The Krenn Hrubec West Virginia Project: Heavy Equipment

Our big Diesel Ford F450 truck

We knew we would need some earth moving equipment to develop this rugged land. Basically, you have three options - rent, buy new, or buy used. Buying new stuff is always fun but of course expensive. We didn't want to blow our budget before we even had a building, so this option was right out. Renting has a strong appeal; you don't have to worry about maintenance and you can get a variety of different devices. It's not too expensive if you need it for only a short time. If your need is over a long period of time and for an intermittent time frame, then this can raise the overall cost of your project. Buying used can be a good deal. If you find something older but in good condition and at a good price, it can be the cheaper option over renting. This is what we decided to do for a few of the larger pieces of gear. We searched around the internet for a small excavator, a moderate sized front-end loader, and a truck capable of hauling a few tons of stuff. We found a nice Kubota B21 tractor with a front-end loader attachment at Coleman Equipment in southern Ohio. Nick went out one day in April to look at it and was pleased. It was about 15 years old and had obviously done a lot of work but was worth the money and clearly had a lot of work yet in it. There are always small faults on any piece of used equipment. If you need perfect, buy new. If you can fix things, you can save a lot of dough buying used gear. While at Coleman's Nick spotted a used Kubota KX91 excavator (also called a track-hoe). We got a good deal on the two of them and bought them on the spot. Now we just had to get them to West Virginia, 400 miles away. We didn't have the capability of transporting them ourselves, so we hired a guy with a big super duty pickup with a fifth wheel trailer (again, arranged over the internet - man, I love the internet). Later, in May, we found a great truck for sale in Fredricksburg. It is a Ford F450 with a 7.3 liter Diesel and a six speed transmission. It is a real beast. We got a great deal on it because it had an electrical fault which caused the battery to go dead overnight. (Actually, like many Diesels it has two big truck sized batteries which means that it can get quite expensive to replace) Confident that we could repair any mere electrical fault we bought it. For the short term we kept the battery from discharging by disconnecting the lead to the battery every time we shut it down. A few weeks later Nick indeed did find the source of the electrical fault and repaired it. I figure we saved a few thousand bucks on the purchase price because of that problem. It is good to know how to fix things.