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 Excavation & Sitework 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, off-site removal — 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 property line 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, gated yards, 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 move material around the site and remove spoils away — 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 Excavation & Sitework Approach
We run a skid steer, an excavator, and a dump truck on every dirt job. That means we can dig, load, spread, grade, and finish in a single mobilization — and you only deal with one contractor from quote to walkthrough.