New thread

[Helmstein]

They are burdensome, unless you are a large enough company to pay expensive bean counters to make you sure avoid tax.

To start with, have to add GST (10%) on everything, which throws up your prices, gives you a major bookkeeping / accounting burden & has to be paid to tax office monthly or quarterly.

Then there is compulsory superannuation for employees, currently 10.5% of their gross wage, rising to 12% in next few years.

Workers comp insurance is paid by the business, premiums depend on you wage turnover. They follow businesses pretty hard on maintaining workers comp cover, which is one thing I agree on & am happy to pay for.

My basic insurances are over $2,600 per month.

If you actually turn over a profit, then there is income tax, sliding scale depending on ‘salary’. When I was an employee on a good wage, I saw 62 cents out of each dollar in a good fortnight, 52 when I got paid bonuses or worked too many hours.

Higher education you also pay for yourself.

Health care, yes, universal in theory, but a above a certain income, you are expected to maintain private health insurance cover.

When the federal government eased some of the GST burdens on small businesses during Covid, things when gangbusters. Now the tax office is calling those debts in & driving business over the edge.

Wow, that's sounds like a **** show. Similar to tax-achusetts I mean Massachusetts. ; )

 

[Rabid K9]

Wow, that's sounds like a **** show. Similar to tax-achusetts I mean Massachusetts. ; )

It is a bit, especially the Goods & Services tax.

Fun little residential job today, making some more turnover for the government.

Smallish trees, but tight, all the cogs of the machine doing their thing.

 

[Rabid K9]

Pair of big pine removals today. Busted hydro lines on the bucket truck and tractor. We worked a little later but still got er done!
View attachment 1072107

Bursting hydraulic hoses is always a pain, never a good time, always throws out the day.

They seem to happen in clusters, went through a period of blowing a couple a week on various machines when I go back at start of Feb.

Going through a 'cluster' of little Stihl items at the moment - pole saw shaft bearing went Friday, bulk bar oil drum ran out yesterday, nose sprocket on one of the climbing saws today, my favourite climbing saw running on dangerously & can't seem to get to the bottom of it. Putting off going into the shop, know it's going to be an expensive visit.

 

[tree MDS]

If I bring the bucket , chipper , chip truck , skid steer and two guys I figure at least $400 hour which still sounds cheap. That’s $3,200 for the day. But I don’t think I’ll get that this year …

I imagine that sounds about right for Fairfield county. I used to get down that way quite a bit back in the day working for someone else. Not my cup of tea. Very nice scenery though!

 

[Helmstein]

It is a bit, especially the Goods & Services tax.

Fun little residential job today, making some more turnover for the government.

Smallish trees, but tight, all the cogs of the machine doing their thing.

View attachment 1072219

View attachment 1072220

View attachment 1072221

View attachment 1072223

View attachment 1072224

View attachment 1072225

View attachment 1072226

Looks like every hydro line on your chipper has been leaking and covered in down under red dirt. Love your crane truck.

 

[Rabid K9]

Looks like every hydro line on your chipper has been leaking and covered in down under red dirt. Love your crane truck.

Yep, the valves weep a bit, fix them & they weep again, so just routinely high pressure clean the back end.

Problem is my yard is a few kilometres down a gravel road, as are quite a few jobs. Behind the six wheeler, the chipper gets mighty dusty at this time of year, hard to stay on top of it.

Crane truck bit of a luxury, but damn handy.

Horrid job reducing the height of a giant olive hedge today. When your hedging with a 500i, you know it’s not a good day, for you or the hedge.

Bastard thing was like a botanical porcupine & even broke the chain brake handle on one of the 500’s.

 

[Helmstein]

Yep, the valves weep a bit, fix them & they weep again, so just routinely high pressure clean the back end.

Problem is my yard is a few kilometres down a gravel road, as are quite a few jobs. Behind the six wheeler, the chipper gets mighty dusty at this time of year, hard to stay on top of it.

Crane truck bit of a luxury, but damn handy.

Horrid job reducing the height of a giant olive hedge today. When your hedging with a 500i, you know it’s not a good day, for you or the hedge.

Bastard thing was like a botanical porcupine & even broke the chain brake handle on one of the 500’s.

View attachment 1072564

Oh my God, that looks like the hedge from hell!

Gotta love red dirt roads.

 

[tree MDS]

Yep, the valves weep a bit, fix them & they weep again, so just routinely high pressure clean the back end.

Problem is my yard is a few kilometres down a gravel road, as are quite a few jobs. Behind the six wheeler, the chipper gets mighty dusty at this time of year, hard to stay on top of it.

Crane truck bit of a luxury, but damn handy.

Horrid job reducing the height of a giant olive hedge today. When your hedging with a 500i, you know it’s not a good day, for you or the hedge.

Bastard thing was like a botanical porcupine & even broke the chain brake handle on one of the 500’s.

View attachment 1072564

I don’t see any eye protection on your guy? I’m wincing just looking at that pic!

 

[Helmstein]

I don’t see any eye protection on your guy? I’m wincing just looking at that pic!

Hes squinting and half protected! Haha

 

[mikewhite85]

Tricky cracked poplar removal from yesterday. Made good use of the grcs and span rigging, pulling most of the debris on the other side of the fence with a tag line. Actually used 4 ropes total- span rigging line on grcs, 5/8 line on porty we alternated with, tag line, and guy line the opposite direction to provide counter balance on the upright spar.


Awesome day minus the excessive dog poop. Tarp came in handy! Tight quarters within fence to access wood. Mini with bmg would have been mighty handy but we made due with the new Holland. This is the kind of job we love (sans dog debris!). A couple extra smaller removals turned it into about 7k on the day, which is more than usual for us. Don't always like discussing prices publicly here but I think it can be helpful to Guage how we are bidding.

 

[Rabid K9]

I don’t see any eye protection on your guy? I’m wincing just looking at that pic!

Thought that would get picked up.

Me too. To his credit, did have glasses on, was raining & he was fogging up even ten seconds.

Gentleman in the picture is several leagues above the average both physically & cognitively, as well as skill wise. He also permanently runs hot & has always struggled wearing eye protection, express my preference for safety glasses, but I let him make his decisions.

 

[Rabid K9]

Tricky cracked poplar removal from yesterday. Made good use of the grcs and span rigging, pulling most of the debris on the other side of the fence with a tag line. Actually used 4 ropes total- span rigging line on grcs, 5/8 line on porty we alternated with, tag line, and guy line the opposite direction to provide counter balance on the upright spar.


Awesome day minus the excessive dog poop. Tarp came in handy! Tight quarters within fence to access wood. Mini with bmg would have been mighty handy but we made due with the new Holland. This is the kind of job we love (sans dog debris!). A couple extra smaller removals turned it into about 7k on the day, which is more than usual for us. Don't always like discussing prices publicly here but I think it can be helpful to Guage how we are bidding.
View attachment 1072832View attachment 1072833View attachment 1072834View attachment 1072835View attachment 1072836View attachment 1072837

Good turnover day.

 

[Rabid K9]

Oh my God, that looks like the hedge from hell!

Gotta love red dirt roads.

Certainly was a bastard thing. Happy to finish it & get back into some trees. Solid trees post easter.

 

[tree MDS]

Pruning work. Great customers, nice couple days pay for that type of work.

The season has been off to a nice start so far. Just a tiny bit of ash removal work, but back to more normal tree work, pruning, non ash removals and such. I am hoping the ash trees and all the newby spawn they produced continue to die off together as things revert back to thier normal order. I am over it. And of course, still looking good.

 

[mikewhite85]

Pruning work. Great customers, nice couple days pay for that type of work.

The season has been off to a nice start so far. Just a tiny bit of ash removal work, but back to more normal tree work, pruning, non ash removals and such. I am hoping the ash trees and all the newby spawn they produced continue to die off together as things revert back to thier normal order. I am over it. And of course, still looking good.
View attachment 1073424

That's a nice looking beech(?). Our recent wind storm busted up a lot of the remaining standing ash around here. How many guys are you running this season?

Today we worked at a nice residential property cleaning up a big fallen white pine and removed a few pitch pines.

We were able to remove them sans-climbing. Set a suspended block high up in an adjacent white pine with a throwline, used the same throwline to later tie off the tops of the pitch pines, then grcs'd it up and cut from the bottom. Was a bit of a tedious set up and worked well until we were tearing down and one of my ground guys tried to pull the suspended block up through the crotch rather than lowering it down. Resulted in the days only climb to retrieve the $400 block.



P.s. I don't often use suspended rigging points. What knot do you guys use to tie your block to a rigging line? I'm so used to putting them in eye slings it's rare I tie one. Ended up using an anchor knot, which was later untieable.

 

[tree MDS]

We are a three man crew as usual (for now). About 1.5 mil in equipment and local commercial shop. This will be my 27th, or 28th year?

 

[tree MDS]

And I ****ing love it!!!

 

[Helmstein]

Tricky cracked poplar removal from yesterday. Made good use of the grcs and span rigging, pulling most of the debris on the other side of the fence with a tag line. Actually used 4 ropes total- span rigging line on grcs, 5/8 line on porty we alternated with, tag line, and guy line the opposite direction to provide counter balance on the upright spar.


Awesome day minus the excessive dog poop. Tarp came in handy! Tight quarters within fence to access wood. Mini with bmg would have been mighty handy but we made due with the new Holland. This is the kind of job we love (sans dog debris!). A couple extra smaller removals turned it into about 7k on the day, which is more than usual for us. Don't always like discussing prices publicly here but I think it can be helpful to Guage how we are bidding.
View attachment 1072832View attachment 1072833View attachment 1072834View attachment 1072835View attachment 1072836View attachment 1072837

I think we should normalize talking prices. I know every market is different but if we all charge more money than we all make more money. This work we do is out to kill you everyday. Let's charge accordingly so we can go to work and have a calm level head, come back home to our loved ones each night feeling good that we are providing a good life for everyone around us.

Way to go! 7grand in one day is awsome. Now go get that everyday, you are worth it.

 

[Helmstein]

We are a three man crew as usual (for now). About 1.5 mil in equipment and local commercial shop. This will be my 27th, or 28th year?

Keep it up MDS. Payments don't stop on the green equipment.

 

[tree MDS]

Keep it up MDS. Payments don't stop on the green equipment.

Hahaha. There was a time when I used to paint my plywood chip box on the old Chevy every year. That got old eventually.