stump grinding pricing New England Area

[intheelements]

Any people from the New England area care to let me know what you charge for stump grinding. I just started in the business and charge 2.50 per diameter inch with no debris removal. I quote more if there are accessibility problems. But I'm finding that people are not excepting my prices stating its to much money. I thought 2.50 per inch was fair and I do not (well not) work for nothing. any help?

 

[Lumberjack]

Double diameter=4 times the wood.

Never a good thing.

I am in the south. We bid by how much time we estamate it taking times our hourly rate. That is the best way bar none. With the esperiance we have we can consistantly hit our mark dead on.

 

[DDM]

We are doing good to get 1.00 an Inch Measured across the top of the stump Here.

 

[Lumberjack]

It amazes me at the price that yall charge up north.

100 bucks for a 18" stump? An 18" stump here would be a minimum charge, heck depending on location we might do 10 of them for 100 bucks. A 18" stump takes>5 min for us under normal conditions.

 

[Crazy Canuck]

We are doing good to get 1.00 an Inch Measured across the top of the stump Here.

Yikes!! I'm charging $3.00 an inch and I'm one of the lower priced guys. A lot of other guys are $3.50 to as high as $4.00

 

[Lumberjack]

What conditions do you have the make those prices needed? A 10" stump for 40 bucks, thats amazing!

 

[Crazy Canuck]

What conditions do you have the make those prices needed? A 10" stump for 40 bucks, thats amazing!

I don't know anyone that would do it for $40. Everybody, myself included, has a minimum charge around $90.

 

[Lumberjack]

God bless, our minimum is 50 dollars normally, but it may be up due to gas prices and other factors, but 50 a minimum job is only 20 min of work normally.

 

[NeTree]

My sub charges $1.50 an inch, period.

 

[Lumberjack]

How does the inch thing possibly work out? As the stump gets bigger the grinder gets screwed!

A 4' stump has 4 times the wood in it as a comparable 2' stump, but if the 4' stump is 6" tall and the 2' stump is 3" tall then you have 4 times the wood.

Its crazy to me

 

[NeTree]

When you're grinding with this, it don't matter.

 

[intheelements]

At $1.00 to $1.50 per inch how does anyone make any money? with the cost of the machine, maintenance, teeth sharpening and /or new teeth, Chain saw expense's, insurance, travel time ie: truck expense's, gasoline, ware and tear, it would seem to me that either people are working for close to nothing or losing money

10, 36 inch stumps for $360.00 @ $1.00 or $540.00 @ $1.50 x the time it takes to get to and do the job and expenses ( day, week, yearly ) could very well mean you are working for less than $ 10 dollars an hour

Am I wrong here??

 

[murphy4trees]

Carl wrote "
100 bucks for a 18" stump? An 18" stump here would be a minimum charge, heck depending on location we might do 10 of them for 100 bucks. A 18" stump takes>5 min for us under normal conditions."

ya right... i know you know better than this...
Maybe the grinding takes 5 min., but so does taking the call, getting directions, writing a bill/waiting for the check... and what about travel time.. If we were really billing hourly for all our true time put into every job, there would be no such thing as a 5 minute job... then if we knew what it cost us to run our busnisses/minute... we'd see that depending on overhead many of us couldn't make $ for less than a $90 minimun..

also w/ stump grinding maintenance costs and time are a big factor... daddy don't weld tips for fun! One big differencve in regional prices has to do with the presence or abscence of rocks... if the glaciers didn't make it to your turf then you're in stump grindin heaven... we could grind for weeks in florida with very little damage to the teeth... in philly the first 15" stump could be right on a rock that wipes out the front 6 teeth in one pass... Ouch...
So I can get a lot more for stumps in rocky ground

 

[a_lopa]

My sub charges $1.50 an inch, period.

ditto that,volume is how they do it.even at that rate its easy to make chit loads

 

[Crazy Canuck]

We have so much rock in the soil that sometimes we have to set up baricades to stop the flying rocks from doing damage to people or property. I guess thats the price you pay for being within spitting distance of the Canadian Rockies. The don't call em the rockies for nothing.

 

[Koa Man]

In Hawaii I am sitting on top of an old volcano. Talk about rocks! My min. charge for stumps is $150, unless I took down the tree, then the min. charge is $75. I have done many 12 inch stumps for $150 each, a 4.5 ft. stump for $600. What I do notice from what I have read and heard, is that stump grinding on the continental US is real cheap compared to Hawaii. No one I know of charges cheap for stump grinding here. I just wish that would be the case with coconut tree trimming. Maybe it's because all the fly by nights don't have stump grinders.

 

[Lumberjack]

Murph, between us here on the board we charge 125 an hour base price.

We give free estimants, and get a huge amount of work by word of mouth. I think we are the most exspensive in the area, or close to it, we are the only people in the area that consistantly do a good job (from what we have seen).

 

[murphy4trees]

Carl,
Is that 125/hr w/ paid travel time? or just on site time?

 

[intheelements]

So I guess I can't come to any conclusion other then it depends on the area and personal preference on pricing IE. inches, hourly, one price fits it all etc.

 

[juststumps]

hi guys
where i'm at , going rate is $7.00 per inch cleaned up..thats for a home owner with one stump... or i charge $100 per hour,, no clean up for multiple stumps..clean up extra ....$75.00 hr for my tree guys.. (they sold the job,, they gotta eat too!!!) home owner,,,30 inch stump ground level X 48 tall--7x30=210,, flush cut 20,,sod hole 45,,,total 275... but thats me, and that what it goes for here..