$1000 to drop this Shagbark Hickory?
- Thread starter TheLazyBFarm
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Sounds like the tree guy blew it this time.
Normally you're not paying for the 15 minutes of work, you're paying for the 20 years experience that makes it so it's 15 minutes of work, instead of a homeowner's insurance claim.
Normally you're not paying for the 15 minutes of work, you're paying for the 20 years experience that makes it so it's 15 minutes of work, instead of a homeowner's insurance claim.
Drive an hour. Unload equipment, access the situation. Load everything back up. Drive another hour. Buy equipment, maintain equipment, gas, oil, truck, straps, chains, trailer, stump grinder, etc. Deal with the public. Insurance, employees, etc.
Yeah, knock yourself out.
$1000 is CHEAP for tree work, by the time we factor in drive time, operating costs, equipment payments, any equipment rentals, insurance, etc
its roughly $1200 for me and one guy to show up with equipment, and work for 3 or 4 hours
keep in mind, that "15 minutes" isn't accounting for an hour or two drive time, loading/unloading equipment, hooking the trailer up, driving out to bid the tree, writing the estimate, fuel stops, lunch, etc
Other successful tradesmen with equipment, insurance, and risky jobs manage to show up and do things for low three-figure sums, so I have to wonder if a thousand dollars is actually cheap, or even a good idea to pitch, for an easy job a homeowner can obviously do for himself if he doesn't like your price.
I'm not talking about three or 4 hours. I'm talking about a couple of cuts. I will say that one company offered to do it for $800.
Keep in mind that I have thousands of trees, so when someone quotes me a high number for one tree, I'm not just thinking about the present. I'm thinking about what will happen if I keep hiring people.
Nobody drives for an hour here to get to a job. I wouldn't call someone an hour away. You can't drive an hour and stay in this county. Also, route planning is something tradesmen are supposed to practice. You don't star-pattern your jobs. You arrange them to minimize drive time.
People can always come up with reasons why they charge what they charge. I don't always find them credible. I had a chimney guy insist it was okay to charge me $375 to go up on my roof, take a few pictures, and give me an estimate without doing any work. He wanted about $1350 to spend less than an hour installing a chimney cap worth about $300. I got the job done for way, way less, except for the $375, which was gone forever. He was nuts. On the other hand, a roofer from a big fancy company showed up, replaced about 30 square feet of sheathing and shingles on one side of the house, replaced another 10 square feet or so on the other, and took down a satellite dish, all for about a grand. That was a lot of work, up high, in dangerous places, with a lot of materials. He also fixed a soffit.
Garage door guy showed up with a big, beautiful wrapped truck full of stuff. Spent some time fixing a 16x12 door, up and down a ladder. Ninety-nine dollars.
Two guys from a very popular well company showed up with a crane truck. Checked my well. Told me the pump was fine. Could have lied. New check valve. Installed a filter. This was all new plumbing fabricated on the spot. Took some effort and materials. Couple of hundred bucks.
I had an AC company show up and try to sell me a Rheem for $14K, along with a service contract I didn't want. Another company put in a Carrier, high SEER rating, for something like $9K. What would the extra $5K have gotten me? Nothing. Then the first company called me over and over trying to get me to have them give my system their super cleaning special. I had to tell them to get lost more than once.
Here's a great one. My dad had a '94 Explorer. While it was at a local shop, I asked them to replace the hood gas struts. They called and said they wanted about $200. I bought struts for $16 and installed them myself in--literally--5 minutes. Tools: one screwdriver. The shop had equipment, employees, a mortgage, insurance...didn't make the job worth $200 to me. And they already had the car for some other work. We would have paid them maybe $40 just for the convenience, but $200?
I just had a crew obliterate a whole bunch of oaks, medium to huge, for $7500. A day and a half. Never fewer than three men on site. A grapple loader. Two cranes. An articulated lift. They moved every tree a long way to burn piles. One pile was about 250 yards off. Cleaned everything up. Broke up an annoying boulder for me. I hate to think what the $1000/15 minutes guy would have charged. I've seen his team when he worked here before. One truck with a bucket.
I got an electrician to run 100-amp wires to my workshop about 120 feet off. I could have done it myself, but I was just tired of being a one-man band. I let them charge $6000 just to get it over with. The wire probably ran about $800. The rest was for digging a trench and putting in two short pieces of conduit. Less than a day. Two men. No permits. I should have done it myself. I should have dug the trench with the tractor. I wired the shop myself. Very easy. Also put in a complete compressed air system with 4 drops. Maybe it's 6. I forget.
If I paid every tradesman what he told me was right, I'd be living in my car by now. I'm sure I'm wrong sometimes when I think they're asking too much, but I would have felt like a fool, writing someone a $1000 check after a few minutes on the property. Here I am, about to have minor surgery for only $500, but I'm supposed to pay $1000 for topping one tree.
I'm not talking about three or 4 hours. I'm talking about a couple of cuts. I will say that one company offered to do it for $800.
Keep in mind that I have thousands of trees, so when someone quotes me a high number for one tree, I'm not just thinking about the present. I'm thinking about what will happen if I keep hiring people.
Nobody drives for an hour here to get to a job. I wouldn't call someone an hour away. You can't drive an hour and stay in this county. Also, route planning is something tradesmen are supposed to practice. You don't star-pattern your jobs. You arrange them to minimize drive time.
People can always come up with reasons why they charge what they charge. I don't always find them credible. I had a chimney guy insist it was okay to charge me $375 to go up on my roof, take a few pictures, and give me an estimate without doing any work. He wanted about $1350 to spend less than an hour installing a chimney cap worth about $300. I got the job done for way, way less, except for the $375, which was gone forever. He was nuts. On the other hand, a roofer from a big fancy company showed up, replaced about 30 square feet of sheathing and shingles on one side of the house, replaced another 10 square feet or so on the other, and took down a satellite dish, all for about a grand. That was a lot of work, up high, in dangerous places, with a lot of materials. He also fixed a soffit.
Garage door guy showed up with a big, beautiful wrapped truck full of stuff. Spent some time fixing a 16x12 door, up and down a ladder. Ninety-nine dollars.
Two guys from a very popular well company showed up with a crane truck. Checked my well. Told me the pump was fine. Could have lied. New check valve. Installed a filter. This was all new plumbing fabricated on the spot. Took some effort and materials. Couple of hundred bucks.
I had an AC company show up and try to sell me a Rheem for $14K, along with a service contract I didn't want. Another company put in a Carrier, high SEER rating, for something like $9K. What would the extra $5K have gotten me? Nothing. Then the first company called me over and over trying to get me to have them give my system their super cleaning special. I had to tell them to get lost more than once.
Here's a great one. My dad had a '94 Explorer. While it was at a local shop, I asked them to replace the hood gas struts. They called and said they wanted about $200. I bought struts for $16 and installed them myself in--literally--5 minutes. Tools: one screwdriver. The shop had equipment, employees, a mortgage, insurance...didn't make the job worth $200 to me. And they already had the car for some other work. We would have paid them maybe $40 just for the convenience, but $200?
I just had a crew obliterate a whole bunch of oaks, medium to huge, for $7500. A day and a half. Never fewer than three men on site. A grapple loader. Two cranes. An articulated lift. They moved every tree a long way to burn piles. One pile was about 250 yards off. Cleaned everything up. Broke up an annoying boulder for me. I hate to think what the $1000/15 minutes guy would have charged. I've seen his team when he worked here before. One truck with a bucket.
I got an electrician to run 100-amp wires to my workshop about 120 feet off. I could have done it myself, but I was just tired of being a one-man band. I let them charge $6000 just to get it over with. The wire probably ran about $800. The rest was for digging a trench and putting in two short pieces of conduit. Less than a day. Two men. No permits. I should have done it myself. I should have dug the trench with the tractor. I wired the shop myself. Very easy. Also put in a complete compressed air system with 4 drops. Maybe it's 6. I forget.
If I paid every tradesman what he told me was right, I'd be living in my car by now. I'm sure I'm wrong sometimes when I think they're asking too much, but I would have felt like a fool, writing someone a $1000 check after a few minutes on the property. Here I am, about to have minor surgery for only $500, but I'm supposed to pay $1000 for topping one tree.
Oh, now it's a few cuts at the TOP of a tree... that part wasn't mentioned before...
15 minutes and 2 or 3 cuts is almost the same expense as a half work day
We bring a quarter million dollars in equipment to the smallest of jobs
There's no small or cheap mistake in tree work, pretty much it goes well, or you die, $1000 is once again, cheap
I go through that in fuel for the week, between one machine, one trailer, insurance, etc, I need to make about 6 grand a month, and that's if nothing breaks
We get it, you think tree work is easy and should be almost free, I deal with atleast one of you a week, truth is you don't have a clue what it takes, of the customer was always right, there'd be no professional
We bring a quarter million dollars in equipment to the smallest of jobs
And of anything goes wrong? The tree guys Insurance deductible is a $1000 minimum, line used to be 25k
There's no small or cheap mistake in tree work, pretty much it goes well, or you die, $1000 is once again, cheap
I go through that in fuel for the week, between one machine, one trailer, insurance, etc, I need to make about 6 grand a month, and that's if nothing breaks
We get it, you think tree work is easy and should be almost free, I deal with atleast one of you a week, truth is you don't have a clue what it takes, of the customer was always right, there'd be no professional
400 an hour for you and 1 guy?
Me, 1 guy, climbing and rigging, bucket truck and chipper, or pickup dump trailer and mini ex, yes
It's called overhead. Just because your job doesn't require 1/4 million dollars worth of equipment doesn't mean that the same 1/4 million dollars worth of equipment doesn't need to be getting paid for while they are at your job site.
Personally, I don't like the idea of paying $1,000 to drop a tree that some experienced and capable guys would be willing to do of $100 cash and a case of beer, but I get it. If a guy is doing it on the side, he can do it cheap because he doesn't have any overhead that he has to pay for. Its just easy money. But for the guy who owns the business and has equipment to pay for, salaries to pay, benefits packages, ect, and that adds up FAST. At the end of the day, I don't question what someone quotes me for work. If I like the price, great. If I don't, then I have to keep looking for someone or do it myself. It's not up to me what someone else's time is worth to them.
TheLazyBFarm
ArboristSite Operative
It's down, along with a live White Oak and a Sassafras, both leaning towards the house.
Pics later.
Pics later.
I don't think I would try to compare medical malpractice insurance or liability with their tree surgeon equivalents. There are doctors out there paying $200K, and medical insurers routinely pay 7-figure verdicts.
I don't believe a 15-minute job costs a tree service as much as a half day. Less labor, less fuel, less wear and tear, and you can leave and do more jobs the same day. If you do 3 small jobs in half a day, are you spending 3 times as much as you would if you did one half-day job? If the $1000 guy was willing to drop the tree for a grand, and it cost him as much as working for half a day, he should have offered me half a day for $1000. I would have been all over that. I would have paid him at least $5000 and had the whole place torn up.
Bringing $250,000 in equipment to every single job sounds like a bad idea. I once had a crew come out here with one small bucket truck. In fact, it was the company belonging to the $1000 guy. The company's other equipment was at other jobs, making money. Youtube is full of videos of arborists doing work with much less equipment. I used to do spare-time work with a licensed arborist who showed up in a pickup.
Given that I was willing to pay $500 for a very quick job, and I just paid a crew $7500 with no complaints, it doesn't make sense to say I want work for almost nothing. Week before last, I paid a plumber over $200 to spend 10 minutes dealing with a pair of reading glasses I flushed. No complaints from me.
I don't believe a 15-minute job costs a tree service as much as a half day. Less labor, less fuel, less wear and tear, and you can leave and do more jobs the same day. If you do 3 small jobs in half a day, are you spending 3 times as much as you would if you did one half-day job? If the $1000 guy was willing to drop the tree for a grand, and it cost him as much as working for half a day, he should have offered me half a day for $1000. I would have been all over that. I would have paid him at least $5000 and had the whole place torn up.
Bringing $250,000 in equipment to every single job sounds like a bad idea. I once had a crew come out here with one small bucket truck. In fact, it was the company belonging to the $1000 guy. The company's other equipment was at other jobs, making money. Youtube is full of videos of arborists doing work with much less equipment. I used to do spare-time work with a licensed arborist who showed up in a pickup.
Given that I was willing to pay $500 for a very quick job, and I just paid a crew $7500 with no complaints, it doesn't make sense to say I want work for almost nothing. Week before last, I paid a plumber over $200 to spend 10 minutes dealing with a pair of reading glasses I flushed. No complaints from me.
Look at it from the tree guy's perspective.
1.) You quote 10 people $1000 for 15 minute jobs. One bites and has you do the job.
2.) You quote 10 people $100 for 15 minute jobs. They all bite and all have you do the job.
The first option is the same money and 1/10th the work. You were one of the 9 that didn't bite on the first option. Doesn't make sense to you, still makes sense to the tree guy.
My day job is sales, do this kind of thing all the time.
1.) You quote 10 people $1000 for 15 minute jobs. One bites and has you do the job.
2.) You quote 10 people $100 for 15 minute jobs. They all bite and all have you do the job.
The first option is the same money and 1/10th the work. You were one of the 9 that didn't bite on the first option. Doesn't make sense to you, still makes sense to the tree guy.
My day job is sales, do this kind of thing all the time.
They probably just don't want your piddly job.
Don't hire them if you don't like the quote. Find someone else to do it or do it yourself. Lord...some people's kids.
Don't hire them if you don't like the quote. Find someone else to do it or do it yourself. Lord...some people's kids.
That's pretty good.
So your suggestion is to leave the shop with one equipment set, do a job, go back to the shop and change equipment sets, go to the next job, go back to the shop, reset, go do the next job... yeah, sorry, not going to happen
No one seems to have much sympathy about my reading glasses.
I'm not even sure what that means...
Actually, let's play this out... you send out a crew... climber/foreman, leadman/ groundsman, and laborer/brush dragger... in a combo bucket truck/ chip truck with a chipper, and approximately another 20 grand in saws and climbing gear... maybe, being conservative, 300 grand, total equipment value... and then the value of the crew's experience... but we won't quantify that...
Actually, you win. Drop your own trees.
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