Most people book a skid steer thinking about the machine: how big, how wide, wheels or tracks. The thing that decides whether the job goes well is usually what is bolted to the front of it. A skid steer with the wrong bucket moves half as much material. A skid steer with no forks means a crew unloading a skid of pavers by hand. Here is what each attachment in the fleet is actually for, and how to get the right one on the float the first time.
The smooth bucket is the general purpose one and it comes with the machine. Loose material, gravel, topsoil, mulch, sand, backfilling a trench, grading a pad, scraping a floor clean. The flat edge leaves a smooth finish, which is what you want for grading.
The tooth bucket is for digging into ground that has not been loosened. Packed clay, old gravel driveways, sod and roots, frozen crust in November. The teeth break the surface so the bucket can get under it. It does not grade well, so if the job is both digging and finishing, most crews take the tooth bucket to dig and switch to the smooth bucket to grade.
Bucket width should match the machine. A 59 in wide S450 and a 68 in wide S66 do not run the same bucket, and a bucket narrower than the tires leaves a strip on each side you drive over.
Forks turn the skid steer into a rough terrain forklift, and on a lot of residential and landscape jobs they get more use than the bucket. Skids of pavers, retaining wall block, bagged product, bundles of lumber, sod pallets, and anything the delivery truck dropped at the curb that needs to be at the back of the house. Match the load to the machine: the S450 is rated for 1,300 lb, the S590 for 2,100 lb and the S66 for 2,400 lb, and a full skid of paving stone is often heavier than people guess. If you tell us what you are lifting we will put you on a machine that carries it without tipping.
The auger is a hydraulic drill for holes in the ground: fence posts, deck footings, sonotubes, sign bases, tree planting. It mounts on the quick-attach plate and runs off the auxiliary hydraulics. The bit size is the thing to decide before you book. A 9 in or 12 in bit covers most fence and deck work, a bigger bit is for footings and trees. Tell us the hole diameter and the depth when you request the quote so the right bit is on the truck. In the GTA the ground is usually clay, and a skid steer auger goes through it far faster than a two-man gas auger will.
The breaker is a hydraulic hammer for concrete and rock. Breaking up a patio, a walkway, a garage floor, a retaining wall footing or a stubborn pad before an addition. On a skid steer it does the work of a handheld jackhammer many times over, and the machine then scoops up the rubble with the bucket. In winter a breaker is also how you get through frost to dig. It is hard on the machine and the operator, so it goes out on machines that can handle it, and we will tell you if the job is better suited to a mini excavator with a breaker instead.
The angle broom sweeps parking lots, roads, warehouse floors and job sites at the end of a job, and it clears light snow. A pickup sweeper collects the debris into a hopper instead of pushing it aside. Property managers, paving crews and anyone doing a site cleanup before handover book these. If the site has to be swept before the inspector shows up, the broom is cheaper than a crew with push brooms.
From November on, a skid steer with a snow bucket or a snow pusher is one of the most useful machines on a commercial lot. A wide snow bucket moves far more per pass than a dirt bucket, and a pusher box clears a lane in one run. If you are quoting winter maintenance for a plaza, a condo lot or an industrial yard in Oakville, Burlington or Mississauga, a skid steer on a monthly rental or lease with a pusher is usually the setup. Ask about tracks for the machine if the lot is not kept bare, as we covered in winter jobsite rentals.
Every attachment in the fleet mounts on the same quick-attach plate, so swapping on site is quick, and buckets, forks, augers and breakers all fit our compact track loaders as well as the wheeled machines. The thing that goes wrong is not the swap, it is the auger that was never booked, or the forks that arrived on a machine too small for the skid. So when you request a quote, say what you are doing, not just what machine you want. Digging footings: auger, with the bit size. Moving pavers: forks, with the skid weight. Breaking a patio: breaker. Grading a pad: smooth bucket. We confirm the attachments on the quote, put them on at the yard on Speers Road, and the machine comes off the float ready to work. If you are still deciding between a skid steer and a track loader for the ground you are on, that guide is here.
Tell us the job and we will match the machine and the attachments to it. Request a quote or call (905) 580-7368.
Need a machine this week? Request a quote or call (905) 580-7368 and we will get the float moving.
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