Depending on how this summer goes, and it’s looking good, I’m thinking of either purchasing or “lease to own” an RTFL (rough terrain fork lift)
All I’ve ever used are CAT’s. And don’t have anything to complain about with them. But I’m wondering what my options are and what some of you guys may have to say about them. The three that I am considering are LULL, CAT and Ingersoll Rand. I’m not committed to any of them and am open to suggestions regarding other brands. As I said, I’ve had good experience with CAT. But a very good friend of mine whose judgement I trust swears by Lull brand machines. There is also an Ingersoll-Rand dealership near me that always has a sweet looking machine or two parked out front.
I haven’t made a move in contacting any dealerships or mentioned it yet to the outfit I am renting from (Southworth Milton CAT) cuz I’m not ready to deal with the high pressure sales stuff yet. Still just kicking it around in my head and seeing if the numbers make sense. May even wait until next spring when the truck is paid off to make things easier.
I’m at the very beginning of the process here, and don’t even really know what size machine I’ll be purchasing, what brand, or if it’ll be new or used. Just looking for your trusted advice and experience. Would also appreciate any tips or things to look for/at when looking at used machines.
Thanks in advance,
Brian
Replies
Frenchy should chime in here soon and tell you. He sells these things for a living. Not sure where you are located. He is in the twin cities metro area of Minnesota. Think he sells the Ingersol Rand models.
Good luck
Given that I live in an area with some fairly rough terrain and sometimes crappy weather, I tend to favor the reach out forklifts. They provide more options for offloading trucks and the ability to set material on roofs, etc.
Skytracs and Gradalls are the norm around here.
I prefer the 4WD Skytrack, myself; with a 30 or 40 ft reach and 6,000 or 9,000 lb. capacity, tilting fork frame, tilting body, 4-wheel steering options, etc, it's a pretty versatile machine.
Used, in good condition from the rental yard, they can sometimes be had for about the same price as a standard rough terrain forklift.
Not trying to lead you astray, but you might take them into consideration.
Notchman,
Thanks, but maybe I should have been clearer. I am talking about telescopic handlers....wouldn't go any other way. So, at least we're on the same page!
Here is our chosen ride have had it for about 3 years now. Have the boom attachment for setting trusses. We do large projects (100+ townhomes per yr.). If you use it every day get one. If not its a big payment sitting idle. Also a big truck & trailer is needed to move from site to site. Ours stays at the same project for 12months or longer!
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Dieselpig,
We own 2 forklifts. About 2 years ago we bought an old old early 70's pig for about $7500. You can imagine that this thing is old. Well it paid for itself very quickly. Last fall it was starting to have problems so we started shopping around. We looked at Lulls, Gradalls and Ingersol Rands. One of the local (Tacoma, WA) rental shops rents out only Gradalls and one of the employees told me that Lulls tend to have front end problems and that it is an expensive fix. I don't know if that is true or if it applies to residential guys.
We ended up buying a 1998 Ingersol Rand VR-90B for $40,000. Considering that many guys pay this for a truck . . . . We use it everyday. It has a Perkins turbo diesel, reaches 37' vertical and will lift 9000lbs with the boom retracted. We love this thing. I did some reasearch and it is a very popular forklift for residential jobs. It is just the right size for our jobs. I talked to our machanic last week and he said that the newer VR series are made in France and that they aren't as high quality.
I hope Frenchy chimes in here. He has the experience.
I'll tell you this, once you have one, you will wonder why you never got one earlier. On avg we've shaved between 3-7 days off the time it used to take to frame a house. Besides just being able to move material around instead of packing it by hand, you are much less tired and still have the energy to actually frame :-). I feel that more gets done in a day just because you aren't expending the energy moving materials.
Here are some pics of the house we are on. I took these on Monday. We got the roof sheathed yesterday. I just boomed up the 80+ sheets of ply to the gable and then I could just grab it from there and cut. If it is just me and one other guy (instead of 3 guys), we'll boom the sheathing (not the whole stack) up to the roof and do our cutting up there. It's great.
We framed that roof in a day and half. It was 3 different pitches, funky gable that was 4-12 and 8-12, had a supporting & supported valley. It went so fast because we could just grab the material and boom it upstairs, cut and stack. There was no time hand loading anything. I love the forklift (so does my back) :-) Here's a link to some pics of this roof and the forklift also. The pics are in the last post at the bottom of the page. http://www.josephfusco.org/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=341&start=45 Here are the specs on the IR we own. http://www.blaw-knox.com/archives/vr90bs.pdf