Had a large basswood tree between a house and overhead power lines. Talked to the HO. and we agreed on a price just to drop the tree and leave everything, the cheapest way out. So I finally got there worked on the tree for most of the day. Everything went well. I had previously talked to the guy and asked if my friend could take the larger wood he said sure thing, figuring that it would be doing him a favor because god knows how this guy is going to get rid of this stuff. so my friend left his trailer for me to load since I had my skid there to clear the landing zone. Got the tree down safe went to the door, got paid from his wife, and went on my merry way. Later that evening got a call from him Inquiring about how much it would be to grind out the stump. He said "sounds good come and do it in a couple of weeks". Then I got a call about how we took all of his good wood even though we talked about it. There was about two cords mixed in with all of the brush, all the diameter that we talked about him keeping. He said a tree removal should include the stump too. He wouldn't be mad about taking the wood if I just ground out the stump for free. I said no way. He is just one of those bastards that thinks the world owes him something, trying to get something for nothing. I should have had a signed contract by both parties.
I learned my lesson
- Thread starter RDAA
- Start date
Help Support Arborist Forum:
DR. P. Proteus
Addicted to ArboristSite
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2013
- Messages
- 2,358
- Reaction score
- 1,357
Its called " buyer's remorse". Its eating at the guy from the inside making him act funny.
KenJax Tree
Terraphobic
Most think they're doing you a favor by offering you the wood and want a cheaper price in return. Yup sure i'll take everything 12" and under gets chipped and everything else bigger goes on the grapple truck and gets dumped, want a cheaper price then YOU keep the wood.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
I just had a gut feeling about this deal that something was going to be a problem. I was thinking there were signs not to do it being we called off the job three times because of the rain, one time because I set up the truck to fly the boom to do the job and had a break down before I could start a saw. I feel like I should have said **** it ha ha! Now that this is my full time job not a side job I drink a lot more beer when I get home at the end of the day.
DR. P. Proteus
Addicted to ArboristSite
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2013
- Messages
- 2,358
- Reaction score
- 1,357
I would also say that maybe he sensed your inexperience and went for your throat.
Anyone who burns Linden for firewood is not all right.
old_soul
ArboristSite Operative
had to take the loader to "clear the landing zone"? Should have charged him to remove the wood. Then you could have given it to who ever and it would not be a problem.
Personally I HATE.....just drop the tree.....type jobs. What a waste of time to leave all the equipment sit and work twice as hard, for less money......
the world has gone mad lol
****er called today saying I need to get over there and move his 4000lb log. The city is after him apparently. Dumbass should have thought about what he was going to do with it when he didn't want to pay for clean up. I don't think I will move it for him unless he pays me a grand cash up front ha ha! There is a company that has a few man crew that will not do the chop and drop. They only do the complete job to keep the crew working. Which only makes sense. As for myself I have fill in help when needed but I am a one man show as much as possible so the chop and drops aren't such a bad deal
I have the same feeling leaving the yard looking like hell. I like doing full clean up with the stump being ground and back filled when all you can see was the spots where the stumps were. If I didn't do the chop and drops I would loose out on a lot of work. In our area a lot of peoples household income comes from one person working in a meat packing plant. They make on the high side of about thirty grand a year. There isn't a whole lot of extra dough to spend in these households.
sgreanbeans
Treeaculterologist
Get it all in writing, all of it, every time. Make all party's involved sign. Never leave anything open for discussion. They will always try to get more for less. So do we.
I would give him a quote based on an hourly rate and have him sign it. Something like $75/hr with a 1 hr minimum.
DR. P. Proteus
Addicted to ArboristSite
- Joined
- Dec 2, 2013
- Messages
- 2,358
- Reaction score
- 1,357
But if a guy don't know he is not going to really believe you until he splits and burns some. Then he will know. Right now he sees something he WANTS to see.
bryan_norcal
ArboristSite Lurker
We get a lot of " I'll keep all the wood and save some money" stuff. Then get a call back a week later, usually the day before we are to do thhe stumps, saying "my craftsman saw wont cut this 6' trunk and my cousins neice's brother said its too heavy.can ya come haul it off?" Sure, $150 an hour including the 30 minute drive back there and to the dump with your Mulberry firewood. Kinda backward from the OP, but same point, get everything in writing.
Galaxy S4
Galaxy S4
Not sure how you do it, but I would suggest you price the stump separately. When I give a give a removal price it comes with 4 items:
Tree taken down and debris taken - wood left on site
Haul wood
Grind stump - leave mulch
Haul mulch.
Then the home owner can do the a la carte menu and pick the items that fit their budget. Also the haul wood/haul mulch price is only applicable when we are on site doing the job. If we have to come back, then the HO will have to pay for travel time.
Yeah I always break it down to: getting the tree down, debris clean up, stump grinding with either grind it and leave the grindings or grindings removed, backfilled and seeded with grass. I just did a bid a fairly puny tree that I shot him a price on but if he included some other trees on the property that he talked about removing they each would be considerably less than the price on the original tree because if I run my equipment down there for just one tree. I have to have so much for a minimum. I am not going to spend a bunch of fuel and time to waste a good part of the day to make peanuts. I have to put decent money working days together to make enough to run the business and keep some for myself and make it through the winter. I feel like the clock is ticking. What do some of you guys have for a minimum charge? I work alone and usually gross between 800 and sometimes 1100 a day. I know if I keep my volume up I will be ok due to my low cost operation. I can usually do between $100 to $150 per hour by myself. I feel that is ok for my area for the fact that a large trackhoe operates around 160-180 per hour and a tractor backhoe is around 90 to 100 per hour. Anyway what is everyones min lets say for setting a line in a tree or running a bucket to get one limb hanging over a house that will take you 20 minutes to get down?
For me it depends if its something a pro can only do or if José and Juan can do it with a pickup. I can discount smaller jobs if their timeframe is flexible and they can wait until I'll be in the area. I factor in things like difficulty, amount of equipment required, and likelyness of causing property damage into my price when I give a bid, not just hourly. I'm a contributor to part of the reason why this industry's prices are all over the board on the same job.
I`m delighted to leave the tree in the customer`s yard, cuts the overhead down to nothing. But we never leave a disaster. The wood is all in one pile, the branches are nicely stacked for whoever wants to chip them, and we pass the rake and make it look like we actually give a ****. Which we do.
But when we do leave the tree, we are excrutiatingly clear with the customer about what he`s going to be left with. There will be a big pile of wood "There!" and a huge stack of branches "There!", and you are fine with that? Great.
I agree about making it look like we gave a **** and not looking like a bomb went off. We did stack the brush crushed and intertwined nicely so that little bastard will have lots of fun getting it apart ha ha! But we did clean the street up perfectly and took the leaf blower to the sidewalks, roof, and driveway. It looked respectable.
Similar threads
