Bobcat or excavator - which one does your job.
People ring and ask for "a bobcat" the way they ask for a Band-Aid, meaning any machine at all. Half the time what they actually need is an excavator, and occasionally they need both on the same day. The two machines do genuinely different work, the day rates are nearly identical, and picking the wrong one is the most common way a one-day job becomes a three-day job.
One makes holes, one moves what came out.
A bobcat, properly a skid-steer loader, pushes and carries material across a surface. It has a bucket on the front, it drives, and it is fast at moving spoil, spreading crushed rock and levelling. An excavator sits on tracks with a rotating house and an arm, and it digs down and out - trenches, footings, pool holes, anything below the surface. The short version: excavators make holes, bobcats move what came out of them. Nearly every real job in Casey wants both, which is why we usually float a mini-excavator and a skid steer together.
The rotating house is the thing people underrate. An excavator can dig a trench, swing 90 degrees, drop the spoil in a neat windrow, and swing back, all without moving the tracks. A skid steer has to drive to the spoil, pick it up, drive to the pile, dump, and drive back. Over a day that difference is enormous on a dig and reversed on a spread. Neither machine is better. They are answers to different questions.
Attachments blur the line a bit. A skid steer takes augers, trenchers, levelling bars and rollers. An excavator takes hammers, augers, tilt buckets and grabs. But an attachment does not change the geometry - a skid steer with a trencher still cannot dig around an existing pipe, and an excavator with a leveller bar still cannot carry ten tonnes of crushed rock across a block quickly.
What we actually put on each type of Casey job.
Driveways: both, in sequence. The excavator strips the topsoil and cuts to the design level, particularly along edges and around service pits where you need vertical accuracy. The skid steer then carts the spoil out, brings the crushed rock in, and spreads it in even lifts for the roller. If you only hire one, hire the skid steer - the spreading and levelling is where the hours actually go on a driveway. But cutting a clean, level, correctly-graded subgrade with a bucket on the front of a skid steer is a genuinely hard thing to do well, and it is why cheap driveway prep tends to end up 30-40mm out. Depths and build-ups are on the driveway preparation page.
Trenching: excavator, and it is not close. A skid steer with a trencher attachment can cut a narrow shallow slot for irrigation or a light cable, but for anything with depth, width or a service in the bottom it is the wrong tool. It cannot dig vertically, it cannot work around an existing pipe without pushing dirt back in, and it cannot reach over a fence or into a hole. Any stormwater, sewer, gas or power trench in Casey wants an excavator, both for accuracy and because trench safety at depth requires a machine that can bench or batter the walls properly.
Site cut and fill: both, plus a roller. Excavator cuts, skid steer spreads and shapes, roller compacts. On anything past about 200 cubic metres a bigger excavator and a tipper earn their keep quickly.
Pool digs: excavator, with the skid steer as the shuttle if access is tight and a truck cannot get to the hole. Footings: excavator alone, usually a 1.7 or 3-tonne. Spreading a delivered load of topsoil or rock: skid steer alone, and this is the one job where bringing an excavator would be silly.
Your side gate picks the machine, not you.
It is usually decided by your side gate, not by the job. A 1.7-tonne mini-excavator fits through about 800mm and handles most domestic footings, shallow trenching and small pads. A 3-tonne needs roughly 1.5m of access and is the sensible default for pool digs and mid-size cuts. A 5-tonne wants truck access to the work area and suits bigger pads and light commercial. Bigger is cheaper per cubic metre right up until it cannot get in, at which point it costs infinity. We measure the narrowest point at the site visit before anything else.
A skid steer is the wider of the two options at the small end. Our Bobcat S70 is about 920mm across, which is why on established Berwick and Hampton Park blocks with 900mm gates the mini-excavator often gets through and the skid steer does not. That single fact decides the method on a lot of backyard jobs, and it is covered in depth on the tight access excavation guide.
65m² of driveway prep in Narre Warren South.
Standard estate block, reactive clay, existing driveway out, new 65m² concrete driveway going in. About 16 cubic metres of cut, then 13 tonnes of 20mm crushed rock in, spread in two lifts and rolled. Truck access to the front of the block, no gate constraint.
Skid steer only: one machine at $780 for the day, but the cut takes most of it because a front bucket cannot hold a level line against the garage slab edge, and the operator finishes 30mm proud in places. Day two to bring in and spread the rock and re-trim. Two days, $1,560, and a subgrade that is close rather than right.
Mini-excavator only: the cut is clean and accurate in four hours. Then eight hours of trying to shuttle 13 tonnes of crushed rock across the block with a 400mm bucket on the end of an arm. Two days again, $1,560, and a very tired operator.
Both, one day: excavator cuts and trims while the skid steer strips and carts, then the skid steer spreads the rock in lifts while the excavator does the edges and the pit surround. Two machines and one operator across a single day plus a second set of hands: $1,850. One day, correct subgrade, passed inspection.
So the two-machine option is $290 dearer than either single-machine option and saves a day, and it is the only one of the three that produces a subgrade within tolerance. That is why our quotes usually list two machines and why we do not compete with a one-machine price. The underlying rates are all on the pricing guide, and if you are weighing up hiring one yourself, the DIY versus operator comparison runs the same numbers.
The rates are nearly the same, so ignore them.
They are close. In 2026 a bobcat with an operator runs $680-$980 a day in Casey and a 1.7-tonne mini-excavator with an operator is the same $680-$980, with a 3-tonne at $880-$1,200 and a 5-tonne at $1,200-$1,600. The four-hour minimum is around $480 either way. Because the rates are so similar, choosing on price is the wrong instinct - choose on which machine actually suits the work, because the wrong machine at $680 takes three days where the right one at $980 takes one.
Casey's soil makes the machine choice sharper than it would be elsewhere. In the north-west clay belt through Endeavour Hills, Hallam and Doveton, wet reactive clay sticks to a skid steer bucket and it will carry half a load all day. An excavator bucket sheds it better. In the sandy loam through Cranbourne and Clyde, a skid steer flies and does more of the job. Same two machines, different split, fifteen kilometres apart.
If you take one thing from this page: tell whoever quotes you what the job is, not which machine you want. Any operator who agrees to "a bobcat for a day" without asking what you are digging is not thinking about your job.
Casey suburbs we cover.
Machine choice questions.
What is the difference between a bobcat and an excavator?
A bobcat, properly a skid-steer loader, pushes and carries material across a surface. It has a bucket on the front, it drives, and it is fast at moving spoil, spreading crushed rock and levelling. An excavator sits on tracks with a rotating house and an arm, and it digs down and out - trenches, footings, pool holes, anything below the surface. The short version: excavators make holes, bobcats move what came out of them. Nearly every real job in Casey wants both, which is why we usually float a mini-excavator and a skid steer together.
Which machine do I need for a driveway in Casey?
Both, in sequence. The excavator strips the topsoil and cuts to the design level, particularly along edges and around service pits where you need vertical accuracy. The skid steer then carts the spoil out, brings the crushed rock in, and spreads it in even lifts for the roller. If you only hire one, hire the skid steer - the spreading and levelling is where the hours actually go on a driveway. But cutting a clean, level, correctly-graded subgrade with a bucket on the front of a skid steer is a genuinely hard thing to do well, and it is why cheap driveway prep tends to end up 30-40mm out.
Can a bobcat dig a trench?
Not properly. A skid steer with a trencher attachment can cut a narrow shallow slot for irrigation or a light cable, but for anything with depth, width or a service in the bottom it is the wrong tool. It cannot dig vertically, it cannot work around an existing pipe without pushing dirt back in, and it cannot reach over a fence or into a hole. Any stormwater, sewer, gas or power trench in Casey wants an excavator, both for accuracy and because trench safety at depth requires a machine that can bench or batter the walls properly.
What size excavator do I need for a Casey block?
It is usually decided by your side gate, not by the job. A 1.7-tonne mini-excavator fits through about 800mm and handles most domestic footings, shallow trenching and small pads. A 3-tonne needs roughly 1.5m of access and is the sensible default for pool digs and mid-size cuts. A 5-tonne wants truck access to the work area and suits bigger pads and light commercial. Bigger is cheaper per cubic metre right up until it cannot get in, at which point it costs infinity. We measure the narrowest point at the site visit before anything else.
Is a bobcat or an excavator cheaper to hire in Casey?
They are close. In 2026 a bobcat with an operator runs $680-$980 a day in Casey and a 1.7-tonne mini-excavator with an operator is the same $680-$980, with a 3-tonne at $880-$1,200 and a 5-tonne at $1,200-$1,600. The four-hour minimum is around $480 either way. Because the rates are so similar, choosing on price is the wrong instinct - choose on which machine actually suits the work, because the wrong machine at $680 takes three days where the right one at $980 takes one.
Tell me the job, I will tell you the machine.
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