The most expensive half hour on any small excavation job is the one where a machine sits on a trailer out the front, because the side gate is 60 mm narrower than the tracks. Nobody wins that morning. Ten minutes with a tape measure beforehand prevents it entirely.
Here is exactly what to measure, and what the numbers mean.
1. The narrowest point — not the gate
People measure the side gate, because it looks like the constraint. It usually is not.
Walk the entire route from where the truck will park to where the work is, and find the tightest spot along the whole path. In Melbourne’s north the culprit is almost always one of: a gas or water meter box protruding from the wall, a downpipe, a rainwater tank, an air conditioning unit, a garden tap, or a retaining wall that pinches in halfway down.
Measure at the tightest point, at the height the machine passes through — not at ground level, if something sticks out higher up.
The numbers that matter
- 1 m or more
- A 1.8 tonne excavator with retracted tracks gets through. This is the standard case and covers most suburban side gates.
- 800 mm – 1 m
- Tight but often workable. Worth measuring twice and photographing with the tape in shot.
- Under 800 mm
- A micro machine, or hand work with a barrow. Both are slower, so the job costs more — but knowing in advance is what lets it be priced properly.
2. Height, and what is above the path
Easy to forget and it stops a machine just as effectively as width. Check for eaves, pergolas, a carport, verandah beams, low branches, a clothesline and the gate’s own top rail.
Measure the lowest thing on the route. If the only way through is under a pergola, that number decides the day.
3. What the machine has to climb
Steps are the honest deal-breaker. A tracked excavator handles a slope and a kerb; it does not handle a flight of three steps down into a sunken backyard without ramping, which needs planning and sometimes scaffold plank and a second person.
Note any step, kerb, threshold or sharp change in level along the route, and roughly how steep the steepest section is. A slope you would describe as “a bit of a hill to push the mower up” is fine. One you would describe as “steep” is worth a photo.
4. What the machine has to drive over
This surprises people in the reassuring direction. A 1.8 tonne machine on rubber tracks spreads its weight over a large area — the ground pressure underneath it is lower than under the heel of someone standing on your lawn. Dry turf and sound concrete generally come through unmarked.
Where care is needed:
- Saturated lawn — will mark, and in August it will mark badly. Track mats help; a dry week helps more.
- New pavers or decorative concrete — mats go down, or the route changes.
- Anything hollow underneath — septic tanks, soakwells, rainwater tanks, pool surrounds, a slab over a cellar. These get identified before, and driven around.
- Irrigation and garden lighting — not on any utility plan, because it was installed by whoever owned the place in 2004. Mark what you know about.
5. Where the truck parks and the spoil goes
The last measurement is not about the excavator at all. Spoil has to reach the tipper, and the tipper has to be somewhere legal within a reasonable distance of the work.
Worth checking: whether there is frontage to park a truck and trailer, whether the street has clearway or permit restrictions at the time of day we would be there, whether a nature strip crossing is realistic, and how far the machine has to shuttle each bucket. A long shuttle distance adds time to every single load, and it adds up fast.
The fence question
If the access is genuinely too tight, taking out a fence panel is often the cheapest answer on the table, not the most drastic.
Removing three palings and putting them back is about an hour. Barrowing spoil down a path that is 50 mm too narrow can be two extra days. The arithmetic is not close. Colorbond panels usually unbolt; timber palings come off and go back the same day; a shared boundary fence needs a conversation with the neighbour first, which is worth having early rather than at 7:30am.
What to send with a quote request
Four photos and one number does it:
Standing at the street
Looking down the access path, so the whole route is visible.
The narrowest point
With a tape measure held across it and readable in the shot. This is the important one.
The work area
Wide enough to show what is being cleared, dug or drained, and what is around it.
Anything unusual
Steps, a steep section, a low pergola, a tank in the way.
Plus the height of the lowest thing on the route. That is enough to confirm the machine fits and to price the job properly before anyone commits a day to it — which is the entire point.
Access is also the single biggest driver of what a job costs, for exactly these reasons. There is more on that in what land clearing costs, and the work itself is described on the land clearing page.