Best legal vehicle combination

[Tom D]

Your preaching to the choir mate:001_smile: I probably have invested about £100k worth of kit, some jobs I can beast others I can't, I have equipped myself according to my workload

 

I'm a big believer in having the right gear for the job- no point struggling with inferior equipment, but I also believe that every setup has its place.

My point though was that not everyone's aspirations are the same. Some are happy pottering around with a fairly modest setup with modest jobs lots of tea breaks and early finishes.

On the other hand you can have the mega bucks kit, but if you don't have the right kind of jobs it's not going to pay for itself let alone turn a decent profit.

 

I bet there's blokes out there who are making more profit with truck and cs100 per outlay than the big tree eating machines.

 

That's maybe true, but that shows that it's all about the brains behind the business. Not the kit that you have. However there's only so much a transit and 6" chipper can make in a year. If you want to earn decent money you need to think big. There are guys with huge amounts of specialist kit who will make extremely good money, but it takes a lot of organising and you need to be proper dedicated. We are somewhere in between.

 

I think that the guys running small kit dishing out holier than thou sermons to the rest of us need to take a look at their own situation. And perhaps spend a couple of quid visiting a public weighbridge. In fact anyone who can post a picture of a fully loaded 3.5 tonner on a weighbridge and show me that it's legal gets £50 fr Jones voucher courtesy of TD Trees.

[Mike Hill]

Lets look at the maths here?..

 

Tom, if he's any good would price the job much the same as anyone else, a fifty foot conifer is still a fifty foot conifer no matter who looks at it.. it aught be priced much the same by Tom as anyone else..

 

The advantage Tom has is speed.. he can get the job done quicker..

 

But, what advantage does Tom have if speed isn't an issue?..

 

If Toms spends thousands on gear then Tom needs to get a rush on, he's under pressure to complete more jobs..

 

Now Pete, he's spent a few grand but not half as much as Tom, he can afford to take a more relaxed attitude to his days work.. no rush to crack on and get to the next job..

 

Maths please,not supposition.

 

Tom can do 5K a week,Dick can do 3K

 

Tom makes 40% more per week

Tom also uses a Tractor (A Valtra)

Runs on Red Diesel

Has only one Engine

Four tyres instead of the Eight on a Chipper and Tranny

Eats big bits so the saws run less

Has a higher value when traded in

 

Do you do Tree work Vespasian?I am curious as from memory you are yet to post a single picture of your set up.

[Mick Dempsey]

Different strokes for different folks.

 

If everyone had the same business model it'd be a dull old world.

 

There's room at every level.

[Matthew Storrs]

It's tricky because once you go down the route of big jobs. You generally price yourself out of the smaller ones.

Using Tom as an example. His Valtra won't fit down an alleyway, so he either has to also have a narrow access outfit (which in turn needs to have the regular work) or he doesn't entertain the job and let's the smaller outfits do what they do best.

 

I speak from slightly bitter experience in that I have in the past bought bigger kit because I had a lot of work for it at the time, all was great and then a turn in different kind of jobs rendered the machine sitting in the yard for a few months at a time.

 

That was in part laziness on my part as cos I had work I didn't push for machine specific jobs which I guess you should do really.

[Mick Dempsey]

The other factor is boredom.

 

After a decade of feeding a tw150 and handballing every bit of wood you cut you feel you have to move forward or leave the game.

[Mike Hill]

It's tricky because once you go down the route of big jobs. You generally price yourself out of the smaller ones.

Using Tom as an example. His Valtra won't fit down an alleyway, so he either has to also have a narrow access outfit (which in turn needs to have the regular work) or he doesn't entertain the job and let's the smaller outfits do what they do best.

 

I speak from slightly bitter experience in that I have in the past bought bigger kit because I had a lot of work for it at the time, all was great and then a turn in different kind of jobs rendered the machine sitting in the yard for a few months at a time.

 

That was in part laziness on my part as cos I had work I didn't push for machine specific jobs which I guess you should do really.

 

If your business has evolved into the larger jobs,then it is wise to retain the paid off smaller kit.Small kit makes small money fast,Big kit makes big money faster.

[Tom D]

Tbh Mathew the mog is no wider than the transit was and it's actually more manoeuvrable. I don't mind having kit sitting around. It tends to hold its money and it's there when you need it. I hadn't used the heizohack since April, and then I just did 5k with it in 3 days this week. I have a bandit 250 sitting there that has only done 1 job!

[Vespasian]

Maths please,not supposition.

 

 

 

Do you do Tree work Vespasian?I am curious as from memory you are yet to post a single picture of your set up.

 

I'm working on my set up as we speak.. been working on it for a year or two now..

 

when I'm happy with my set up I'll post a pick or two.. its a one man band, an I'll be keeping it compact...

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

Well that put the cat amongst the pigeons!

 

The picture that started this big v small debate was intended simply as an example of the potential benefit of breaking from the apparent forged mindset of "truck & chipper" which seems to prevail.

 

The illustration was simply offered as a consideration for the OP since there isn't really any inspirational alternative being presented, other than going big. And there appears to be an aversion to going small for anything other than Mrs Miggins' small Apple tree.

 

Thanks for all the insightful comments on the job in the picture, I'm guessing some of you must have visited the site to be so well informed? You'd remember the walled garden to the rear with a narrow entrance? You'd remember that approx 1/2 the chip (the stuff off the other side of the crown) was being retained in the garden and that, short of craning it in, you wouldn't get a towed chipper in there? You'd realise also that dragging all the brash out to roadside to achieve the efficiency of a big chipper would be negated by every barrow load you had to heave back in?

 

Tom & Dick can please themselves, Kev's happy to put the right tool to the right job and match the man / machine combo to suit the prevailing circumstances 😁

 

Don't be a Dick, be like Kev 😂

[dan494]

How often do you chaps actually leave the woodchip behind? I doubt we do more than once a year. Only time I think a smaller not tow behind chipper would be useful if through the house jobs to get the price down but tbh I'm happy enough charging the extra or not getting the job!

 

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