Utility Clearance Production Per Day

[treepro]

I am just curious how much you guys are getting done per day? We are working on a line clearance job (telephone, not electrical) with a 4 man crew and I was wanting to benchmark their production. We are paid per ft. trimmed.

How does the big companies like Asplundh, Wright, Davey, etc. set the expectations for daily production?

 

[TDunk]

Not sure how much this helps, but when "day-lighting" a road, i figure on a mile a day. But we've also done 2.5 miles in a day too.

 

[treepro]

Not sure how much this helps, but when "day-lighting" a road, i figure on a mile a day. But we've also done 2.5 miles in a day too.

Sorry, I forgot the put the spec's.

R25-M - Means 5 feet clearance on each side of the line straight up to the skyline. Most of the timber is less than 12-15" dbh. Cleanup is minimal. They only require we drag the debris to the side of the trail so they can access the lines. We will have to chip brush & debris that is on homeowners land (very minimal). Some of this work is Cross Country - meaning going up the side of a ridge, mountain. No bucket trucks, not even 4 wheel drive pickups or skid steers could access these areas. Could access with an ATV/4-wheeler, but plan on just hiking it by foot.

About 85% of the job consists of this type of work. Approximately 60,000 linear feet.

The other 15% of the job consists of R35-M. - Means a 5 foot "hole" around the wires. Just enough clearance so they can send their spool down the line. Almost of this is accessible by bucket truck from the road. There will be a considerable amount of moving, setting up, traffic control, dealing with angry drivers, etc. There is about 10-15,000 linear feet of this.

So when you say "day-lighting" a road, what is it you mean? Sounds like it may be similar to R25-M, but I am not sure.

 

[lego1970]

The last line clearance job I did we were getting about 3500 feet per week. That was 15' clearance to the side with 45 degree swept back at the top. That was doing electrical line clearance. 75% was from a Bucket truck, and about 25% manual climbing. We were paid on production.

When I worked at Asplundh, we had to count the trees we did and put it into a hour production. It went something like, 3 small trees per man hour, 1 medium size trees per man hour and .5 large trees per man hour. So for example if you had a crew three guys and worked a 8 hour day you would have to trim either 72 small trees per day, 24 medium, or 12 large trees per day. My numbers may be way off, but that's how we caculated it. At Asplundh we would try to get 10-15 clearance.

At only 5' clearance on telephone lines you should be able to scoot pretty good. If the lines are where they normaly are on a utility pole you should be able to do most of it from the ground with a pole saws and pruner poles. Most line clearance I've done out in the woods, we were allowed to make holes in the woods every 100 yards and drag/stack and leave the brush there.

That's the only info I can share with you. Good luck.

 

[TDunk]

The parts you have to walk, i'd plan on a mile a day, maybe less if it's real thick and you all aren't in good shape. Hard to say though. The parts you can use the bucket truck i'd say you could get two miles a day only going 5' on each side. There again, if it's not sure thick and tall.

"Day-lighting" is similar to what your doing. Basically taking everything down that's with in 5'-15' off the side of the road.

 

[yooper]

When I worked at Asplundh, we had to count the trees we did and put it into a hour production. It went something like, 3 small trees per man hour, 1 medium size trees per man hour and .5 large trees per man hour. So for example if you had a crew three guys and worked a 8 hour day you would have to trim either 72 small trees per day, 24 medium, or 12 large trees per day. My numbers may be way off, but that's how we caculated it. At Asplundh we would try to get 10-15 clearance.

.

did you know when you are in a very wet or mucky area you can slice the smaller trees so the buts stick in the ground and make one tree into about 10 stumps:greenchainsaw: boosts up the count....lol

 

[TDunk]

did you know when you are in a very wet or mucky area you can slice the smaller trees so the buts stick in the ground and make one tree into about 10 stumps:greenchainsaw: boosts up the count....lol

Hey Yooper, i just noticed you lifted your short bus, when did that happen ?

 

[lego1970]

did you know when you are in a very wet or mucky area you can slice the smaller trees so the buts stick in the ground and make one tree into about 10 stumps:greenchainsaw: boosts up the count....lol

Some of that stuff is pretty funny. When I was crew foreman, I filled out the production sheets honestly. Which means some days you would only get two Cottonwoods done and your production hours were way low. They didn't like that so the General Foreman came out and showed me how to basicaly lie and cheat on the daily/hourly productions forms. I wouldn't lie or make a unessasary cuts just to mark something down on paper. I knew we put in a honest 8 hrs worth of work, so I didn't worry about it. I didn't get any promotions after that and wasn't very liked by the higher ups, but didn't have to worry about getting caught lying when the Electric company did random checks.

 

[treepro]

This job seems to be a bit different than those jobs. This is based solely off linear feet trimmed (not line feet/miles). I am still having a hard time thinking a crew could go a mile a day.

The previous job we did they went about 1400-1500 ft. per day and that was moving. This job is going to be a little harder due to the terrain involved.

 

[TDunk]

The next best thing i can tell you (and it's worked out for me alot) is just bid the job to what you think it's worth. The worst thing you can do is bid the job low. Cuz then your working your :censored: off all day long, pissed b/c you underbid the job. That just makes everyone miserable.

 

[treepro]

We bid the job for what we needed to in order to make money. However, that was based upon how much we thought we could get done a day. If we find that we aren't making money we will have to cancel the contract and bail out.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Hey Yooper, i just noticed you lifted your short bus, when did that happen ?

Hes a Yooper, every vehicle UP here is lifted, even the short buses.

 

[lego1970]

This job seems to be a bit different than those jobs. This is based solely off linear feet trimmed (not line feet/miles). I am still having a hard time thinking a crew could go a mile a day.

The previous job we did they went about 1400-1500 ft. per day and that was moving. This job is going to be a little harder due to the terrain involved.

Yep the last gig I was doing was by linear feet. Average like I said was 3500 feet per week, 15' electrical clearance, 3 man crew(sometimes 2), 75%bucket/25% climb, and yes I was working my tail off non-stop for 40 hours.