Anyone got any experience,or knowledge of working for them . They are advertising near me, while the ad reads ok it’s not the first ad I’ve seen of late ? Tia
Not directly but national plant hire firms don’t typically pay great. Often regular hours so salary with little chance of overtime.
Usually want things done in a set way, a lot of people who can do the job and thrive on it will find better paying, more interesting work in same area with more flexible firms or direct construction based work.
I work for a small plant firm and do own account / specialist plant & hiab transport. We will often work for larger firms doing their haulage when they are short staffed or overwhelmed. Been offered jobs numerous times, they could never afford me.
Ironic really as they can’t afford to pay the drivers better so spend thousands getting another firm to do it for them!
Thanks for the reply,
Presently working for builders merchant (6yrs) enjoy what I do but the constant bombardment of bull ■■■■ dressed as H&s is getting on my ■■■■.
Mate of mine had a very very short stint with them. Got sent to a building site to collect metal road plates only to find them scattered all over the site and he was expected to handball them onto pallets and then HIAB them onto his wagon. He instantly quit there and then!
msgyorkie:
Mate of mine had a very very short stint with them. Got sent to a building site to collect metal road plates only to find them scattered all over the site and he was expected to handball them onto pallets and then HIAB them onto his wagon. He instantly quit there and then!
Handballing metal? road plates, doubt it
syramax:
Thanks for the reply,
Presently working for builders merchant (6yrs) enjoy what I do but the constant bombardment of bull [zb] dressed as H&s is getting on my ■■■■.
Possibly a similar thing there then and maybe money / hours too as I know some merchants don’t pay the greatest. There are a couple around here that often advertise jobs but the money offered seems high bearing in mind their frequency of ads.
My take on doing plant work is that it is not a job for a lazy driver, it can be hard physically, dirty and requires a bit of thought about how to load things and a bit more about how to secure them. Rarely are things straightforward and easy so you have to be creative to find a way to get the job done.
It’s also potentially very dangerous so you need to learn fast, it’ll always try and kill you one way or other.
I’m guessing that there could be quite a few similarities with doing merchants work so it would not be a complete culture shock, could be a useful stepping stone to get some experience and make some contacts.
Did some work for Gap in Plymouth a few years ago on agency and really really enjoyed it. Variety of work and constantly testing yourself either operating or securing plant on to the lorry. Loading road rollers on a metal ramp in the rain certainly got the adrenaline going!! The hours were 7:30 to 17:00 Monday to Friday. Not sure what their money was but I was on £11.00 an hour and i know I was on more than their drivers.
There are 2 sides to Gap though. There’s the plant hire side and the welfare side. Might be worth checking which is being advertised. The welfare side is delivery of welfare units for road workers on the side of the road (they really don’t tow very well at all being single axle) and portaloos or if you’re really unlucky the emptying of the toilets in a tanker. Then there’s the fencing and barriers and stuff which most will be handball.
Getting to site (in the rain) and finding the buckets scattered around the place, the dumper still full of spoil and no attempt at all to get the worst of the clay/muck off the kit - really, really does not make my day. 
some interesting replies thankyou folks
Hi, sorry for the late reply to your question.
I have never worked for them but have been on CPC courses with a couple of their drivers
Their main observations were, every customer wants stuff dropped off early in the am and collected as late as possible in the pm.
The decent customers will leave the goods clean , undamaged , if necessary stacked on pallets and easy access.
The bad customers, will do the very opposite.
Fairly hard graft and mostly mucky building sites with all the hassle that goes with that.
As an aside if you’re currently working for a builders merchant does your crane certification cover you for a hook and the weight?