Field guide
Renting vs owning a glazing robot.
Count the jobs, not the money. If one machine covers most of what your crews do, own it. If you hit two or three jobs a year that need one, rent, and get the right machine on the day without the storage, the charging, the maintenance and the operator who has to stay current.
What’s on this page.
Count the jobs, not the money. What owning actually commits you to, what renting covers, and the cases where each one is clearly the right call.
By the Iron Bay team. Published . Last updated .
The question is how often.
Not how much. How many days a year would a machine actually be on a job?
The trade press has a rule of thumb worth repeating. Buy the machine if one machine covers most of what you do. Rent if your work varies, because then you always get the right machine for the job. USGlass puts the buy line at roughly 60 to 70 percent of your tasks.
That is a count, not a calculation. Go back through the last twelve months and count the jobs where the piece was too big, too heavy or too awkward for the crew you had that day. If the answer is two or three, you are a renter. If it is most weeks, you should own one, and we would rather tell you that than talk you into a rental.
Count your last twelve months.
Four questions. The answers put you on one side of the line or the other.
How many jobs had a piece over about 250 lb?
Under that, two people with hand cups are faster and simpler. Renting a machine for a 150 lb shower panel is a bad rental and we will tell you so before you book it.
How many needed setting above chest height?
Holding a panel still and vertical at ten or twelve feet is the part hands cannot do for long. That is the line where a machine changes the job rather than just helping.
How many had no crane access?
Courtyard, alley, over a pool deck, under a canopy, inside an occupied building. Those are the jobs a ground machine exists for.
How many were a single long-lead piece?
One custom, coated or oversized unit that would take weeks to replace. Break it and the schedule goes with it, which is a very different risk from a broken stock lite.
If three or more of those show up on most of your jobs, owning is the right answer. Iron Bay sells Smartlifts through the manufacturer partner network, the whole line, not only the two we rent.
What owning commits you to.
Buying the machine is the easy part. This is the rest of it, and all of it is real.
Somewhere to keep it
2,090 lb, 32.7 in wide with the legs up, and it wants a dry spot with an outlet. That is yard or shop space you are not using for something else.
Charging discipline
It charges on a standard 110 V outlet in about ten hours and runs a full workday. Somebody has to plug it in every night before a day it is needed. Every time.
Maintenance and the pack
The battery pack is maintenance free. The machine is not. Pads, seals and the vacuum circuit are yours now, and a machine that fails its seal check on a Tuesday is a job that does not happen.
Getting it there
2,090 lb needs a trailer, a truck rated to pull it, tie-downs and a ramp. On every job. Both directions.
An operator who stays current
The manufacturer’s manual says the machine may only be used by people who have had competent training, and it puts that duty on the owner. That is not hard. It also does not survive turnover on its own.
Insurance, and the idle days
It sits on your policy whether it works or not. A machine that runs six days a year is six days of work and a lot of days in the yard.
What renting gives you.
The right machine for that job, on that day, and nothing to look after when it is done.
- The machine that fits the jobTwo units on the yard. Under about 1,300 lb the SL609 does it. Heavier, or a longer reach, and the SL1009 goes on the truck instead. One owned machine cannot be both of those.
- No idle assetIt is on your job when you need it, and it is our problem when you do not.
- No charging and no upkeepIt arrives charged, clean and seal-checked. A full workday on one charge, and it goes back to us to look after.
- We drive it both waysIron Bay handles every drop-off and pickup. The unit is on our insurance in transit, and we would rather carry that risk than ask a customer to. There is no self-pickup.
- A walkthrough on drop-offOur driver walks your crew through the controls before he leaves, about twenty minutes. If you can drive a pallet jack, you can run a Smartlift.
- A real trial before you buySmartlift sends people to us when they want to run one before they own one. If you are close to buying, put it on a real job first.
When owning is clearly right.
Three cases where we would tell you to buy one, and mean it.
You set heavy panels most weeks. If the machine would be on a job more days than it sits in the yard, own it. Waiting on a delivery window is a real cost when the need is constant, and it is the kind of cost that does not show up until the day it hurts.
You self-perform one repeat product. A shop setting the same multi-slide walls or the same storefront package over and over gets the machine dialed in. That is where memory positions and a crew who knows the controls compound into something worth having.
You have one long project. A machine parked on a six-month job is not idle, and hauling a rental on and off that site every few weeks is worse for everybody than owning one outright.
When renting is clearly right.
The mirror image, and it is where most Florida shops actually sit.
Your work varies. One month it is a 400 lb storefront lite, the next it is a slab wall in a stairwell and the month after that it is nothing at all. One machine cannot be the right answer to all of those, and the second-best machine on a hard lift is not a bargain.
You hit these jobs a few times a year. Most stone shops and plenty of glaziers land two or three of them in twelve months. That is a rental pattern. Buying against it puts an asset in your yard that you end up resenting.
You are still deciding. Run one on a real job before you commit. A day on site tells you more than a week with a datasheet, and it tells you fast whether reach is the constraint on your typical job, which is the thing most buyers find out too late.
Ask before you buy.
Three things worth doing before you sign anything, ours or anybody else’s.
- Tell us the jobWeight of the heaviest piece, the setdown height and the reach. That decides which machine, and sometimes it decides that no ground machine is right.
- We will tell you noIf your usual job needs eight feet of reach with a 600 lb panel, the SL609 is not it. Capacity at full extension is 330 lb. We would rather lose the day than have you stuck on site.
- Get a quote either waySend the jobsite zip and the dates and an itemized quote comes back within two hours, 9 to 5, seven days a week. Renting often? Ask about our volume program.
Try one on a real job first.
A few fields. An itemized quote comes back within two hours, 9 to 5, seven days a week.
The follow-ups.
The questions that usually come right after this one.
Should I rent or buy a glazing robot?
Count the jobs. If one machine would cover most of what your crews do, buy it. If you hit two or three jobs a year that need one, rent. The trade rule of thumb puts the buy line at roughly 60 to 70 percent of your tasks.
What does owning a glazing robot involve?
Storage for a 2,090 lb machine, a charger and the discipline to use it, seal and pad upkeep, a trailer and a truck rated to tow it, an operator who stays trained through turnover, and insurance on an asset that sits idle between jobs.
Do I need a licensed operator to run one?
No. There is no operator card for a Smartlift. The manufacturer’s manual does require that anyone using it has had competent training, and it puts that duty on whoever owns the machine. When you rent from us, our driver walks your crew through it at drop-off.
Can I try one before I buy one?
Yes. Smartlift refers people to us when they want to run a machine before they own it. Rent it on a real job, on your own material, and see whether the reach on your typical work is the constraint.
Can Iron Bay sell me a Smartlift?
Yes. We sell the whole line through the manufacturer partner network, not only the two units we rent. Tell us what your jobs look like and we will tell you which model fits, including when it is a smaller one than you were planning on.
Where to next.
The pages this guide leans on, and the other three guides.
Still working out which way to go?
Tell us what your last three hard lifts looked like. We’ll tell you honestly whether you should be renting or buying one.