Adding tree work?

[lsylvain]

Just came back here after about 3 years. And started reading some of the old post. Yes, my net came to around $65.00 per hour when I was mowing and yes my labor cost was $9.00 per hour. I had contracts through HUD and a couple of car dealers that on bad days I would gross $100.00 a man hour and durring the early fall I would be banging out sometimes as high as $150.00 an hour. And every year I got faster and faster. I didn't bill by the hour I billed a flat amount for each cut. So for example one of my HUD contracts the old company used to take 2.5 days to finish with one guy for $1,200 a cut. I came in said I would do it for $1,100 a cut, the first time I mowed it I did it in a little over a day and a half by myself. The last cut of the season me and one helper had it done in 4.75 hours. about $115 per hour.

 

[M.D. Vaden]

When I started in business, I had several years of pruning experience at golf courses. Like, entire golf courses. One hired me just to prune all the trees - that was the job.

And I took college classes during that time and read books. And I practiced at home.

So my experiments or mistakes were limited to non residential property, other than our own.

IF............ you don't have the experience to sit for the ISA exam, it's my viewpoint, that you should not offer professional pruning services unless you can buy the ISA exam study guide and memorize and apply about 1/2 of it. Maybe a bit more.

If you don't have much of the info in that book, and if you have done just a few trees here and there, how could you do pruning for hire, and not make some substantial mistakes?

Even on little trees.

 

[l2edneck]

[NOT mow grass/QUOTE]


i hate mowing grass

 

[JonnyHart]

all the companies I've talk to all have bucket trucks and don't do any climbing.

Look harder man. It can't all be bucket work.
If you want in on the tree buisiness, you either need to learn alot, which you said is inconvenient for now, or hire a good experienced climber or arborist and try to learn from him. Consider promoting a trusted employee to handle the landscaping/ grass cutting so you will have some time to learn.

 

[xtremetrees]

Nice crane job moneky puzzle . That pecan is huge!

 

[clearance]

This thread is from January 2003, fuggedaboutit.

 

[lsylvain]

yep jan 2003. I just stubled on the site and came back to check and see if the maturity level of the members had gone up. lol so far it appears that it did. I got into a little bit of tree work, but mainly stuck with the mowing. If it was something that I could handle I would do it and if not I would just sub it out to a tree company that I got to know pretty well. Worked great for me, get a bit from them and throw in a markup for me when I billed the customer. And I lucked out on one job. I had a big appartment complex contract and I needed to have a couple trees taken out that we all tangled in the power lines. The were the lines for the buildings and were not the reponsibilty of the power company so they wouldn't clear the lines. I got a bid from my friend for I think $1,200 I passed it alone to the complex and they aproved it. About 2 days later I came in to mow it and a tree down the street took out the lines coming into the complex. I stoped and asked the utility guys to take a break and give me about 20 minutes before they got the power back on. Since the line was broken only a pole or two up it was saging almost to the ground so I only needed to take out a couple branches that would snag the line and fell them. Then to beat it all the power company just so happend to have th chiper with them to I helped them cut up and chip the tree that they were dealing in exchange for throwing my trash in the chipper. That was a pretty profitable day. lol

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

That was a pretty profitable day. lol

I love it when things work out like that!

I've had a few occasions where the linemen have helped out just so they did not ahve to make the return trip.

One guy took a saw into the bucket to clear the lines we needed dropped.

One droped the lines, cut some limbs (I like to skin the fall side of a tree to reduce turf damamge), then waited for us to drop the tree so he could reconnect. Said it took him less time then the round trip back would have