digging - fair rate per hr to pay?

[cavair]

Hi
I have a 5x4m front garden which i need dug over and remove all grass/weeds prior to levelling and membrane and landscaping to make maintenance free. As im 62 i cant do the digging (at least not very easily!) and was wondering what is a fair rate to pay for just digging over! Probably cant afford to pay a proper landscaping firm so am wanting to offer someone some work either for the job or per hour.
Any suggestions for the going rate for a pro compared to an odd job man?!!
Probably 2-3 days work at a guess! (just the digging and levelling!)

Friends / son in law havent got the time to do it for free!! :>)

Thanks.

 

[Gregory01]

Hi cavair.

Not sure I can answer your question but can certainly offer some advice which may be useful. I spent the weekend digging out small hedges, plants etc in my garden. It was hard graft and slow. As of this morning there were still a fair few larger hedges / small trees remaining which I tried to dig out. I spent an hour on 1 alone and finally gave up.

I spoke to a man with a digger who I found online. He only normally works on day rates at £150 a day but as there was not much which needed doing he came over this afternoon. He unloaded the digger, removed all the larger hedges / tree stumps. He then went into the back garden and took out a couple more hedges there. These were then picked up by the digger, carried back to the front garden and put in a pile with the others. All of this along with a chat and a cuppa was done and he was loaded up and off within 45 minutes.

The point being that had I just called him in the first place I would have saved a lot of hard work. What may take someone a few days by hand might be able to be done in a few hours with a digger.

Ps. Cost me £50 to give you an idea and I'm sure there wouldn't be much more work involved in your project than I had done today.

Good luck

 

[trowlerman]

yep get a digger in for one hour job done