When we need to work from heights, we’ll bring in elevated platforms as well.

We’ll have them onsite anywhere from two or three days to three weeks. The tools we hire tend to be on the more expensive side of things, which would take a larger capital outlay from us to purchase. They also tend to be tools that are used robustly, so hiring them saves us on repairs and maintenance as the wear and tear on those tools can be high.

Sometimes you need bigger gear and hiring equipment gives you the chance to get the right gear for the right job, instead of trying to work with something that’s not right for what you’re trying to do.

 

Firm: SLC Builders 

Interviewee: Cory Carroll 

Role: Director 

Location: Wellington

Staff: 2

We don’t hire tools very often, as we’re pretty well covered by the equipment we already own, such as concrete cutters and big pieces like that. We purchased most of those around 10 years ago now and we made that decision because I figured I’d use them once or twice a job for our residential work. 

Having them available rather than spending money and time hiring them out each time has definitely resulted in them paying themselves off in that time. It helps that we haven’t needed to do much repair or maintenance on them either.

If we do hire equipment, it’ll be heaters, dehumidifiers or specialised mobile scaffolding systems. We’ll generally hire dehumidifiers if we’ve had some moisture around and the framing we’re working on hasn’t dried enough for us to install linings. While we use heaters for that occasionally, the bulk of our hire allowance is spent on dehumidifiers because they’re more effective at drying framing.