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Hey all,

In the last few weeks been doing some emergency and after hours work, few trees fallen on properties and truck half knocked over a reasonable sized conifer, due to high winds forecast we ended up working well into dark to get it down and make it safe as it was overhanging a road.

Just wondering all those out there who do 24hr work and emergency call outs, how do you go about costing them?

-if the work is started in the working day but has to overrun how do you quote it? is it a surcharge for every hour after normal finish time, or is it a flat cost for after hours?

-Same for emergency works if call comes in at 10pm or 2am how do you cost it? do you just put call out fee on it?

We don't have many that early on in the morn but it has happened before

Any help would be much appreciated.

Cheers guys

I would say £60 minor if the job going to take less that an hour the £30 per hour per man there after

That sounds very cheap to me.

Not sure I would want my night disturbed for that sort of money.

Same here, i would not get out of bed and go do an hours work at 1am in the morning for 60 quid.

I don't currently do call outs but if it was me, regardless of what time of day it was and i was on call, there would be set call out fee say £200. Then i would charge per hour per person working. Some calls out will only take 2 people an hour, some may require 2 teams working on it so that's two of your normal jobs put on hold and anywhere from 4-6 people working on it.

Sorry chaps it a quick reply I meant just day time stuff never priced for night stuff but depending on the job 2.5 hours per man min

I've never done any out of hours work but I'd probably bill a min of 3 hours (even if it was a 10 min jpb) on any job outside normal hours (say between 6pm and 8am). £50 per person per hour.
I would also only make the site safe enough that it's no longer an immediate hazard & return the next day to finish up (then charge more).

I got called out to rescue a cat a month back. I was there for an hour and a quarter. charged £65 quid. It's what a plumber charges for an emergency call out. i though it was fair but my wife thought i was a thieving git. It was after work. getting on to twilight. fire brigade and RSPCA had both refused to come out. Cat had been up thee for two days and was only a few months old.

As i got close with treats and cage cat got scared and went out on some tips above a road and wouldn't come in. i got the owner and some neighbours to get out my hedge trimming tarp and hold it underneath. shock the cat out the tree onto the tarp. Now that was one pissed pussy. still it probably won't be climbing a tree any time soon.

I think if i was called out in the night I would charge £200 straight up even for a tiny job and then escalate it from there depending on man power, duration, risk etc.

I would have said double your normal dayrate. If your up all night, your not going to be working the next day. That said...I wouldn't do it anyway...I'm just not interested in doing treework in the dark, in extra-hazardous conditions..its not worth the money I'd end up with in my pocket

At least treble time.

The minimum would depend quite a bit on how much you also have to pay the other crew member/s.

I know for a fact I wouldnt be going out for less than a full days pay even if it was only a 10 minute job and I wouldnt expect anyone else to not get the same.