Hello, a few year ago I was working for a utilities company doing various jobs. Talk was always, the grab drivers who delivered the sand/stone and picked up the spoil were on the best money, they always had huge amounts of well paid fiddle work to do outside of working hours with their vehicle (this applied mainly to the driver’s who’s company let them take the wagon home on a night). I talked to a few drivers themselves and this was true they were making a mint. Everyone said that this was the way to go if you wanted to make money.
Listening to this I passed my HGV class 2 and took a HIAB course and thought it would just be a matter of changing jobs within the business. I found with no experience getting on as a hiab driver would be difficult. I ended up quiting my job (I never wanted to do that in the long term anyway) and took other HGV jobs that weren’t very well paid just to gain experience. Time went by and things never changed, I still couldn’t get into doing grab work for utilitiy company’s. I wasn’t making very much money driving the class 2’s. I did various jobs, on occasion I had the use of a hiab so I became pretty comfortable using it.
I ended up going back to doing my original job at another utilitiy company which didn’t have the use of a grab wagon. When I saw my boss paying a grab driver 80 quid cash in hand to take some rubbish away (15 minutes work) I was gutted.
I’ve been thinking for a while now about buying my own hiab wagon, I’ve got a fair amount of cash to put into this. I don’t want to be stupid, buy a grab wagon and find there isn’t enough work. I really don’t know how else to do it apart from making the plunge and advertising my services. Has anyone got any advice on how I could research this further? Does anyone know if there’s work out there for an indendent hiab owner? It doesn’t necessarily have to be with a bucket but that’s the area I’d want to go, it could be with a flatbed and crane hook etc.
It’s not a no no. The only worry is that, if you don’t know for certain the work is there, you will have a very expensive machine sat around.
Then there’s the CPC, O licence and insurance which will include the need for public liability.
It’s a huge step to take, and the climate is very poor over there right now.
That said, I would never suggest that anyone shouldn’t go Owner Driver. My only regret is that I didn’t do it sooner than I did.
Just make sure the work is available and that you are ready for the ride of your life!
jack, are you talking grab work as in blockgrab or bucket and tipper?
done both, blockgrab work is a complete waste of time, the rates can be marginally better than flatbed work but it’s very very seasonal!
tipper and grab can be an earner, if you can get in with a few decent sized builders you could do ok, supplying aggregates and clearing spoil off of sites etc BUT whatever area you are in, theres already going to be plenty doing it, so it could be a year or so before you get yourself established enough to make a decent living, can you go that long fanancially??
the real monies in big crane work, machinery, office cabins etc but the downside is, your looking at 40k upwards to get the right wagon with the right crane, 30t minimum if your to be able to take on any job and again, it’ll take time to get yourself known in your area.
paul b, yes I’m talking about bucket and tipper. Reading your reply there is little work any other way I take it.
Yes I’d probably struggle to make a year financially. Saying that,I don’t have a mortgage or any other outgoings to worry about. As long as I could cover the cost of running the vehicle and a small amount of money to live off I could get by. Do think it would be possible to carrying on working and building a business up with weekend work/work after 6pm to get started to get known, or is it all or nothing?
The big cranes are out of my league financially.
What would I look for if I came to buying a bucket and tipper?
well, you want a crane with a bit of reach for those awkward jobs you can’t get the wagon close to, maybe a 10t mtr but as you’ll know the bigger the crane the smaller the payload, so a six legger is a must, gives you a load of 12 maybe 13t load dependant on wether it’s a steel or ali body and tipping gear etc, otherwise it’s an 8 legger but then your up to artic tax £1200 per year (unless rpc) if i remember rightly.
running a wagon part time is a complete non starter, the standing costs are far to great for that, you’ll find that to make it pay you’ll need to be out at least four days a week minimum, bare in mind as a new start you’ll pay top money for insurance etc as well.
what i’d suggest is, have a good look at the vosa site first to see if your actually in the position to get an o’license (many aren’t) see what parking facilities are available locally and at what cost, look at local landfill and recycling plants to see what you can tip a load for (you’ll make more on tipping than you ever will out of haulage) then if it still looks ok, speak to as many local firms as possible to see what sort of work may be about, no one will guarantee anything but it’ll give you a feel for the job.
of coarse there is a hell of a lot of luck involved, you could start up and drop on a firm that’ll give you plenty of work and never look back or you could be scratching for long long time.
I’m on writing out a business plan now, it’s going to take me a while thanks for the help. I’ll probably be back with more questions mate.
I’m in Australia at the minute and went out the other day to find out how much a bucket and tipper was to buy over here just out of curiosity. Looked in their version of the Autotrader and a few other places and they don’t have them at all. They have the usuasl HIAB’s and tippers, but no bucket and tippers. I’ve drove past a few sites now and it seems they’re just using diggers to put spoil in tippers. I wonder why they haven’t bothered at all with grab wagons over here?
I was thinking maybe it would be worth giving it a go over here, then I thought there must be a reason why they don’t use them. I’ll have to get out and ask someone. What do you think?
Shi!, the more I read this forum the more I think it’s a bad Idea. I’ve just read that your packing it in?
