What would you quote this job at? (2 "removals")

[Plasmech]

I hear ya man to there is just too cheap.

Stihl, I think you need to go and arrest these cheap bastards. Come up with some charges, I dunno like reckless endangerment of a trade or something.

 

[Blakesmaster]

They don't look that big guys, c'mon... You're makin' me feel like a cheapskate here. I think an experienced climber could put both those on the ground in a half hour. Huge drop zone for the one that has to be climbed. Cut on the way up, blast the top, tie of the spar and put it where you want it. 15 minutes tops. Toss a line in the other one and send her flying. 5 minutes. That leaves ten minutes to #### around with your gear in and out of the truck. I think $250 is super fair for that amount of work.

 

[tree md]

They don't look that big guys, c'mon... You're makin' me feel like a cheapskate here. I think an experienced climber could put both those on the ground in a half hour. Huge drop zone for the one that has to be climbed. Cut on the way up, blast the top, tie of the spar and put it where you want it. 15 minutes tops. Toss a line in the other one and send her flying. 5 minutes. That leaves ten minutes to #### around with your gear in and out of the truck. I think $250 is super fair for that amount of work.

Hard to judge by the pics. Can't see which way the larger tree is leaning. Looks like there is a definitely the possibility that it could hit the house, regardless of how unlikely. I'll guarantee you the HO doesn't have the equipment or know how to fall it. I think it's worth at least 2 bills. and I just have a pet peeve about dropping any tree for less than $100, even if it is a pecker pole. Especially if it has to be climbed. If it were my job I'd hit him for $200 for both trees and come down to $125 for the one that has to be chunked and $175 for the felling.

 

[deevo]

We would do this job in less than 1/2 hour with the bucket truck but they would have to pay 1 hour. $135.00 + tax Later Chuck

Wow, that's cheap, I could get $500 drop and leave easy around here for those 2 trees.Judging by his Motorhome and trailers $450-500

 

[Plasmech]

Wow, that's cheap, I could get $500 drop and leave easy around here for those 2 trees.Judging by his Motorhome and trailers $450-500

I like your thinking man.

 

[tree md]

I like your thinking man.

Only you can know what the market value is in your area Plas. A year and a half ago and $250 a tree would have been a no brainer here as well. Unfortunately our prices have been reduced here due to the economic downturn and cut throat competition.

Don't be afraid to ask what you think the trees are worth. If there is no competitive bid then you can afford to be a little daring. You can always negotiate down if need be. I know a lot don't agree with that tactic but this economy has changed a lot of business principles. It is no longer out of the question to negotiate and barter.

 

[rarefish383]

They don't look that big guys, c'mon... You're makin' me feel like a cheapskate here. I think an experienced climber could put both those on the ground in a half hour. Huge drop zone for the one that has to be climbed. Cut on the way up, blast the top, tie of the spar and put it where you want it. 15 minutes tops. Toss a line in the other one and send her flying. 5 minutes. That leaves ten minutes to #### around with your gear in and out of the truck. I think $250 is super fair for that amount of work.

:agree2: Looks like a quick and easy. Around here $85 per man hour is still very reasonable. I charged a friend $250 for 1 Red Oak about that size. I had to rope out a couple branches, notch and drop the top. I did clean up. Whole job was about 3 hrs for my son and I. Plus, I was running low on fire wood. Might have been 3/4 cord at best, Joe.

 

[rarefish383]

Plas, one thing to remember, just because you're small and just starting you don't have to work real cheap. You'll wind up doing more work on a given job than a big crew with a lot of equipment. I would assume you're getting a good portion of your work from word of mouth. If some one recomended you, the customer is probably allready sold on you. What you are doing now is building a customer base. What ever you're area will sustain, go for it. To just put them on the ground a couple hundred bucks might be OK, from the pics.

We had a climber that liked to call out on Fridays to go fishing. He'd say I made you a lot of money the first 4 days of the week. What he didn't understand was our rule of thumb was day one of the week paid for license, insurance, etc. Day 2 paid for equipment. Day 3 made payrole and day 4 paid for all the mis stuff. Day 5 was the day that we, the company, made money.

I think what might help you on your bids is if you pick a reasonable rate per hour that you are willing to work for and multiply it by the # of men on the job times how long you think it will take, you'll be OK. When you bid the job don't think, well I'd like $20 bucks an hour and I can get a kid to help for $8so that's $28 bucks an hour. Your hourly rate needs to be a rerasonable proffesional rate. Around here a reasonable rate for any contractor, plumbing, electrical, tree, is about $85 per man hour. Your area might not command that much. Call a plumbing contractor and ask for their hourly rate, electrician, even the small engine shop. That will give you a fair idea of rates in your area. Good luck, Joe.

 

[tree md]

Plas, one thing to remember, just because you're small and just starting you don't have to work real cheap. You'll wind up doing more work on a given job than a big crew with a lot of equipment. I would assume you're getting a good portion of your work from word of mouth. If some one recomended you, the customer is probably allready sold on you. What you are doing now is building a customer base. What ever you're area will sustain, go for it. To just put them on the ground a couple hundred bucks might be OK, from the pics.

We had a climber that liked to call out on Fridays to go fishing. He'd say I made you a lot of money the first 4 days of the week. What he didn't understand was our rule of thumb was day one of the week paid for license, insurance, etc. Day 2 paid for equipment. Day 3 made payrole and day 4 paid for all the mis stuff. Day 5 was the day that we, the company, made money.

I think what might help you on your bids is if you pick a reasonable rate per hour that you are willing to work for and multiply it by the # of men on the job times how long you think it will take, you'll be OK. When you bid the job don't think, well I'd like $20 bucks an hour and I can get a kid to help for $8so that's $28 bucks an hour. Your hourly rate needs to be a rerasonable proffesional rate. Around here a reasonable rate for any contractor, plumbing, electrical, tree, is about $85 per man hour. Your area might not command that much. Call a plumbing contractor and ask for their hourly rate, electrician, even the small engine shop. That will give you a fair idea of rates in your area. Good luck, Joe.

Wow, 1 day a week for profit???

I'd take a second look at your business model and a good hard look at your numbers. From what I see your numbers are low for man hours even by early 90's standards. If I wanted to make plumber or electrician's rates I would stick to the safety of the ground and work one of those trades...

 

[tree md]

Just realized that that last post might have sounded a little harsh. Didn't mean for it to. I was just a little taken aback by the low numbers and 1 day a week profit statement. With the economy in the crapper, it is what it is these days. I still bill higher than plumbers and electricians though. We have higher liability and more risk.

Best of luck.

 

[Norwayclimber]

Often I have homeowners tell me that all I have to do is get the tree down, and he'll do the rest.

I usually give a price as high as I think the market will hold, and then I add that in that price I'll cut the log into firelength pieces 30-40 cm.

Even though the homeowner has a chainsaw, it usually is a homeowner saw, with a dull chain (at least the chain soon will be dull). I usually explain that we do the cutting as a service thing, as cutting the log dosnt take long time for us with big saws. And then we leave all the time consuming branches and so on for the homeowner to cut and clean up.

Sells inn a lot of jobs, as the homeowner feels he's getting something almost for free, that would have taken him a long time (imagine a 20" dhb log with a dull 40cc saw and a 13" bar (standard barlength in Norway))

 

[rarefish383]

I knew I was setting myself up with that one. It was our way of trying to explain to workers, not allways business oriented, that you just can't afford to miss any days work when the sun was shining. The other thing was that if that climber didn't come in we wouldn't have work for the rest of his crew. So, we could throw them on the wood pile to have something for them to do, or send them home. If you put them on the wood pile or had them cut the grass at the office, 5 acres, you were operating at a loss. Dad took care of his guys even if he lost money on the day. The thing is in the Mid Atlantic area you are going to lose a good amount of working time due to weather. But, all of the bills keep roling. From late fall through spring you could plan on losing at least a day a week to weather, and in the summer, Dad wouldn't work the men if it went over 100 degrees out. He still paid them half a days pay though. I know that example was overly simplistic, but it put into perspective that if you're in business, you have to work today to pay for the day you can't work. Most of our men worked from pay check to pay checked and lived in rentals, and drove old junker cars or trucks. Dad tried to instill in them that you had to work to pay the bills first, and once that was done, the rest was profit. It didn't always work, Joe.

 

[tree md]

I knew I was setting myself up with that one. It was our way of trying to explain to workers, not allways business oriented, that you just can't afford to miss any days work when the sun was shining. The other thing was that if that climber didn't come in we wouldn't have work for the rest of his crew. So, we could throw them on the wood pile to have something for them to do, or send them home. If you put them on the wood pile or had them cut the grass at the office, 5 acres, you were operating at a loss. Dad took care of his guys even if he lost money on the day. The thing is in the Mid Atlantic area you are going to lose a good amount of working time due to weather. But, all of the bills keep roling. From late fall through spring you could plan on losing at least a day a week to weather, and in the summer, Dad wouldn't work the men if it went over 100 degrees out. He still paid them half a days pay though. I know that example was overly simplistic, but it put into perspective that if you're in business, you have to work today to pay for the day you can't work. Most of our men worked from pay check to pay checked and lived in rentals, and drove old junker cars or trucks. Dad tried to instill in them that you had to work to pay the bills first, and once that was done, the rest was profit. It didn't always work, Joe.

I certainly understand that. Your dad sounds like a good man.

Here's my thing, I shoot for $125 an hour minimum. Might not get that all the time but it is rare that I don't. Sometimes something don't work out as planned and the job doesn't go as smoothly as I thought and I miss my mark. I'm sure we all have those days. Most times I do better than my goal and I finish quicker than I thought. I always try to estimate with the worst case scenario in mind. I estimate on the longest I think it will take me. That way I keep the underbidding to a minimum.

I know a lot of guys like to bid at a certain rate and not vary from that. I would not be one of those guys. Sometimes I just look at a tree and tell myself that I am gonna have to make at least a grand for this one or I don't want to do it. If it's a risky one where there is the possibility that I could tear something up I'm charging a thousand to cover my deductible even if it only takes me 2 or three hours to do. It's hard to go by just a flat rate. Amount of liability and level of difficulty increases the value of the job. I hear guys say all the time that I charge so and so rate for bucket truck service and so on. More power to ya. I specialize in hazardous, hard to do trees and I'll set the price that I feel it's worth to me. The day I can't make it doing that I guess I'll become a plumber or electrician.

 

[danieltree]

I think one of my best business decisions was determining an hourly rate for my work. It is not applicable to a lot of jobs but helps out on whole yard prunes and such, keeps the customer from adding crazy stuff . I get calls to drop dead trees on empty lots often, I charge 100.00 a drop if it is not very technical. On jobs like the one you are doing its 300.00 . By the time you figure in your time to look at the job (50.00) Your time to get to the job(50.00) your time to do the job(200.00) its a fair price. Often my customers comes out better hiring me to do the whole job including debris.​

 

[rarefish383]

Tree md, I agree 100%. I bid by the job, not the hour. I was thinking the hourly thing might help Plaz to get up in a respectable price range. There are jobs I wouldn't dream of doing at an hourly rate. Big, dangerous take downs over high value property, you're paying for my ability and knowledge. I hope Plaz isn't trying to bite off that big a chew.

You made another good point, plan for the worse and hope for the best. One of the worse things that can get you around here is getting 3 or 4 hours into a job and the sky opens up, 2 or 3 times on that same job. But, that's life and part of being in business.

Allmost all of our work was residential in the high end neighborhoods of Potomac and Bethesda-ChevyChase. There's no way you could even dream of putting a bucket truck in one of those yards. We used many a 50 ton crain to lift stuff over houses out to the street. That was one of the reasons we stayed in business so long. There were times Dad bought whole bails of burlap to cover a whole yard to keep saw dust from getting in the grass. Others say he was nuts to do that, but because he would do that we got our price. I know that doesn't help Plaz, we had a 4 generation customer base.

Oh well, I'm off to the doctors, I think I might have bronchitis again, Joe.

 

[randyg]

I have a potential customer who wants two trees removed. (I have not been able to ID them yet). DBH is 14". Height is 40'. One will be felled into open field. The other will be climbed and mostly bombed. No chipping, no big wood removal, no busking. The customer wants to take it from there. I leave with two flush-cuts and he's happy. What do you think?

FYI I will have a pro with me since I am still green, but for the sake of this post let's assume it's a climber and a groundie.

WHY NOT NOTCH AND DROP THEM BOTH? Are you afraid you can't because of that rot? Should be plenty of hinge wood at waist or even chest height. Afraid tree leans toward house? From pics, does not look like more lean than a properly placed wedge can overcome. Why you can't put the second, on top of the one going into the field is unclear. Have you convinced home owner safest way is to piece it down? Has "the pro" looked at this one yet?

When in doubt, put a rope in it. Price? When working for people that can afford to pay, get what you can. When working for people who can't, work for as little or free if possible.

 

[lxt]

I think one of my best business decisions was determining an hourly rate for my work. It is not applicable to a lot of jobs but helps out on whole yard prunes and such, keeps the customer from adding crazy stuff . I get calls to drop dead trees on empty lots often, I charge 100.00 a drop if it is not very technical. On jobs like the one you are doing its 300.00 . By the time you figure in your time to look at the job (50.00) Your time to get to the job(50.00) your time to do the job(200.00) its a fair price. Often my customers comes out better hiring me to do the whole job including debris.​

Exactly, most forget the bid time involved, on this job from what the pic`s show......if no septic tank & neighbors are cool, throwball & a couple cumalongs, let them know yard damage maybe happen.

If they want no yard damage...then raise the price!! do you have something adequate to attach a cumalong to? or do you need to put your truck in the yard?............$300.00 is where Id be, a simple job can sometimes go slightly wrong to cause you that little extra time......always bill with that in mind!!


Good luck!


LXT...................

 

[Plasmech]

WHY NOT NOTCH AND DROP THEM BOTH? Are you afraid you can't because of that rot? Should be plenty of hinge wood at waist or even chest height. Afraid tree leans toward house? From pics, does not look like more lean than a properly placed wedge can overcome. Why you can't put the second, on top of the one going into the field is unclear. Have you convinced home owner safest way is to piece it down? Has "the pro" looked at this one yet?

When in doubt, put a rope in it. Price? When working for people that can afford to pay, get what you can. When working for people who can't, work for as little or free if possible.

You'd have to see it in person to understand why the one tree cannot be felled. The obstacles are a house, a propane tank head in the ground, and another tree. Not gonna happen. I know it's hard to see it in those pics.

 

[tree MDS]

I have a potential customer who wants two trees removed. (I have not been able to ID them yet). DBH is 14". Height is 40'. One will be felled into open field. The other will be climbed and mostly bombed. No chipping, no big wood removal, no busking. The customer wants to take it from there. I leave with two flush-cuts and he's happy. What do you think?

FYI I will have a pro with me since I am still green, but for the sake of this post let's assume it's a climber and a groundie.

I think I see at least one Pignut Hickory in those pics, the one with the closeup of the trunk.

 

[Plasmech]

I think I see at least one Pignut Hickory in those pics, the one with the closeup of the trunk.

Cool, I was wondering what that was.