Me and a buisness partner are looking into starting a part time residential tree business, any advice/tips etc.. Is very much appreciated. Okay so I am a journeyman line clearence tree trimmer in the business going on 7 years with a good amount of roping,rigging ,hazard tree etc. Experience I am comfident I can safely trim/ remove almost any tree. My partner is also my coworker with practically the same time/expereince. Anyway right now we have climbing gear, ropes and pretty well all the roping and rigging equiment nessasary for most jobs. We also have trim, medium and stump flushing saws. We are willing to invest profits back into our business but that is probably the equipment we will be starting with. We Work 40 hour weeks for our respective employer. We are just looking at a job or two a weekend. We want to continue to work our full time job doing line clearance through the week and make some extra cash doing residential for ourselves on the weekends. Any advice or feedback would be awesome and appriciated. I am completely new to this being I have never attempted or started my own small buisness I have questions like what kind of insurance is necessary and suggested also how to promote and possible bidding suggestions thanks to all who reads and or comments.
Advice/tips on starting part time residential tree service
- Thread starter Gansz J
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Liability insurance for sure in case you damage property or hurt a passerby. Also income protection, in case you get hurt and can't work your regular job. I always recommend working on a Saturday (but you already will be) for new businesses since having people around gives you more exposure, which equals free advertisement.
Search the old threads, as your question comes up frequently. You'll do better asking specific questions as they arise.
Yes on the insurance! Some customers won't hire you without it. The mistakes and misjudgment should be rare, but you could be bankrupted by some freak incident. (A couple years ago I put a willow limb through an $800 window. Not proud of it, but it happened. I ate that one, rather than let a claim affect my ins. rates.)
Everyone has their own approach to bidding and pricing. (I rarely bid, I give an estimate and then price my work at hourly rates, but in-town arborists can rarely get work that way.) You might do a few jobs on the cheap to establish your name and reputation, but when you work too cheap you can harm the general industry by giving customers the idea that tree work should cost little.
Your biggest challenge starting out will be handling wood. It's almost fun to put a tree on the ground, but then the real work begins. Where are you moving the wood to? What are your disposal costs? Handling and disposing of slash is a tiresome job without a chipper and chip truck. At the least you need a pickup and probably a trailer. Learn how to pack the most branch wood on your trailer (dance it down a time or two to get more on--but carefully) and cinch it with rope and come-along.
A friend once advised that for starting ANY new business, don't expect any net income in the first year. Figure on expenses and necessary equipment and repairs to eat up that first year's income.
Also, if you don't know how to build/repair your saws you can learn here. It saves a lot of $.
Hope this helps.
Yes on the insurance! Some customers won't hire you without it. The mistakes and misjudgment should be rare, but you could be bankrupted by some freak incident. (A couple years ago I put a willow limb through an $800 window. Not proud of it, but it happened. I ate that one, rather than let a claim affect my ins. rates.)
Everyone has their own approach to bidding and pricing. (I rarely bid, I give an estimate and then price my work at hourly rates, but in-town arborists can rarely get work that way.) You might do a few jobs on the cheap to establish your name and reputation, but when you work too cheap you can harm the general industry by giving customers the idea that tree work should cost little.
Your biggest challenge starting out will be handling wood. It's almost fun to put a tree on the ground, but then the real work begins. Where are you moving the wood to? What are your disposal costs? Handling and disposing of slash is a tiresome job without a chipper and chip truck. At the least you need a pickup and probably a trailer. Learn how to pack the most branch wood on your trailer (dance it down a time or two to get more on--but carefully) and cinch it with rope and come-along.
A friend once advised that for starting ANY new business, don't expect any net income in the first year. Figure on expenses and necessary equipment and repairs to eat up that first year's income.
Also, if you don't know how to build/repair your saws you can learn here. It saves a lot of $.
Hope this helps.
--Thank you for the advice sir. Yes we will probably be stuck with saturdays for most jobs we get. I appriciate that advice, like I mentioned in the original post, this is our first serious push at making a real go at it. I have serious respect for anyone who is in this industry. I have respect × a million for you and all the great men who have worked this industry for the long haul , you guys are awesome.I Just want to say thank you sir and thanks to all the men that paved the path. You guys allow men like me to learn and work a trade that has honor and respect.!
Ryan'smilling
Addicted to ArboristSite
I've mused about the idea myself. My approach would be to emphasize pruning and leave big removals for guys with lots of big equipment. Personally I'd skip the chipper and buy a gooseneck dump trailer with a small flat deck up front. I'd buy the biggest dingo or equivalent I could find that'll still fit through gates and go from there. A setup like that with a branch manager grapple would be pretty slick and wouldn't need to break the bank, especially if you got some of it used.
-- Thanks you sir for the advice it means alot, yes we still have alot of stuff to consider and work out. We defently do not want to put ourselves in a position where the possibility of failing is very high .Luckily we both have good jobs so we can sit back and make sure we are on the same paige. But yes we will defently have to consider the strong possibilty of no profit or potential loss for the first year or so. I will look through some of the old threads also. I did read a few before I posted mine. I wasnt sure if our situation would produce any unique answers being we realy only want a job a weekend 2 tops. Hoping mabye we coule get by a little cheaper that way but it dosnt look that way lol. Thank you very much for the advice
Also, if you haul slash on a pickup or trailer there's a way to avoid the considerable time and labor of unloading. Before loading (trailer or pickup, either one), lay a rope across the bed generally about 2/3 of the way forward of the tailgate. After all is loaded, you loop the rope over top of the load and thru a running bowline at the rope's end. A little practice will get the arrangement just right. Then, you back up to the unloading area, tie off the end of the rope to an anchor point in the yard, pull your vehicle forward, and load comes off in one package (if you've built your load correctly and positioned the rope right). You have to be sure not to capture any sideboards or trailer parts in the loop, of course. But you can be in and out of the yard in no time, while someone else is scratching himself to bits and sweating to unload.
--Hey thanks for the imput and advice sir. I love replies like these btw, I have a completley open mind and love hearing what others have done or would do in a situation like mine. Yes I do need to start looking more into some kind of clean up equiment. We do have our eye on a 55 ft forestry Ariel bucket truck. If we did make that purchase I think we would defently be leaning toward a cheaper maintenance chipper assuming it might be our only effecient clean up tool for a little while. I will look into the trailer, and dingo ideas and the grapple. thank you for the ideas it defently gets my gears turning who knows I may send you a picture one day in the not so far futture of the equiment you mentioned
Jeffsaw
ArboristSite Operative
Just wondering if you have had training in proper pruning techniques? Besides removals, most tree service companies do a lot of pruning.
Good luck and don’t sell yourselves cheap. I did that when I first started ten years ago and I regret it.
Good luck and don’t sell yourselves cheap. I did that when I first started ten years ago and I regret it.
It sounds like you both climb so I would skip the bucket for know and get a decent chip truck and chipper. A 550 with a 250 or even a 200 bandit is I nice set up. Stacking brush gets old fast.
After the truck and chipper I would try to get a mini skid. Does the work of 3 men and loading wood by hand at the end of the day stinks.
How much start up capital do you guys have?
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