treemandan
Tree Freak
I would have to say AA puts a little bit of a show on for you guys I think he likes the fire he gets out of you guys when he shows one of his guys crashing his stuff into his trailer or something like that. but in all he's not a bad guy if he needs help we usually don't mind he pre bids it into his prices.
municipal contracts usually do go to the lowest bidder thats a lot of the reason we run all the fancy stuff so we can knock it out a lot faster than the guy standing behind us. Its not the best work but it does help pay the bills. its usually done with buckets and is mostly on street work thats pretty much why i put together a second crew.
as far as my crew we definetly do screw around a little bit i don't really try and kill myself anymore the guys that work with me have been with me from the beginning 7+ years. i try and take it easier on my body this days i got a good ways to go before retirement and am hoping not to need a wheelchair to get around after 20+ years of messing in trees.
Ya im not doing bad at it still not rich yet bet hoping to be their someday my ability to buy equipment like this is almost because of me starting so young when i bought my first bucket i was 20 years old had no kids no house payment and pretty much knocked that payment out in no time so when it was time to move into the k-booms and what not i had a good head start. and also took some real make it or break it loan risks in the first couple years but things seem to have gotten stable and a lot less stressful.
a lot of the work we do is crappy work like clearing hillsides we seem to do about 20-30 of them a year and are the only ones interested in doing them it seems like but it is good money. the one you seen in the video had a retaining wall below those trees that was at least 10 foot deep we where tied in while cutting those trees just out of the fear of slipping and falling down in their we would have had to use the boom to get someone out.
for municipal contracts we usually just bid the removals their seems to be some $$ in them if you can get rid of them in a decent amount of time. to do all the pruning the certs and stuff you have to follow for the money in it sometimes just isn't worth it.
davey bid 15$ an hour at pittsburgh international airport this year for a bucket and operator how someone could do that i just don't know. i was their during the bid opening and most where right in par with me anywhere from 85-125$ per hour. i went to the bid opening and everyone was in shock.
Sadly enough I know how Davey does it.