Price This

[Mr Ed]

To continue with the crane theme,

On that beech tree I would spend an hour at the most lifting down the trunk, and getting it away from site in 12 foot lengths.

Without a crane its going to take 2 hours minimum to chunk it down, another 2 hours quatering all the rings, loading them in the tipper, more time sweeping up your sawdust, loading tiping etc.

 

I will be long gone whilst your still chunking down. Ergo, I will earn far more per hour than you will, with less staff overheads.

 

Put it this way - Harvesting contractors can put timber to roadside with a £1/2 million of equipment for a 1/4 of what hand cutters can. how long do you think they would be in business if they thought - 'hey. I've spent all this money on a harvester, I deserve to charge much more than a man on a saw'

 

Basic laws of economics...

[Tree cutter Stu]

if that was in guildford you would be looking at £1400 1.5 days 3 men.All rigged down and chiped with 1 load of wood with a 8 wheeler grab.

[Tom D]

I think its very hard to have a consistant day rate between jobs, that job would rtake me a say and a half with my current setup, skyhuck with his crane could do it in a day. I have competitors who have cranes so I need to stay competetive. On another job recently i charged out at £650 per man day, you just have to take what you can get without riping people off. Anywhere from £800 to 1200 is not a bad price for that job, as for £400 - £600 i don't know how you make any money at that price, if you'd like to share you're secrets... i'd love to know.

[arbormaster]

it could be done with a two man team in a day without doubt. £600 a day for a two man team aint bad where i am. i do however have a free tip for timber and chips

[Lee Winger]

£1200 plus vat and I'll get skyhuck in to do it for me!

 

 

Spot on

[Mesterh]

Especially the guy who owns a crane, surely you should charge more for specialist equipment? otherwise whats the point in owning a crane?

 

Think about it this way if you had no chainsaws and chipper would you charge less to take that tree down with a bow saw and stack it all in your truck?

 

I remember one of the older guys who i worked with said that chippers are brilliant, save you time,effort and are cheaper in the long run. But it allows you to do more work quicker and if there aint alot of work about you run out of it faster.

If that makes any sense, im sure he explained it a bit better than that

 

I'm in no way criticsing your way of thinking, tbh it should be that way the more specialist gear we have the more the money we should be able to command, and if you can get money like that all the time then your are a far better salesman than myself.

[Lee Winger]

it could be done with a two man team in a day without doubt.

 

 

I don't think so

[Tom D]

it could be done with a two man team in a day without doubt. £600 a day for a two man team aint bad where i am. i do however have a free tip for timber and chips

 

 

With a crane yes, without no, to cut up all that timber into liftable pieces would take a couple of hours at least, then you have to manhandle it all into your truck, unless you have an 18 tonner there's more than one trip.

[arbormaster]

I don't think so

 

well... should i say that me and my groundie could have that done in a day. I'm not entering in to a argument over it, If you don't think you could then thats fine

[Lee Winger]

Crane = same money with only 10% of the effort.

 

Mani, in one way I admire your atitude BUT...

I can only say that you will probabaly suffer a great deal in the coming recession. I think its unreasnoble to earn £1000 a day profit out of domestic treework

I have run Tubgrinders, 500hp chippers, forwarders, excavators and harvesters - mega ££££ worth of kit and rarely earned that kind of money.

 

 

I recently paid 3 scaffolders £3,000+vat for 2 days work and the hire of the scaffold for a year..

 

If you cant earn a clear thousand now and then we must be in the crappiest industry onf them all, If I took all that kit you mentioned above on a job Ed and didn't clear a grand i'd jack!