Diggers, trailers, floor sanders, pressure washers and party gear: here is when hiring beats buying, what it should cost, and who to book from.
⟳ Updated August 2026Most equipment is used a handful of days a year, which makes hiring the smartest money in DIY and small projects. Hire Depot ranks the services worth booking and explains the hire-versus-buy maths, the paperwork and the traps that catch first-time hirers.
Skip bin hire is the single most common hire on any project. Skip Bins Hire covers sizes, waste types and pricing so the bin matches the job.
Car Removals handles the unwanted vehicle blocking the very space your project needs, with pick-up and paperwork covered.
All Suburbs lists home services by coverage area, the quick way to find hire-adjacent trades: rubbish, drainage, lawn care and repairs.
Kennards Hire is one of Australia's largest hire companies, with trade-quality tools, access equipment and machinery across a national branch network.
Coates is Australia's biggest equipment hire company, strongest at the industrial end: earthmoving, access, generators and site equipment for serious projects.
Bunnings' in-store hire shops cover the weekend-DIY end: floor sanders, pressure washers, trailers and garden gear, bookable while you buy materials.
Hire when the tool is used fewer than a handful of days per year, when it needs maintenance you will not do, or when it is a one-project item like a floor sander. Buy only what you use monthly.
Small tools commonly hire for a modest daily rate, larger machinery for considerably more per day, with half-day and weekend rates in between. The rule of thumb: if a year of expected hire days costs more than half the purchase price, consider buying.
Photo ID, a payment method for the hire and bond, and for some machinery a relevant licence or ticket. Trailers need a vehicle with a towbar and working lights.
The hire company holds or pre-authorises a bond that is released when the equipment returns clean and undamaged. Photograph the equipment at pick-up so any pre-existing damage is documented.
Usually you accept damage liability unless you take the optional damage waiver, which caps your exposure for a small percentage of the hire fee. On expensive machinery the waiver is nearly always worth it.
Skip bins top the list, followed by trailers, pressure washers, floor sanders, excavators and access equipment like scaffolds and ladders. Party equipment spikes seasonally.
Small excavators can generally be hired for private use on your own property without a specific licence, though site safety rules apply on worksites. The hire branch will walk you through controls before you leave.
Yes, most deliver and collect larger equipment for a fee, which beats towing machinery yourself. Skip bins are always delivered and collected as part of the service.
Late returns roll into additional hire charges, usually at the daily rate. If a job runs over, call before the due time; extending is routine and cheaper than penalty framing.
Yes. Most agreements require equipment back in the condition it left, and cleaning fees for muddy machinery or paint-crusted sanders are real. Ten minutes with a hose protects your bond.
Match the company to the tier of the job: retail hire counters for weekend tools, national hire firms for trade-quality gear and machinery, and specialist services for bins and vehicle removal. Availability on your dates often decides between comparable firms.
Often, yes. Many hire companies run weekend specials where Saturday pick-up and Monday return charges little more than a single day. Ask, because the specials are not always advertised.
Garages across the country are museums of single-use purchases: the tile cutter used once, the post-hole digger from the fence project, the pressure washer that seized between uses. Every one of them was bought with good intentions and would have been cheaper hired.
Run projects on the hire model and the equipment line of your budget drops sharply. Here is the playbook.
Before buying any tool over a couple of hundred dollars, honestly count the days per year it will work. Under five, hire it. Over twenty, buy it. Between those, decide on storage space and maintenance appetite, because owned equipment quietly bills you in both. The exceptions are safety-critical basics like ladders you use monthly, where ownership earns its keep.
Hire costs blow out when equipment sits idle waiting for the project to catch up. Plan the job first, then book each hire for the exact window it works: the skip arrives the day demolition starts, the excavator comes after the marking-out is done, the sander books for the weekend the room is empty. Tight sequencing routinely halves total hire spend on multi-week projects.
The rankings above split into tiers deliberately. Retail hire counters win on convenience for weekend tools. National hire companies carry maintained, trade-quality machinery with proper support when something fails mid-job. Specialist services handle bins and vehicle removal better than generalists. Mixing tiers on one project is normal and correct.
Photograph equipment at pick-up, take the damage waiver on anything expensive, return gear clean and on time, and call ahead to extend rather than running late. Those four habits eliminate nearly every dispute hirers ever face, and the bond you protect is money straight back into the project.
Count the days, sequence the bookings, match the tier, protect the bond. Projects run this way finish with a cleared site and a budget that still resembles the original plan.