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How rental ‘libraries of things’ have become the new way to save money (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 6 months ago by Aatube@kbin.melroy.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

223 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The theory is simple: instead of buying a household item or a piece of clothing or some equipment you might use once or twice, you take it out and return it.

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[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 53 points 6 months ago (3 children)

There is a business in my town. There's probably one like it in your town. They rent power equipment. Anything from pressure washers to bobcats to bouncy castles. And as a man who has needed to drill precisely 8 holes into a concrete slab in 37 years, there is a genuine value proposition in renting a hammer drill for an afternoon compared to buying one.

[–] SreudianFlip@sh.itjust.works 13 points 6 months ago

This week's rental for me:

hammer chisel, 24h, about $70 canadian.
E20 excavator, 8h runtime but over the weekend, around $500 with delivery and fuel

Not going to buy those things or pay someone to operate them. It's a good deal.

[–] brbposting@sh.itjust.works 6 points 6 months ago

We’ve got this & a local option!

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Rentals seem extremely expensive in my area. $100/day for a shitty 4" wood chipper, $300/day for 6" chipper. For some tools, it's often about the same price or cheaper to buy a tool from Harbor Freight than to rent.

[–] elephantium@lemmy.world 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

same price or cheaper

Ah, but is it? A quick search shows wood chippers ranging from $400 to $2400. If they're renting out the $400 model, yeah, you come out ahead by buying even if you're only chipping things on two weekends (and you could resell on craigslist or something).

But if they're renting out a $2000 model, I'm not sure how fair it is to compare to the $400 model (I'm not a wood chipper expert).

Wood chippers might be a bad example. I'd think if you need one, you need one multiple times -- chipping branches every fall at a cabin, things like that.

But overall, yeah, you make a good point that the rental prices can change the tipping point in rent vs. buy.

[–] 31337@sh.itjust.works 2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, I was unclear. Chippers are not the tools I was thinking of that would be cheaper to buy (a low quality version of) than rent. Was thinking more about stuff like torque wrenches and rotary hammers. Chipper rental prices were just one thing I was looking at recently that seemed way out of line with what other people from other regions were paying.

[–] elephantium@lemmy.world 2 points 6 months ago

Ha, fair enough. Yeah, a quick search shows low-end torque wrenches available for like $25. It's hard to see a rental making sense at that scale.