Excavator vs Skid Steer: Which Do You Need for Your Project?
A straight-shooting comparison of the two machines that handle most residential and small commercial dirt work in Indiana.
Almost every residential excavation, grading, or material job we do at Mann Hauling runs on two machines: a skid steer and an excavator. Property owners often ask which one their project needs. The short answer: most jobs need both, and a good contractor brings both. Here's how to think about it.
What a Skid Steer Does Best
A skid steer (or compact track loader) is a surface machine. It pushes, scrapes, lifts, spreads, and carries. With attachments swapped in seconds, the same machine becomes a grader, a bucket loader, an auger, a brush cutter, or a pallet fork.
- Grading and leveling yards, lots, and pads
- Spreading material — gravel, #53 limestone, mulch, topsoil, fill dirt
- Loading debris into a dump truck or dumpster
- Brush and light clearing
- Post hole drilling with the auger attachment
- Demo cleanup — concrete, asphalt, and structure debris
- Snow stacking and lot work
If your project is mostly above the ground — moving, spreading, leveling, hauling — you need a skid steer.
What a Excavator Does Best
An excavator is a digging machine. It sits on tracks, rotates 360 degrees, and reaches into the ground with a bucket and thumb. It's surgical — it can dig a 60-foot trench inches from a fence without disturbing anything around it.
- Trenching for water lines, drainage, electrical conduit, French drains
- Footer and pier holes for sheds, decks, and small additions
- Stump removal — pulling the entire root ball, not grinding it
- Drainage excavation — swales, catch basins, downspout runs
- Culvert digs — removing failed culverts, prepping for new pipe
- Tight-access digging — backyards, fenced lots, between buildings
If your project involves going into the ground — digging, trenching, pulling — you need an excavator.
Side-by-Side: Which Machine for Which Job?
| Job | Best Tool |
|---|---|
| Spreading gravel on a driveway | Skid steer |
| Trenching a French drain | Excavator |
| Removing a stump | Excavator |
| Regrading a yard | Skid steer |
| Digging a shed footer | Excavator |
| Building a gravel pad | Both |
| Clearing brush + stumps | Both |
| Concrete removal | Both |
| Post hole drilling | Skid steer (auger) |
| Replacing a culvert | Excavator + skid steer |
Why Most Real Jobs Need Both
A "simple" gravel driveway repair sounds like a one-machine job. In practice, you usually need to dig out the bad area (excavator), then spread and compact new stone (skid steer). A culvert install is the same — dig out the old pipe with the excavator, set the new one, then grade and stone over it with the skid steer.
That's why hiring a contractor who owns and runs both — plus the dump truck to bring material and haul away spoils — saves time and money. You're not paying mobilization on two separate crews, and the work doesn't stall waiting for someone else to show up.
What to Hire For Your Project
- Yard regrade or pad finish — skid steer
- Gravel or mulch spread — skid steer
- Trenching or drainage — excavator
- Stump removal — excavator + skid steer
- Brush clearing and lot reclaim — both
- Concrete or shed demo — both, plus dump truck
- Post hole drilling — skid steer auger
The Mann Hauling Approach
We run a skid steer, an excavator, and a dump truck on every dirt job. That means we can dig, haul, spread, grade, and finish in a single mobilization — and you only deal with one contractor from quote to walkthrough.