At an equipment rental counter a milling machine means a cold planer that grinds asphalt or concrete, not a machine-shop mill, which is bought rather than hired and belongs to a different trade. The rentable version is usually an attachment for a skid steer, at roughly $300 to $600 a day. The ride-on half-lane machines are hired with a crew.
Attachment first, ride-on second
The common hire is a planer head twelve to twenty-four inches wide that mounts on a skid steer or compact track loader, with a side-shift and a depth control. It suits patches, trench reinstatements and edge work. Half-lane and full-lane machines are self-propelled, need a haul fleet under the conveyor, and rarely go out bare.
Budget the carrier and the water
The attachment rate assumes you have the loader. If you do not, add the skid steer at its own day rate and the coupler and flow requirements the head needs, since a planer wants high-flow hydraulics that not every machine has. A water tank or a supply on site is also part of the hire, because the head is run wet.
Cutting concrete is a silica job
Grinding concrete and asphalt releases respirable crystalline silica, and the standard sets out engineering controls for exactly this equipment: water at the cutting point or a dust collection system, plus respiratory protection where the task calls for it. That is the reason the water line is not optional, and it is your control to run rather than the yard's.
Depth, width and what one pass takes
A skid steer planer removes roughly one to four inches in a pass depending on width, machine flow and how hot the asphalt is. Deeper goes in layers. Teeth are consumable and yards charge for them, so ask how the wear is billed before you start, especially on reinforced concrete where they disappear quickly.
Questions people ask about milling machines
Can I mill my own driveway with a rented machine?
Physically yes, with a skid steer and a planer head, though the finish is a rough keyed surface intended to be paved over rather than left. If the plan is to resurface, most contractors mill and lay in one visit, because an open milled surface ravels quickly under traffic.
Do I need a skid steer to rent a cold planer?
For the attachment version, yes, and it must have the hydraulic flow the head is rated for. Yards will rent both together and confirm the pairing. Standard flow machines will turn a small head slowly and stall in anything hard, so check the numbers rather than the coupler.
Where do the millings go?
Into a truck or a windrow you then load and haul. Reclaimed asphalt pavement has value and many plants take it back, sometimes free of tipping charges. Concrete grindings are different waste with their own handling, and slurry from wet cutting must not run to a storm drain.