Striking rich!

[SimplyGreen]

How much you guys pay your climbers? $20/h?>

 

[SAMSON]

my lead climber gets $25.00

 

[Treeman14]

I'm looking for a foreman/crew leader/climber/bucket operator. $50,000/yr
Check the Employment Forum

 

[tinman44]

How much you guys pay your climbers? $20/h?>

i make 50 an hour. well at least i bid the jobs to that effect usually doesn't happen that way i stop to sharpen a chain or take lunch. matter of fact business partner makes 50 an hour too.
did i mention i am mostly a ground guy?

 

[Koa Man]

How much you guys pay your climbers? $20/h?>

I pay my climber $37.50 an hour, that's $300 a day. The groundman gets $12.50 an hour, $100 a day. I get....well better not say.......it is more than
those two combined, but I own the company.

 

[SimplyGreen]

I see ..

Thats not bad, here i was thinking $20/h was appropiate lol ..

How much you guys out there charge per person? I think $80/h per person sounds about right for tree service right?

 

[Koa Man]

I think $80 per hour per man is really high. That means your average 3 man crew, 1 climber & 2 groundmen would need to gross $1920 a day. Over here, that is pretty hard to do on a daily basis and remain competitive. I have made as much as $4497 a day for a 2 day job with a 3 man crew, but that is extremely rare. I would consider $1200 a day for a 3 man crew as very good. That averages out to $50 a man hour.

 

[SimplyGreen]

I see, yah ..

 

[treeman82]

I've tried $1,200 / day for 3 guys with a truck and chipper. Too much work for too little $. Raised it to $1,500.

One guy I know, but don't respect gets $1,600 / day for 2 guys with a truck and chipper, however he rarely works per day. Sav-a-Tree gets I believe $1,700 / day for 3 guys, truck, chipper. $125 / man hour is the high end of normal around here.

 

[Koa Man]

I think the NE USA gets higher daily rates than the rest of the country. I can make a very good living at $1200 with a 3 man crew. Labor is $400, daily expenses and overhead $200, leaves about $600 left over for me. I work about 220 days a year. Roughly 18 days a month after minusing days lost due to rain, vacation, holidays, sick etc. Won't get "rich" per se, but still a very comfortable living, and since I hired a climber back in August to replace a groundman I fired, I don't have to work as hard. I do know that I more than tripled my income from the full time airline job I had before.

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

i look at it as filling in 190-200 days a year,however much i make in that period.its not what you make, its whats going out the door to make it.

A 192 day budget is the easiest to work from. 4 days a week, 4 weeks a month and 12 months a year. it takes into acount sick days, holidays and weather days, everything else is gravy.

Then, you have to look at what you make per job, per day, per week, month and year. That is the only way you can fine tune the cyclicle nature of any buisness.

The day to day view looks at your operations and is really easy to do, say having the ground guys come in 15 min later can add up real fast, or encoraging a raking/dragging system (dude, choose one drag path and stick to it, don't drag ove the entire yard!) In rigging, if a sling can save 30 seconds over a knot and you rig 30 times in a job you shave .25 crew hours, the foreman going to the client for a check while the crew is doing final cleanup....

Week to week you look at which days are frequently low producing, like do ou pay on fridays and the guys are in early to pick up their checks, or don't show up on saturdays for half day work because the boozed it up. Same for mondays, are they too partied out to do a good days work...

Year to year looks at the seasonal issue, if summer typicly has a big backlog, or hunting season is a big slow down, or the christmas season....

Too many people are caught up in the many day to day things they have to do to have the energy to find even the easy ways to increase overall productivity. For many the idea of keeping a file and diary is extra work that takes away from the joy of having the buisness.

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

with so many low-ballers and a govermant that doesn't give a hoot ,overhere in the UK its hard to get £400 [$800] a day for a 3 man crew ,with truck, chipper,insurance etc...in some off the less well of areas of the UK i hear the average day rate for a 2 man gang is £250 a day...needless to say i have and am thinking of packing the job in ,i have over the years built up a nice little business but as the saying goes you cant flog a dead horse !

 

[TREETX]

Too many people are caught up in the many day to day things they have to do to have the energy to find even the easy ways to increase overall productivity. For many the idea of keeping a file and diary is extra work that takes away from the joy of having the buisness.

That was my problem when I was self employed. I was so busy fightin' alligators that I didn't have time to drain the swamp.

I plan on giving it a go again in a few years........It was a nice life but sometimes you gotta see something new.........

 

[SteveBullman]

things really getting that bad rolla? i hear many company owners saying they are thinking about packing the game in, makes me wonder what im doing investing my time in a company when they;re thinking of closing down every five minutes

 

[Big A]

you'd be extremely unlikely to find a 2nd crew that you could trust to work to the standards you require and look after and respect your kit

It does help if the owner gives a ????, then the staff all know their place. Bosses who try and be best mates with their crew end up getting bitten back! You cant run with the hare and hunt with the hounds as some old fella once told me.

 

[ROLLACOSTA]

things really getting that bad rolla? i hear many company owners saying they are thinking about packing the game in, makes me wonder what im doing investing my time in a company when they;re thinking of closing down every five minutes

kinda pisse* you off when your insured ,have decent kit,pay decent wages etc etc and you go quoteing against complete idiot's or others with no kit ,insurance etc and as we all know there are tons of lowballer's in this area,i always do ok with commercial work but as you know this game is 60% domestic and 40% commercial, another thing that gets my goat is the total lack of respect this proffession has ,were seen as bumbaling chainsaw weilding hillbillys if you ask me..i probably won't pack this game in as i have put to many hours in to stop now plus i have been in this game man and boy ,i don't know anything else...I'D like someone to show me a well off tree service owner in these parts?? because i havent seen one !

 

[Stumper]

England has hillbillies?

Rolly, My sympathies with the lowballers AND the lack of respect. It is getting better on this side of the pond but we have to work for respect- and sometimes get less than we earn.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Speaking of hillbillies, where is our swedish brother?

http://www.arboristsite.com/member.php?u=2327