· by Rick Kosta
Before anyone talks about price, there is a more useful question: can a machine physically get to the work? On a suburban block that single answer changes the cost of a job more than almost anything else, because the alternative to a machine is people with shovels and wheelbarrows, and people are slow.
The good news is that you can usually work it out yourself in about five minutes with a tape measure. Here is what to measure, what the numbers mean, and what happens when the answer is no.
Why access decides the price
A small excavator will move more soil in an hour than a person will move in a day. That is the whole argument. When a machine can reach the work, the job is priced on machine hours. When it cannot, the same job gets priced on labour, and labour on a dig is expensive because it is slow, hard and hard on people.
The gap is not a few per cent. A job that a machine handles in a morning can turn into two or three days of barrow work, and the spoil still has to come out one barrow at a time to wherever the truck is parked. That is why access is the first thing worth checking, not the last.
The numbers that actually matter
Machines are narrower than most people expect. To give two real examples from a common range in Australia, a Kubota U17-3, a 1.7 tonne machine, runs a hydraulically adjustable track gauge from about 990mm retracted out to 1240mm expanded. Step up to a 5.5 tonne Kubota U55-4 and you are looking at roughly 1960mm wide.
Two things follow from that.
First, a metre of clear width is genuinely useful. If your side path measures a metre and it is clear the whole way, there is a good chance a small machine can walk down it.
Second, the small machines can change shape. That adjustable track gauge means the operator can retract the undercarriage to squeeze through a tight point, then expand it again once through, because a wider stance is more stable to dig from. It is why "will it fit" is not the simple yes or no question it looks like. A machine that fits through the gate at 990mm may well be working at 1240mm once it is in the backyard.
Widths vary between models and between years, so treat those figures as a guide to the range rather than a rule. What matters is that you measure your site properly and let whoever is quoting match a machine to it.
Measure the tightest point, not the gate
Almost everyone measures the gate. The gate is rarely the problem.
Walk the whole route from the street to the work and find the narrowest point anywhere along it. Then measure that. Common pinch points people miss:
- The gap between the house wall and the fence, which often narrows partway down
- A meter box, downpipe, tap or air conditioning unit projecting into the path
- Eaves and window sills, which narrow the space at machine height rather than at ground level
- A corner, because a machine needs room to turn as well as room to pass
- Steps, a raised path or a retaining wall the machine has to get up or down
- Soft ground, a septic tank or a rainwater tank the machine cannot safely track over
Measure at the height the machine will be, not just at your feet. A path that is 1100mm at ground level and 900mm at hip height because of a window sill is a 900mm path.
The things above your head
Overhead is the one people forget entirely, and it is the one that stops a job on the day.
Power lines running to the house, low branches, carport beams, pergolas and shade sails all sit in the way of a machine with a boom on it. Service lines in particular are not something to work around casually, and the answer is usually to get the supply authority involved rather than to try.
Look up along the route and note anything crossing it. If there are power lines over the driveway or over the work itself, say so when you enquire. It changes what is possible and it is far better known in advance than discovered with a truck already parked out the front.
What happens when nothing fits
Sometimes the answer really is that no machine is getting in there. That is not the end of the job, it just changes how it is done and what it costs.
Depending on the site, the usual options are:
- Take something out temporarily. A fence panel, a gate post or a section of paling fence can often come out and go back afterwards. This is by far the cheapest fix and it is worth asking about before assuming the worst.
- Go smaller. There are machines below the 1.7 tonne class that will get through openings a standard mini will not. They dig more slowly, but slowly by machine is still faster than by hand.
- Move the material rather than the machine. Where a machine can reach part of the site, spoil can be barrowed or conveyed to it rather than carrying the whole job by hand.
- Lift it over. On some sites a machine is craned into a backyard. It is the expensive option and it needs room out the front for the crane, but on a landlocked block it is sometimes the only one.
- Do it by hand. Still the answer on some sites. Worth knowing early, because it changes the price and the timeline considerably.
Which of those suits your site is exactly the sort of thing worth working out before the day, not on it.
What the machine does to the ground it crosses
The other half of the access question is what the route looks like afterwards. This is worth raising before the job rather than after, because the answer changes depending on the surface and on how wet the ground is.
A tracked machine spreads its weight better than most people expect, and rubber tracks on firm, dry ground usually leave very little. The problems come from three places: turning, because a machine pivoting in one spot tears turf in a way that travelling over it does not; wet ground, where the same machine that leaves nothing in February will rut badly in July; and point loads, which is why paving, a slab edge or a septic lid deserve a mention before anything drives over them.
Where a surface matters, it can be protected. Ply sheets, track mats or a bed of sand over paving all spread the load and all cost less than replacing what was underneath. Established turf will generally recover from a few passes. It will not recover from being turned on repeatedly in the wet.
Worth agreeing up front: which surfaces are being protected, what is expected to be reinstated afterwards, and what is simply accepted as part of the job. A driveway you are keeping and a lawn you are about to relandscape are very different answers.
What to have ready before you enquire
You do not need to be precise about the work to get a useful answer about access. You need four things:
- The narrowest measurement along the route, and where it is
- Whether the route is flat, stepped or sloped
- Anything overhead, particularly power lines
- Whether there is somewhere out the front for a truck to park
That last one catches people out. The machine getting in is only half of it. The spoil has to get out, and it goes out in a truck that has to stand somewhere legal and reachable.
Send a photo, it saves everyone a trip
Here is the single most useful thing you can do, and it takes thirty seconds.
Stand at the street end of the side path and take a photo looking down it. Then take one from the back looking the other way. If there is a gate, stand square on and photograph that too, with a tape measure held across the opening if you have one handy.
Three photos and one measurement tell an experienced operator more than a long phone conversation will, because they show the things you would not think to mention: the slope, the surface, the step you have stopped noticing, the downpipe halfway along. It is the difference between a rough guess and a real answer.
If you want us to take a look, send the photos through with your enquiry and we will tell you what will fit and what it means for the job. Have a look at our excavation and earthmoving services to see the sort of work this usually comes up on.
Ready to act on this? Explore our excavation and earthmoving services, or learn more about plant and machinery hire.
