Hiring a 1.7t Excavator:
The Right Attachment for Every Job

At 1.7 tonnes, this class of excavator sits at the small end of the mini excavator range, which is exactly why it gets booked so often around the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Logan and Ipswich area. It’s built for access — narrow undercarriage, compact footprint, and light enough that it won’t chew up soft or landscaped ground the way a bigger machine will.

It’s a genuinely no-fuss hire too. No license is required to operate it, no deposit is needed to book it, and it’s fully insured while it’s in your hands. Typical dig depth on a 1.7t excavator like our Kubota U17 sits around 2,310mm, which covers the vast majority of residential and small commercial digging jobs.

Most 1.7t excavator hires come with a small set of attachments as standard, which covers the bulk of everyday digging work without needing to add anything extra:

• Mud bucket (approx. 1000mm) — general excavation, levelling and moving loose material
• 450mm bucket — mid-width trenching and general digging
• 300mm bucket — narrow trenching, drainage and irrigation lines, tight footings
• Ripper (approx. 30mm) — breaks up hard or compacted ground before digging

When you hit something a bucket can’t move — compacted rock, old concrete slabs, footings, or a stubborn slab you need out of the ground — a rock breaker is the tool for it. It turns the excavator into a demolition hammer, using rapid percussive force to break up material that digging alone won’t shift.

• Removing old concrete paths or driveways
• Breaking out old foundations or footings
• Breaking through rock during excavation

A hydraulic grab (or grapple) opens and closes hydraulically to pick up and carry material — think tree branches, rubble, rocks, or general debris. It’s particularly useful for site clean-ups and demolition work where you’re loading loose, irregular material rather than digging it.

• Site clean-ups after demolition
• Clearing rubble, rocks or general debris
• Loading branches after a big tree removal

An auger attachment drills neat, consistent holes into the ground — ideal for fence posts, deck stumps, tree planting, or footings that need a clean round hole rather than an open trench. It’s far faster and more consistent than manual post-hole digging, especially when you’ve got a run of multiple holes to drill at the same depth.

• Fence post holes
• Deck stump footings
• Tree planting holes

Built specifically for handling retaining wall sleepers, a sleeper grab clamps onto timber or concrete sleepers and lets you lift, position and place them precisely without manual lifting. If your job involves building or replacing a retaining wall, this attachment turns a two- or three-person lifting job into something one operator can manage from the cab.

Tilt hitch — allows the bucket to rotate side to side rather than staying fixed, which is a big advantage on sloped ground, batter work, or grading at an angle without repositioning the whole machine.

Compaction wheel — rolls and compacts backfill material in trenches, particularly handy after running pipework or cabling, where the trench needs to be properly compacted rather than left loose.

Whether you need the standard setup or a specific attachment added on, it’s worth telling us what the job involves when you book — that way we can make sure the right gear is on the machine before it arrives. We service the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Logan and Ipswich area, with delivery available from our Stapylton depot, or pickup if that suits your schedule better.

If you’re not sure which attachment your job needs, give the team a call and describe what you’re working on — we’ll point you toward the right setup rather than have you pay for something you don’t need.