Rural and Agricultural Tool Hire in South Devon: From Augers to Compact Tractors
August 7, 2026
Anyone who works outdoors in the South Hams knows the rhythm: a long, bright back end of summer, then — sometime around early October — the weather arrives off the Atlantic and does not really leave until spring. That makes late August and September the closing window for hard landscaping. Patios, paths, garden walls, steps, that retaining job you have been circling all year: the ground is dry, the mortar cures well, and there is still enough evening light to make real progress after work. Here is the kit that gets it over the line.
Patios and paving, done properly
A patio is only as good as what is underneath it, and what is underneath it is only as good as your excavation and compaction. For digging out, our 2 Ton Excavator (from £110 excl. VAT) fits through most garden access; where the site is bigger or the spoil heavier, the 2.4 ton and 2.5 ton machines (from £150) take it in their stride. A 3 Ton Dumper (from £95) turns fifty barrow runs into five trips.
For the cutting — and every paving job has cutting — the Battipav Class Plus 1300S Laser Bridge Saw (from £80) is the machine we point people at for porcelain and large-format slabs. Porcelain has become the default choice for South Hams patios, and it is unforgiving stuff to cut with anything less: chipped edges on a £40 slab hurt. A proper bridge saw with water suppression gives you clean, straight, repeatable cuts all day. See the full Cutting and Grinding range for angle grinders and disc cutters to go with it.
Mortar, muck and mixing
An Electric Cement Mixer (from £20) handles bedding mortar for a weekend’s laying without complaint, and runs quietly enough not to fall out with the neighbours. No power at the bottom of the garden? The Petrol Cement Mixer (from £22.50) goes wherever the job is. For jointing compounds, primers and slurry, a Paddle Mixer (from £15) mixes small batches properly — lumpy primer is how good slabs end up hollow.
Getting the sub-base right (the bit nobody photographs)
A finished patio gets admired; the 150mm underneath it decides whether there is anything to admire in five years. For foot traffic, dig out to around 150mm below finished level: 100mm of compacted MOT Type 1, then your bedding mortar, then the slab. Compact the Type 1 in two layers rather than one thick one — the plate only really works the top 50–75mm of each pass. Fall matters too: aim for roughly 1:80 away from the house so the winter rain you are racing to beat runs off the patio rather than sitting on it. None of this is glamorous, and all of it is why some patios shrug off a South Hams winter and others heave, puddle and rock.
Walls, steps and the awkward bits
Garden walls and steps are where a job earns its finish. Our breakers make short work of removing old concrete and failed steps, and for post holes — new fence line, pergola, gate posts — a petrol hole borer (from £40) digs in minutes what a spade manages in an hour, even in the stony ground half the South Hams is built on.
Fencing deserves a special mention this time of year: a fence panel replaced calmly in September costs a panel; the same fence rebuilt in January, after a storm has taken it through the greenhouse, costs rather more. Walk the boundary now, and if posts are moving at the base, this is the season to reset them in fresh concrete while the ground is workable.
Why hire wins for a one-off landscaping job
A patio uses a bridge saw intensively for one weekend and then never again; the same goes for the digger, the dumper and, for most households, the mixer. Buying that list would run well into four figures and then need storing, insuring and maintaining — hiring it costs a small fraction, arrives serviced and sharp, and goes away again when the job does. There is also the quality point that gets missed: the hire machine is usually a far better machine than the one you would buy for a single project. A £80 weekend with a professional bridge saw beats a £120 purchase of something that struggles through porcelain, chips your most visible cut, and then lives in the shed as a monument.
How hire works down here
One thing worth knowing: our Ivybridge site is a storage and delivery yard, not a trade counter — so either collect from our Newton Abbot store (open from 7:30am weekdays) or, more popular with South Hams customers, let us deliver. We run kit out to Ivybridge, Kingsbridge, Modbury, Yealmpton, Salcombe and everywhere between, charged by distance and timed to your job. Ring 01752 922535, email hire@olympushiresouthhams.co.uk, or browse the full Plant Hire and Tool Hire ranges. Then get laying — the ferns are already thinking about turning.
