People occasionally ask us whether they should just buy a particular tool outright rather than hire it. It’s a fair question, and honestly, the answer depends entirely on what you’re trying to do.
Here’s a straightforward breakdown — including the situations where buying makes sense, and the ones where hiring is clearly the better call.
When Buying Makes Sense
Buying makes clear financial sense when you use a tool regularly, when it’s a relatively low-cost item, and when storage isn’t an issue. A cordless drill, a circular saw, a decent set of hand tools — these are worth owning if you do a reasonable amount of DIY, because the payback period is short and they’ll get used repeatedly.
The same applies to basic garden tools, most measuring equipment, and anything that sits in your toolkit permanently.
When Hiring Makes More Sense
The case for hiring gets much stronger as soon as you move into professional-grade or specialist equipment. Here’s why:
- Occasional use — most people only need a floor sander, concrete mixer, pressure washer, or scaffold tower a handful of times at most. Buying equipment you’ll use twice and then store for years rarely stacks up financially
- Upfront cost — professional-grade equipment can cost hundreds or thousands of pounds to buy. A mini excavator that costs £110/day to hire would cost well over £10,000 to purchase. For a single project, that maths is straightforward
- Maintenance and servicing — when you own a piece of equipment, servicing, replacing consumables and dealing with breakdowns is your problem. When you hire from us, every item is regularly maintained and inspected before it goes out
- Storage — equipment takes up space. If you live in a house with a standard garage or garden shed, where are you putting a floor sander between uses?
- Technology — professional hire equipment is typically more capable and more up-to-date than what you’d buy at a DIY store for the same money
The Breakeven Point
A simple way to think about it: if the total cost of buying, maintaining and eventually disposing of a piece of equipment is less than the total cost of hiring it over your expected usage, buying wins. In most other situations, hiring wins.
For a £400 pressure washer you’d use three times a year, buying might make sense. For a scaffold tower you’d use once for a fascia job, hiring at around £70 for the week is obviously better than buying at £700+.
What Olympus Has Available
At our Newton Abbot depot we stock a huge range of tools and plant for hire — from basic garden equipment to scaffold towers, concrete mixers, floor sanders, mini excavators, dumpers, telehandlers and much more. We also have good relationships with other hire companies, which means if we don’t have what you need, we can often source it through cross-hire at competitive rates.
If you’re not sure whether a particular item is worth hiring, give us a call and we’ll give you an honest answer based on your project. That’s the point of a local hire company — we know this stuff, and we’d rather give you good advice than a bad experience.
📍 Unit 21, Olympus Business Park, Kingsteignton Rd, Newton Abbot TQ12 2SN
📞 01626 333823 / 01626 332059 | hire@olympustoolhire.co.uk | Mon–Fri 7:30–5pm | Sat 7:30–10am
