How many of you rent equipment as opposed to buy?

[Rftreeman]

home depot chipper rental

 

[mckeetree]

home depot chipper rental

Golly that's a big six inch.

 

[treeclimber101]

sounds like an oxymoron to me. lol.

Jumbo shrimp

 

[treemandan]

I guess the 400 would include fuel but still I think that is what Total gets for a chipper like mine. It might be a little cheaper but not a whole lot around here. Aside from short dumping I used to load up the limbs and bring them back to my yard til I had a big pile then rented a chipper and THAT SUCKED. Sucked so dam much I bought a 6 inch Vermeer and THAT SUCKED. Sucked so much I got the 90. What will really kill you is the mountains of heavy debris you have to move without something to garble it up right quick.
Even dragging the brush into the woods is tough. No way around it, ya need the right equipment and if you don't you will be sorry. But I wouldn't drop 25k ona chipper just yet and stay away from the whispers.

 

[treeclimber101]

If you can buy it do it , renting is throwing money hand over fist out the window , I have no clue how someone can make money when they are in the hole first thing in the morning with a rental , if you rented a truck chipper and a stump cutter that would cost you like 800 a day ..thats 4000 a week or 16000 a month you can't make a real profit like that ..

 

[Giel]

I always rent the big equipment, for me it works out much cheaper. The guys I rent from only have serious equipment and while they are not cheap, the type of equipment they have and their professionalism means that I save a lot of time. These guys are not cheap (a chipper with dumper sets you back 100 Euro an hour, found a pic on their website: http://www.kleintexas.nl/slides/versnipperaar011.html ) but that is off set by the speed and ease of working. Had them over yesterday, we had been cutting all out for 1.5 days (pruning and 2 take downs) and they chipped it in about half an hour (about 8m3 of chips). The only drawbackback is that you need some place to pile your branches and you need to have your timing figured out. If you order the chipper by 2pm, you have to make sure all the chippable stuff is piled up by then.

Thing is, if I would invest in that stuff I would have to cut full time, all the time, just to keep the equipment busy and have it pay for itself, not to mention time spent on maintenance and repairs. I'd rather let someone else worry about that.

Cheers,

 

[outofmytree]

plas. depending upon how much work you actually do what would make more economical sense would be to do a couple or three jobs and get the work done and piled up and then on the 4th day come by with the chipper and bang it all out in a day.

Sound business advice. I followed the same technique with larger gear. I will book in 2-3 picker jobs then rent one for a day. Doing the same with a chipper requires a little more sales skills but the old lines are still the best. "I can do this job for xxxx dollars or if you want to save some money, I can put you on a day with another client and halve the machine costs which will save you zzzzz dollars".

The yard rental idea is a really good longer term option. Eventually every suburban yard will be too small for all the gear you accrue in this business. Your choice at some point is move to a place with a big yard or stay where you are and rent/buy a big yard.

 

[wravenant]

Talking about say chippers, stump grinders and such.

Is it possible to still make good money if you rent your big machines instead of buying them? I'm thinking about doing this with a chipper...

HI there man. I run a company out in Caoe Town, South Africa, and have been in the game for a while. I only own one truck, and a small trailer, that my climbers use. For all chipping, and grinding, I sub contract out. It is the way of the future. You carry noe over heads, no machinery maintenance, no payments, no machine breaking, no problems. The capital expense is hard on one, and then the chipper needs to run 8 hrs a day to be cost effective.

The thing is, you have to have a very good sub contractor that you can trust. If you can find that, and build a good working relationship, you dont need to by any heavy equiptment.

 

[Blakesmaster]

I can't see renting as SOP to be an option at all. In a pinch, yes, or for a piece of equipment that won't see much use, sure, but on a chipper? No way. That's your bread and butter there. Chuck and duck's are cheap, mine paid for itself over and over in the 3 years we had it, then we sold it for not much less than we originally spent. Money in the bank. Yeah, there's maintenance costs, and #### breaks but you pay those expenses to the rental companies too. Also, what happens if you injure yourself, or just quit tree work 5 years from now. If you rented everything the entire time you got nothing, zip. Ef that. I work to damn hard not to have a reward comin' my way in the long run.

 

[Blakesmaster]

plas. depending upon how much work you actually do what would make more economical sense would be to do a couple or three jobs and get the work done and piled up and then on the 4th day come by with the chipper and bang it all out in a day.

I know guys that do this, used to work for one. Personally, I won't have my company name on a pile of brush in someone's yard for 3 days, but that's just me and I'm anal about that stuff. Just doesn't seem to shine a very good light on your business IMO. I like to get in, get done, get paid and get gone.

 

[mckeetree]

Renting equipment is just a pain in the azz.

 

[BCbound]

Plas, I think if you already have some steady work coming in the best would be a small dump trailer for the odd job. When you can stack 3 or 4 good size jobs up sub it out to a chipping company. If you can do a bit of both that could be a great combo. Just takes a good organizer/multi tasker. I contract climb occasionally for a guy who has been averging 750 000 in sales the last 10 years and the only thing he owns is a ####ty little f150 with hand tools for the odd small prune job that he can though in the truck. Like someone earlier posted you need to have a good relationship with your subs. Best of luck.

 

[lego1970]

I used to have an old Asplundh Chipper and Dosko stand behind stump grinder. The chipper was over kill for my needs plus I didn't have the right truck to catch and dump the chips, so I sold the chipper after one season. I kinda miss the little Dosko stump grinder just because it was cheap and very reliable, but it was not self propelled. Even my riding lawn mower would loose traction trying to tow it up the slightest incline therefore I couldn't get it to a lot of stumps. The other problem was the logistics of having to either tow the chipper or the stump grinder to the job site. I couldn't haul both.
Today I just use my 16' trailer with built up sides to haul the brush and rent a Vermeer 25c? stump grinder from the rental place down the street if they want the stump taken out. Most of the customers I get are lower income and can't afford it whether I rent it or would charge more for use of the old stump grinder I once owned.
I sold the chipper and stump grinder and bought a motorcycle instead. If I was trying to do tree work full time, I would probably try to buy a bucket truck with a chipper box, chipper and small self propelled stump grinder but in my area the market is so flooded with tree companies and I don't have any special skills so I just rent if and when a tree job of value comes along.

 

[John464]

I contract climb occasionally for a guy who has been averging 750 000 in sales the last 10 years and the only thing he owns is a ####ty little f150 with hand tools for the odd small prune job that he can though in the truck. .

and if this guy actually owned equipment he would have more money in the bank. renting is an unecessary overhead for equipment you need more than one day a week

Only thing we rent is a crane because we only do approx 20 crane jobs a year. average $25k in expense. However, the other side of coin must realize that in approx 8 years of renting a $200,000 crane could be bought and paid for and the actual cost plus depreciation written off on taxes.

those who even question what equipment purchases make sense or not is not a business minded person. Best to stick working for someone if you can't see oportunistic cost.

 

[BCbound]

and if this guy actually owned equipment he would have more money in the bank. renting is an unecessary overhead for equipment you need more than one day a week

Only thing we rent is a crane because we only do approx 20 crane jobs a year. average $25k in expense. However, the other side of coin must realize that in approx 8 years of renting a $200,000 crane could be bought and paid for and the actual cost plus depreciation written off on taxes.

those who even question what equipment purchases make sense or not is not a business minded person. Best to stick working for someone if you can't see oportunistic cost.

I agree 100% If I had his company I'd be buying some equipement asap. Just throwing out some ideas that are working for people. It wouldn't work for me. No doubt if you have the work, a small chipper, truck with dump insert set up would run you 15000 - 20000 and would pay of in no time compared to renting

 

[48"BAR PINCHER]

Nobody has covered the maintenece on all that equip. That is the big hurdle with being a small guy trying to own and run equipment. How many of you have put in 5 14 hr days in a row then have time to change grinder or chipper, teeth, fix leaky hydraulic lines on a bucket truck, and just take care of the general maintenece stuff that needs to be done on all of it weekly? If you have a few good guys that can handle that kind of work that makes it easier but you still need tools and shop space to do it right and in a cost effective manner.
Sure you can depreciate things but if you dont' run it every day it may not make good business sense to own. I rent bucket trucks, chippers, etc by the week to save a bunch of money and schedule accordingly since I don't have that amount of work for 5 days a week every week of the year to justify owning that stuff plus I don't have the maintence hassles nor the expense of putting a $600 a year tag plus fuel taxes on a truck I don't run every day. Renting can make a lot of sense until you grow enough to support all the overhead of men and equipment.

 

[Blakesmaster]

Nobody has covered the maintenece on all that equip. That is the big hurdle with being a small guy trying to own and run equipment. How many of you have put in 5 14 hr days in a row then have time to change grinder or chipper, teeth, fix leaky hydraulic lines on a bucket truck, and just take care of the general maintenece stuff that needs to be done on all of it weekly? If you have a few good guys that can handle that kind of work that makes it easier but you still need tools and shop space to do it right and in a cost effective manner.
Sure you can depreciate things but if you dont' run it every day it may not make good business sense to own. I rent bucket trucks, chippers, etc by the week to save a bunch of money and schedule accordingly since I don't have that amount of work for 5 days a week every week of the year to justify owning that stuff plus I don't have the maintence hassles nor the expense of putting a $600 a year tag plus fuel taxes on a truck I don't run every day. Renting can make a lot of sense until you grow enough to support all the overhead of men and equipment.

Yup, maintenance is a pain and I've worked on my #### well into the night many times but it's still my ####. The way I look at it ( and do it ) is if you're too small to justify the expense of big equipment, buy small equipment, and just work harder. I can't see losing half the money I make on a job to a rental company. I like to put it in the bank for that next bigger machine. And when you make that next step you can still sell the old crap.

 

[maloufstree]

Renting is a pain in the ass. It takes up valuable time, as far as picking it up and dropping it off. The rental companies around here have junk equipment and in return you spend even more time working on/with it. If your gonna be in the the biz and need it then why not buy it?

 

[mckeetree]

Renting is a pain in the ass. It takes up valuable time, as far as picking it up and dropping it off. The rental companies around here have junk equipment and in return you spend even more time working on/with it. If your gonna be in the the biz and need it then why not buy it?

Hey, being from around here you can appreciate this. This guy from Phalba over there calls to get a price on removing two stumps. I tell him $175.00 to take them four inches below the existing grade. He tells me too much money he is going to rent a machine and do it himself. While I am there the neighbor walks over and has five or six little stumps to grind and I tell them I am going to Canton in a week or so and will stop in and grind them for $100.00 and they say O.K. Well when we are there later to do it the guy next door happens to have just rented a machine from Groom & Sons and is trying to grind a stump with it and it ain't happening. He walks over and asked me to look at the grinder and I have never seen teeth that dull in my life. I told him he wasn't going to grind anything with that.

 

[gr8scott72]

Hey, being from around here you can appreciate this. This guy from Phalba over there calls to get a price on removing two stumps. I tell him $175.00 to take them four inches below the existing grade. He tells me too much money he is going to rent a machine and do it himself. While I am there the neighbor walks over and has five or six little stumps to grind and I tell them I am going to Canton in a week or so and will stop in and grind them for $100.00 and they say O.K. Well when we are there later to do it the guy next door happens to have just rented a machine from Groom & Sons and is trying to grind a stump with it and it ain't happening. He walks over and asked me to look at the grinder and I have never seen teeth that dull in my life. I told him he wasn't going to grind anything with that.

I told the rental guy that the teeth on the little walk behind I rented just over a year ago where the dullest things I had ever seen. He said that the factory rep told him that as long as there was carbide showing, they didn't need to be sharpened. I bursted out laughing.