Digger Hire — Blenheim & Marlborough

DirtPro is an owner-operated digger and truck hire business based in Fairhall, just outside Blenheim. We work across the Marlborough region — Blenheim, Renwick, Rapaura, the Wairau Valley, Seddon, and Picton — covering everything from residential pad work and drainage to bulk earthmoving and vineyard prep. John has nearly ten years on the gear across Wellington and Marlborough, and every job is run start-to-finish by him: the quote, the walkover, the machine work, and the tidy-up. No sub-contractors, no middleman, no surprises on invoice day. If you need a digger and operator on site in Marlborough, you're in the right place.

Our machines

We run two excavators and a tipper truck, picked to cover the full range of work you'll find in Marlborough — from a tight residential backyard through to a hilltop cut and fill.

• 5.5-tonne mini excavator — our day-to-day machine. Owned outright, well maintained, and the right size for the majority of jobs in Blenheim. Compact enough to fit through standard residential gates and along vineyard rows, but with the reach and breakout force to handle real earthworks — trenches, drainage runs, residential pads, post removal, and site cleanup.
• 14-tonne Hitachi ZX135 excavator — hired in when a job calls for serious bulk earthmoving. This is the machine for hilltop cut and fill, large platforms, scrub and tree clearing on rural blocks, and anywhere the 5.5T would be working too hard for too long. Hiring it in for the bigger jobs means you only pay for the big machine when you actually need it.
• Isuzu CXZ 390 tipper truck — carries roughly 14 tonnes per load. Having our own truck on site means we can dig, load, and cart in a single visit rather than waiting on a separate cartage contractor. It keeps the job moving and keeps the cost down on anything involving spoil, gravel, or topsoil cartage.

What "wet hire" means

Digger hire in New Zealand splits into two models: dry hire, where you collect the machine and operate it yourself, and wet hire, where the machine comes with a qualified operator and full insurance. DirtPro only does wet hire — the digger always arrives with John on the controls. There are a few reasons for that. Diggers are expensive bits of equipment with a lot of ways to go wrong in untrained hands, and the risk just isn't worth it on either side. Wet hire also means you get the benefit of someone who's done this work for years: better productivity per hour, fewer mistakes, and an experienced eye for what the site is actually telling you. You're not just renting a machine — you're hiring a contractor who happens to bring his own gear.

Typical jobs

Most of the work we take on falls into a handful of common job types around Blenheim and Marlborough:

• Cut and fill platforms — carving level building platforms out of sloping ground, particularly on hillside sections around Brancott, Fairhall, and Rapaura. See our 3,000m³ Morven Lane cut and fill project.
• Drainage and swale clearing — installing new drainage on steep or wet sites, and clearing existing vineyard swales before they back up and start eroding. See our Dry Hills Estate swale maintenance.
• Vineyard preparation — non-destructive post removal, row ripping, levelling, and access track work for redevelopment blocks. See our vineyard post removal work.
• Demolition and cartage — pulling down old sheds, retaining walls, and concrete slabs, then loading and carting the spoil away in one trip. See our demolition projects.
• Site cleanup — tidying up after builders, removing rubble, levelling rough ground.
• Gravel pad construction — shed pads, container pads, shipping container bases, and parking areas.
• Topsoil moving — stripping topsoil before earthworks, stockpiling it, and re-spreading once the bulk work is done.
• Trenching — for water, power, drainage, and fibre runs across residential and rural sites.

Rates and how we quote

DirtPro charges competitive hourly rates with a 6-hour minimum and a small mobilisation charge to and from our base in Fairhall. Diesel and grease are included in the hourly rate — there are no extra charges added on top. For jobs that genuinely run shorter than six hours, talk to us; we'll be reasonable about it.

We don't list rates online out of respect for the pricing relationships between contractors in Marlborough — it's a small region and we work as a sub-contractor for several of them. What we can promise is that our rates are competitive and our quotes are transparent. Give us a call on 021 0226 1219 or send through a quick description of the job and we'll quote within 24 hours, usually the same day.

Areas we work

We're based in Fairhall, just south-west of Blenheim, and cover the whole Marlborough region: Blenheim, Renwick, Rapaura, the Wairau Valley, Seddon, and Picton. That's vineyard country, lifestyle blocks, residential subdivisions, and rural farmland — and the mix of soils, slopes, and access constraints that goes with each. We're happy to travel for the right job; mobilisation is just charged from Fairhall.

Why DirtPro

Owner-operated means one point of contact from quote through to invoice — you talk to the person doing the work. We've earned 11 five-star Google reviews from clients across Marlborough. Quotes are done on-site so there are no surprises when the machine arrives, and we'd rather turn a job down than over-commit and let someone down.

Related projects

Cut & Fill — Blenheim 3,000m³ hilltop platform earthworks

Topsoil & Stumps — Tuamarina Topsoil strip + stump removal for gravel pad

Track Drainage — Delta Lakes Rural track restoration with cut-off drains + silt traps