Grab hire- the lowdown
What is grab hire?
Imagine you’ve dug out a pond for your garden, let’s say you’ve got 12 tonnes of soil to move, if you go down the route of skip hire, you’d need to hire a skip, spend a few hours loading it by hand, swap the full one for an empty one, then repeat the process again.
This would probably take most of your weekend and leave you feeling knackered! Or you could hire a grab for a bit more than the cost of a builders skip and watch the driver load your soil in around 20 minutes while you have a cuppa, I know which I’m choosing! Just picture the look on your partner’s face when they come back from the big shop to see the huge pile of soil has vanished!
If you’ve read our other blogs on skip hire, you may have noticed a limitation with skips. Once you get to a certain size (6 yard and bigger) you can’t fill them completely with soil and other heavy materials. This is a problem if you’ve got a lot of soil or rubble as hiring several large skips will soon start to add up. If this sounds like you grab hire may be a better solution. In this guide, we’ll do a deep dive into this often overlooked waste removal method and show you why grab hire should be on your radar!
A typical Grab Lorry
Putting the “grab” in grab hire.
You’ve probably seen big tipper style lorries if you’ve driven past one of the UKs many roadwork sites before. These lorries usually have 8 wheels, a rigid body, and a large tipping bed on the back which makes them ideal for moving large quantities of materials.
A grab lorry is very similar in appearance, the one key difference is a hydraulic arm which is mounted between the cab and the tipping body. This arm has a bucket on the end which opens and closes like a hand, allowing the arm to “grab” material. This grab is used to load the lorry, pretty neat huh?
This makes grab hire a great option for waste removal, unlike a skip, when you hire a grab, it turns up with a qualified driver who loads your waste for you. With their large bodies and powerful engines these beauties can load 16-18 tonnes of waste in mere minutes!
Another key benefit with grab hire is they can access difficult to reach places, if your waste is over a wall or fence the arm simply reaches over and grabs it. There’s also no need for a permit, as grab lorries are road legal, they can park on the road while they collect your waste.
What types of waste can grab hire collect?
Grab hire is best suited to larger amounts of heavy, solid waste such as soil, rubble or scrap metal. They can also be used for large amounts of bulky waste such as tree or hedge cuttings and even mixed general waste.
Grabs are not suitable for hazardous waste such as asbestos, chemicals, or liquid waste. If you’re looking to get rid of any of those, you’ll need to explore other options, you may be better off speaking to a specialist company such as this one.
A grab lorry in it’s natural habitat
Who is grab hire for?
Due to the amount and type of waste grabs can collect, they are best suited to bigger domestic and commercial projects. They are very popular with tradesmen such as:
Gardeners
Landscapers
Builders
Demolition Contractors
Earthmoving Companies
Or if you’re doing your own renovation works or a bigger gardening project, grab hire can be a great option to get rid of your waste.
But wait, there’s more.
If that’s not impressive enough you can also use grab lorries to transport goods such as sand, gravel, and other aggregates to site. Their mechanical arm can be used to load those big white bags these materials come in from the garden centre or builder’s yard.
How much does grab hire cost?
This is probably the most important factor when you’re choosing a waste removal solution, with grab hire the price is variable depending on your location and the type of waste you’re getting rid of.
When you hire a grab, you will be quoted per load, i.e., the price quoted will cover you for filling up the lorry and taking it away, if it takes two loads the price will be doubled, etc. Some companies will offer a discount for large multi load jobs and prices start at around £200 and increase from there.
So is grab hire cheaper than skip hire?
In short, yes, especially on larger projects. In this instance grab hire will be much more cost effective for you as they can hold so much more weigh than a skip. You would need multiple skips to match the capacity of one grab lorry.
How big is a grab lorry?
Most grab lorries measure 3 x 3.8 x 7.8m, they a at least 3m wide so you’ll need to make sure that you have plenty of room for them to access the job before you hire. You’ll also need to make sure there aren’t any branches or cables overhead that could get tangled up in the arm. The arm can reach up to 8 meters so you can park the lorry a short distance away from the job if needed.
When thinking about where to leave your waste, please make sure it’s in an open area that can be accessed by a large vehicle.
How long does a grab lorry take to load?
This does depend on how much waste you’ve got to load and what the access is like, but you will probably be looking at somewhere between 15-30 minutes. The best thing here though is someone else is doing the loading!
How much weight can a grab lorry carry?
The 8 wheeler lorries have a gross weight limit (the weight of a full load plus the weight of the lorry itself) of 32 tonnes. Most of them will weigh around 16 tonnes meaning that they can also carry about 16 tonnes.
Grabs are perfect for moving large amounts of heavy materials
Where skips have the upper hand.
Grabs sound amazing right? Well, there are a few situations where a skip might still suit you better. For ongoing projects, it can be handy to have a place to store the waste as you go. If you were completing a house clearance, for example, a skip may be a better choice as there is likely to be a medium amount of light, bulky waste. Or if you were cutting a large hedge over a couple of days, you could keep the area tidy by loading a skip with the cuttings as you go then simply get it collected once you are finished.
So that pretty much covers grab hire, while skips and grabs are used for fundamentally the same thing (removing waste) there are a number of differences. A good way to think of a grab is it’s a large skip on wheels that loads itself.
The hydraulic arm is the gamechanger with the grab, this makes loading so much quicker and easier. The other key benefits are they can transport a lot of heavy waste and can access tricky spots, what’s not to love?
As always if you have any questions, you can email us here, if you want to learn more about skip hire, check out our recommended reading or head over to the main blog for more topics on waste management. Thank you for reading, I’ll see you next time.
Recommended reading
https://www.potteriesrecycling.co.uk/blog/skip-hire-101-the-complete-guide
https://www.potteriesrecycling.co.uk/blog/which-skip-size-do-i-need-choosing-the-right-skip-for-you
https://www.potteriesrecycling.co.uk/blog/man-amp-van-versus-skip-hire-which-is-best-for-me
Sources
https://www.grabco.co.uk/ultimate-guide-to-grab-hire/
