The Benefits of Wet Hire and Dry Hire for Equipment Rentals

When managing a project that requires the use of mining machinery and equipment, considering all factors and costs will ultimately affect your bottom line. If buying new equipment is out of the question, then finding mining equipment for hire would be your only option. Even then, you’re still left with the decision between going for dry hire or wet hire, two very distinct options with their own advantages.

Let’s explore some of those pros and cons.

Why Dry Hire?

If you’re feeling confident with your project management and you want to prioritise cost over convenience, then dry hire is practically the best option for you. Dry hire is when you hire only the equipment needed for the project and operate the plant machinery yourself. In whatever way you want to use the equipment is entirely up to you. The good news is that dry hiring can dramatically reduce the overall cost of hiring equipment. Some of the other benefits of dry hiring include:

• The flexibility of finding your own operator: If you already have a skilled operator on your existing team, then you don’t have to worry about hiring one. If you don’t have an operator, you can always find someone who is skilled and would fit your budget.
• You have more control over the work: Obviously, you have greater control over an operator under your employment compared to a contractor.
• Better accountability: if you’re working with an employee, they’re already familiar with your expectations and processes, and they know how your team works on any given project. There’s greater accountability for what is done on-site in case anything goes wrong.

Of course, you can’t just hire equipment and then assign some random person on your team to operate it. Equipment rental companies will have their own mandatory requirements on how their equipment is handled. Your chosen operator needs to be experienced in handling the equipment and, in some cases, they need to be licensed to use it.

If your appointed operator fails on both requirements, you may need to shell out more money for equipment orientation and training before they can use the equipment. This can be costly both in terms of time and money.

Why Wet Hire?

If you need speed and convenience, a wet hire would be ideal for your project. Wet hire is very much a “complete package” as the equipment you hire already comes with a trained operator to use it. The catch is that you also need to pay for the operator’s labour as they work on your project under your supervision.

There are practically two benefits to this, but it could be more than enough to convince you to go for wet hire on your project. Those benefits are:

• No training necessary: If you don’t have an operator confident with the machinery on your worksite, then a more skilled operator may be needed. It eliminates the need to train and orient your team members on using the equipment.
• Lesser risk of any accidents: From an insurance perspective, a wet hire can be an advantage as they have already mastered the use of the equipment. Those operators already have an enormous amount of experience working on various projects, and they’re less likely to make mistakes while on the job.

Making the Call

Ultimately, the decision on whether you go for wet hire or dry hire for your mining project rests with you. Both are viable options and work well depending on the type of project you’re working on. Instead of choosing one over the other, it may be best to weigh your options by looking at your budget, the timeline of the project, and the type of work needed to be done.

Need some quality equipment delivered to your job site? Look no further than KEE Group. We have rollers, excavators, dump trucks, water trucks, low loaders, and dozers for hire whenever you need them. Not only can we supply mining equipment for hire, but we can also deliver, fuel, service, and operate it depending on your needs.