Milling job in Sutton

[Johnsond]

10 minutes ago, doobin said:

I was thinking around £450 plus band charges. 
 

I run a lot of gear as many of you know, and my reckoning is it’s good to be diverse and have a multitude of things that can make you that money as a wage each day in case more lucrative quoted jobs are short on the ground or you just fancy an easy week. Stops me getting bored. 
 

Just need to make it the next four years so the finance is paid off 🤣

£45-50per hr plus bands is fair enough. Totally understand the benefits of being able to turn your hand to multiple things to make a crust. 

[doobin]

1 hour ago, Johnsond said:

£45-50per hr plus bands is fair enough. Totally understand the benefits of being able to turn your hand to multiple things to make a crust. 

I plant to offer it with the MultiOne for £450 a day- both should fit on the wagon/trailer, and the loader won't be doing much work. Just replacing a man, which is what it's all about for me.

[Johnsond]

Just now, doobin said:

I plant to offer it with the MultiOne for £450 a day- both should fit on the wagon/trailer, and the loader won't be doing much work. Just replacing a man, which is what it's all about for me.

That would be a very effective and marketable  combination. 

[muttley9050]

I paid £350 a day for man and woodmizer for a day on-site.

I earn that without the mill most days, why would I take £20k worth of kit, sharpening etc etc for the same money?

Woodmisers cant mill the trees I can.

 

[muttley9050]

I plant to offer it with the MultiOne for £450 a day- both should fit on the wagon/trailer, and the loader won't be doing much work. Just replacing a man, which is what it's all about for me.

For me sawmilling big 4ft plus diameter trees, I would be losing money at £450 a day with the Lucas.
I see it like this.
I can easily earn £280 to £350 with a trowel and a level in a 5 mile radius of home.
So that's my starting rate. Then I charge for the fuel the mill uses£20
Blade costs are in the price excluding metal damage. The Sutton job in question is 1.5 hours drive for me. Each way.
Then,
Evening before 1.5 hours loading, sorting, buying fuel, checking oil again.
After the job
1 hour unloading, blowing off etc.
There is probably 2 hours of sharpening/blade repairs to do.
Allow 30 mins maintenance on the mill.
So that's a days milling, plus 8 hours extra work, plus money back on the mill.
What's the point in doing it for less than £600.
Irs more involved than taking out a Woodmiser because it isn't trailer mounted. If I'm cutting 5ft diameter oajs into slabs I'm cheap.

[doobin]

1 hour ago, muttley9050 said:

For me sawmilling big 4ft plus diameter trees, I would be losing money at £450 a day with the Lucas.
I see it like this.
I can easily earn £280 to £350 with a trowel and a level in a 5 mile radius of home.
So that's my starting rate. Then I charge for the fuel the mill uses£20
Blade costs are in the price excluding metal damage. The Sutton job in question is 1.5 hours drive for me. Each way.
Then,
Evening before 1.5 hours loading, sorting, buying fuel, checking oil again.
After the job
1 hour unloading, blowing off etc.
There is probably 2 hours of sharpening/blade repairs to do.
Allow 30 mins maintenance on the mill.
So that's a days milling, plus 8 hours extra work, plus money back on the mill.
What's the point in doing it for less than £600.
Irs more involved than taking out a Woodmiser because it isn't trailer mounted. If I'm cutting 5ft diameter oajs into slabs I'm cheap.

You need to get a bit more efficient at the maintenance and unloading by the sound of it! An hour to unload and blow off, wtf! 🤣 Backpack blower on site, get home, unhitch or forklift off. Let alone and hour and a half to load up and check the oil on a 14hp single cylinder petrol, don't be silly. And perhaps try keeping a few ten litre jerry cans handy, filling up at a garage is a total waste of time in my book, I have 150l of petrol and 2000l of diesel most of the time.

 

I take your point about pricing and what you can earn bricklaying, but I can't see many takers at £600 a day although good luck if you get that rate, I'm not knocking you, anyone can be a busy fool and it's good you value your time. At £450 a day plus any blade damage this mill will easily pay it's way (it costs about the same as an auger plus breaker for a mini digger for crying out loud). It's a relatively unique service that can easily be sold as a bolt on to a tree job when the rest of the kit is already on site. No brainer.

 

For me, it's not about what I can earn bricklaying (which I hate anyway 🤣), in my business it's about how many times you can duplicate yourself by putting men in the cabs and behind the controls of your machines. I then just drift about and do what I fancy (usually welding and running the yard). Works for me. But if you are a one man band then I agree it's best for you to make every day as profitable as possible. For me, there's a sweet spot and I need to keep a volume of work/recommendations coming as well.

 

I'm also keen to see how much I can save by doing things like halving sleepers for thinner sleeper walls (might warp too much but worth a go), milling my own oak or chestnut posts (£110 net to buy here, I resell on the quote for £160, got to be some money there) and milling basic things like 4x4 posts (costing £16 to buy these days). My local sawmill are great but everything is a month's lead time.

Edited April 2, 2022 by doobin

[william127]

15 minutes ago, doobin said:

You need to get a bit more efficient at the maintenance and unloading by the sound of it! An hour to unload and blow off, wtf! 🤣 Backpack blower on site, get home, unhitch or forklift off. Let alone and hour and a half to load up and check the oil on a 14hp single cylinder petrol, don't be silly. And perhaps try keeping a few ten litre jerry cans handy, filling up at a garage is a total waste of time in my book, I have 150l of petrol and 2000l of diesel most of the time.

 

I take your point about pricing and what you can earn bricklaying, but I can't see many takers at £600 a day although good luck if you get that rate, I'm not knocking you, anyone can be a busy fool and it's good you value your time. At £450 a day plus any blade damage this mill will easily pay it's way (it costs about the same as an auger plus breaker for a mini digger for crying out loud). It's a relatively unique service that can easily be sold as a bolt on to a tree job when the rest of the kit is already on site. No brainer.

 

For me, it's not about what I can earn bricklaying (which I hate anyway 🤣), in my business it's about how many times you can duplicate yourself by putting men in the cabs and behind the controls of your machines. I then just drift about and do what I fancy (usually welding and running the yard). Works for me. But if you are a one man band then I agree it's best for you to make every day as profitable as possible. For me, there's a sweet spot and I need to keep a volume of work/recommendations coming as well.

 

I'm also keen to see how much I can save by doing things like halving sleepers for thinner sleeper walls (might warp too much but worth a go), milling my own oak or chestnut posts (£110 net to buy here, I resell on the quote for £160, got to be some money there) and milling basic things like 4x4 posts (costing £16 to buy these days). My local sawmill are great but everything is a month's lead time.

@doobin I'm really glad you're buying a mill at this time, I think we have pretty similar ways of thinking/doing jobs, and it's like you're writing down all the reasoning behind buying a mill for me😄😄😄👍 cheers!

[muttley9050]

You need to get a bit more efficient at the maintenance and unloading by the sound of it! An hour to unload and blow off, wtf! 🤣 Backpack blower on site, get home, unhitch or forklift off. Let alone and hour and a half to load up and check the oil on a 14hp single cylinder petrol, don't be silly. And perhaps try keeping a few ten litre jerry cans handy, filling up at a garage is a total waste of time in my book, I have 150l of petrol and 2000l of diesel most of the time.

 

I take your point about pricing and what you can earn bricklaying, but I can't see many takers at £600 a day although good luck if you get that rate, I'm not knocking you, anyone can be a busy fool and it's good you value your time. At £450 a day plus any blade damage this mill will easily pay it's way (it costs about the same as an auger plus breaker for a mini digger for crying out loud). It's a relatively unique service that can easily be sold as a bolt on to a tree job when the rest of the kit is already on site. No brainer.

 

For me, it's not about what I can earn bricklaying (which I hate anyway 🤣), in my business it's about how many times you can duplicate yourself by putting men in the cabs and behind the controls of your machines. I then just drift about and do what I fancy (usually welding and running the yard). Works for me. But if you are a one man band then I agree it's best for you to make every day as profitable as possible. For me, there's a sweet spot and I need to keep a volume of work/recommendations coming as well.

 

I'm also keen to see how much I can save by doing things like halving sleepers for thinner sleeper walls (might warp too much but worth a go), milling my own oak or chestnut posts (£110 net to buy here, I resell on the quote for £160, got to be some money there) and milling basic things like 4x4 posts (costing £16 to buy these days). My local sawmill are great but everything is a month's lead time.

Like I said it's more involved than taking out a woodmizer. There is a lot of individual pieces to load and secure. I don't take a trailer so everything is loaded onto a Ford ranger super cab. You can claim you know how inefficient I am if it makes you feel better but you know nothing of my setup.

Parts of the mill are stored in 3 different places on the property.

Lots of other equipment to load.

If I rush I can get the loading done in a hour but it is usually after a hard days work and I don't charge my time out at rushing around like a blue arse fly.

Most of the milling I do is cutting oak beams or huge slabs. Which are all manually moved, I don't charge lightly for this.

 

As I said I don't want to contract mill anyway. My mill is used for my own timber supply and timber sales. Most enquiries I get that I don't pass or refuse, my quotes are accepted, so I think you might be surprised how many people are willing to pay that much. There is also not many people offering the service of a mobile mill to cut plane and thickness 5ft slabs though.

 

You crack on with how you do it but my prices aren't changing. I like to work 3 or 4 days a week and that suits me.

 

 

For the record I hate bricklaying to and dont do much of it. But it was a good example of another job I can do with very few tools or outlay.

[doobin]

I'm not knocking you for getting as high a day rate as possible. But trying to justify it because it takes you ages to collect together all the bits and somehow fit them all on a little pickup truck is just silly IMHO, when it could all be on a trailer ready to go.

 

Justify it as a unique service, wide boards and planed/thickenesed- that's where the extra money is for sure. I'd pay the extra for thicknessing if I needed it.

[muttley9050]

I'm not knocking you for getting as high a day rate as possible. But trying to justify it because it takes you ages to collect together all the bits and somehow fit them all on a little pickup truck is just silly IMHO, when it could all be on a trailer ready to go.

 

Justify it as a unique service, wide boards and planed/thickenesed- that's where the extra money is for sure. I'd pay the extra for thicknessing if I needed it.

I'm not leaving 20+ks worth of kit on a trailer. And you say im silly

And I'm not trying to justify it. Just explaining how I got there