Large job (for me) question

[StIhL MaGnUm]

Well I don't usually bid by the hour since most of my work is buying standing timber and then going in felling,limb,buck to length,chip,etc..and load up and move on so I can't really help you on that one,usually if I sub for someone else I will charge roughly between $400-600 a day for a full 12 hrs for me,my saws,and grapple skidder if I need to bring the buncher and chipper than I get close to $1000 a day but this is for a company that does upwards of 200 trees a day.


Later Rob..

 

[JimL]

Jd 450 is small. I have power outed a jd 1150 skidding before a number of times

 

[Oregon_Rob]

Maybe think about contracting the skidding.

 

[lsylvain]

Okay here is what I have come up with

The furthest distance to skid a log is about 200'
Avg diameter is about 18"
Not very dense at all

I'm figuring if a take out as many of the smaller trees first I can pull them out with the bobcat. As they start to get bigger I'll buck them to legth and try pulling them out. Then what ever is left I'll either get a biger machine or get someone else to pull them out.


I'm figuring I'll charge him $45 per tree (3600)
Plus $250 a day for skidding.

I have about 30 hrs a week I can work there so If I get 20 trees done a week with 1 day of skidding

(45 x 20) + 250 = 1150 week less about $300 for my labor cost

Leaves avout $600 a week for me and OH

I should be able to get at least 30 trees a week but at 20 I'm pulling in a profit.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

So what you are saying is that your worth $20/hr but the OH comes out of your pay.

Stick with the 20/hr for yourself since you are still learning. then crunch some numbers for an hourly OH figure to add in there.

Or are you 15/hr and OH is 5/hr?

 

[MidwestTree]

I think that StihlMagnum is right on the hours. Where I am at we have limited # of pines but what I have worked with them I find it easier to work with than other trees. 10 to 15 a day would not be hard. Backhoe to drag them out or a clamshell bucket for smaller diameter, if the room allows. If you can burn on site then use the backhoe to pile brush. Two weeks ago I took out 15 large osage orange trees, 5 of which had to be pieced down because of heavy lean toward a tool shed. Me and one man cut, piled/burned bush and hauled away all logs/firewood in three days. These were eight to nine hour days. Cold and snowy so we worked a little on the layed back side (Nice to have an enjoyable job once in a while). I think that your me are worth more than min. I pay $10 an hour and wish I could pay more. I have good guys and want to keep them but I do expect hard work out of them. I think that the man hours might be high but I think that your wages to you and your men might be low. Fuel in a hoe being used hard for a day can run @ 25 gal or more depending upon the total hours. Plus you have tires to remember, if you drive over something and ruin a back tire you can be out 1000 to 1200 dollars. I hope this helps. Think it through carefully before you make a decision.

 

[lsylvain]

I know $20/hr isn't much, but for every tree a week over 20 will add $1.50 per hour.

20 trees a week is only 4 a day.
25 tree is 27.50/hr 5 a day
30 is $35 /hr 6 a day

As far as paying my crew $6/hr most of the work that they do is mowing which means I have 2 guys driving for an average of 10 min per job just to get to the mowing jobs then actually working for about 15 min then driving again. so I have to charge my customers $15 per hour just for their time to make up for drive time. So if I paid them $10 per hour I would have to charge $25 and hour. I can't pay them differently for each job that they do that would just be too much to keep up with so at the end of the year they get a bonus. Usually around $1000 each.

 

[treeclimber165]

You charge your customers based on a man-hour rate of $15? When I sold my lawn business 12.5 years ago, going rate was $30-$35 per man hour and I was getting $40-$50 per man hour on many of my accounts. For mowing lawns and pulling weeds.

No wonder so many in the lawn care and tree industries complain about the lowballers undercutting their prices by half and they STILL can't charge enough to pay overhead and a meager wage.

I almost didn't read the last day's worth of posts on this thread. Sorry I did.

 

[MidwestTree]

Isylvain, Being that you have a degree in buisness then I would think that you would understand that you should make money, as the owner of the company, on every man hour that is worked. I live in an area were the man hour rate is low (rural america) but the mowing companies get 35 to 40 per hour for each man. They paper around 8 per hour, that means profit. I worked a number of years ago for a tileage contractor, three of us would put in 6000 feet a day (10 hours) which is about $6000. He paid us $9 per hour. In other words there is profit from each man. If he added another guy to this we could get about 7500 feet ($7500). You also have to be far to your guys. Did you hire them to fight brush in a highly dangerous occupation or did you hire them to mow lawns. I think for this work they deserve more. For the risk. Why do you think that they get more money for high work, thge work is the same on the ground as 200 feet up but the risk is greater.

 

[lsylvain]

You charge your customers based on a man-hour rate of $15? When I sold my lawn business 12.5 years ago, going rate was $30-$35 per man hour and I was getting $40-$50 per man hour on many of my accounts. For mowing lawns and pulling weeds.


I am not a low baller. I get between $45 and $80 per man hour. Which is over the national average. It cost me $15 per man hour in labor.

There is a thing called supply and demand. As the price goes up the demand for the product goes down. Being that the per capita income of bluefield WV is under $15,000 per year($7.50/hr). There are roughly 28 weeks in a mowing season. A 1 hr job billed at $45 cost the customer $1260 per year excluding tax. that is over one months pay. Can you afford to pay 1 months pay to have your grass cut? So if I paid my guys more I would have to charge more the more I charge the less customers I have which in turn means, the less work I have and the less people I can provide jobs for. Lets say I pay a guy $10 per hour, he is getting payed really good for the area, so he stays with me for 10 years and is replaced by a robotic mower (Allready available for about $2000) He has no job skills to get another job, so to feed his family he has to go to burger king for min wage for the rest of his life. When I pay him $6 and hour he works for me for a few years to make ends meet while he goes to school, graduates and gets a job making 50k a year and increases the standard of living for the whole area.

 

[treeclimber165]

For a man with a BS Business degree, you sure have difficulty expressing profit vs. gross. You have interchanged the terms more than once on this thread. Now you are trying to say that you are HELPING the local economy by paying your grunts $6 per hour instead of $10? Must be a nice little dream world where you live.
I've had enough of this garbage.

 

[lsylvain]

This site is worthless. I saw the site and assumed that the people here were interested in helping others in their business. I guess, I was wrong, peple are here, just to compete in the size of their "tools".

treeclimber165, if you have problems understanding that, there are different markets around the world some of them stonger, and some weeker than others, that's your problem. And second of all if you are only paying your guys $10 /hr in Florida, I am paying my guys better than you based on purchasing power. Think about it, Rent in blufield for a 4 bdrm house is around $400 per month. If you can find a house in Orlando for $1200 per month I'd be surprised.

 

[MidwestTree]

You have said that you charge $15 per hour then later you said that the average income is less than $15000 for the area that you work but that you are now charging $45 to $80 per hour (above the national average). I find it interesting that your numbers change and that you have the ability to get higher than average prices out of below poverty incomes. And I will not call you a low baller because I think that is an unfair term, if a company can provide a service for less than the competition and can make money at it then so be it. If it is to low then they will go out of buisness. I just feel that is an unfair term.

 

[Ryan Willock]

the guy obviously flunked math!! or he's just trying to cause trouble

 

[Jock]

Maybe have a word with your father mate

 

[treeman82]

ROFLMAO

 

[lsylvain]

3 years later I am still pissed at you guys. Ended up biding this at $53.00 a tree. and lost the bid to someone who did it for $40 a tree. I never said I charged $15.00 per hour in total I said I have to charge $15.00/hour to cover the cost of paying my guys $6.00 per hour. Get it. I actually earned well over $80.00 per hour, infact my net income averged out to be about $65/hour, but I lowered my numbers because I figured you would ????? about me paying my guys so little. You can charge whatever the heck you want to if you can back up your charge with quality workmanship and a little self promotion. Just because the average income is $15,000 doens't mean that everyone makes $15,000 a year. There are people like Doctors and Lawyers that make several hundred thousand a year and other people that make only a couple thousand a year that is why it is called an average. Even 3 years later $6.00 an hour is a descent starting salary in Southern WV.

 

[treeseer]

3 years later I am still pissed at you guys.

THat kind of Resentment is letting someone you don't like live in your heart rent-free.

Even 3 years later $6.00 an hour is a descent starting salary in Southern WV.

"descent' being the operative word. that's what i pay my 12-year old relatives.

This thread kinda reads like Hell's Kitchen! Rodent Claw?

 

[Husky137]

$6.00 an hour isn't a salary, it's a wage. Anyone can make more picking their nose at burger king. 4 guys outta be able to knock out a white pine in a lot less than an hour.

My 7 year old makes more than $6 an hour when he stacks firewood.

 

[lsylvain]

I'm not going to get into this pay rate discussion again. Yes $6.00 per hour in florida is rediculusly low. $6.00 per hour in WV is like $12.00 or more per hour in Florida. I know this because I currently live in FL and my mortgage is $1,400 a month, the property I am looking at in WV is the same square footage with 20 times the land and a 1500 square foot workshop. The morgage payment on that is going to be about $320 a month. Gas is $2.20 a gallon instead of $2.70 a gallon, etc, etc, etc. So those of you who are paying your guys $12.00 per hour in Florida the monthly gross on that full time is $1920 less the $1400 mortgate, leaves $520.00 for all their other bills. $6.00 per hour grosses $960.00 per month less $320.00 mortgage leaves $640.00 that is $120 more dollars for them to live on. I also stated the $6.00 per hour is a decent starting salary for someone today, not for someone who has been with you awhile.