chipper hire

[dalburt]

hi guys

my back ground is in groundsman ship/ greenkeeping 17yrs + i have cs 30 31 but in the next month iam being made redundant and jobs are short on the ground. I was contemplating buying a chipper and hiring it out as chipper&operator is their a good market for this and is it profitable after the over heads insurance ,chipper ticket etc any comments ,views appreciated

 

thanks

[slack ma girdle]

That would be quite an investment to get a half decent chipper. Might be worth spending a morning phoning around the tree companies in your area to see what interest there is.

[Dean O]

we marketed chipper hire with op for approx six months while we ran two chippers, vans etc.

 

Didnt find a very large market for it, though we did generate some work from it I didnt see it as a worthwhile part of our business. and difficult to juggle alongside our main contracting as these sort of jobs often needed doing tommorow not in 6 weeks time

 

those domestic clients that enquire about the service were generally the sort that did it themselves to save money so this is a consideration when looking at what you require for a day rate.

 

also in most cases chip needed to be removed from site so is another consideration.

 

you may end up with a tipper, chipper and a chainsaw to process the odd branch or bit of timber.

 

think i worked it out that we required a min of £35/hour to break even on our running costs

[Hodge]

I'm with Dean on this, I used to offer mine out for hire with operator, I would go and look and give a price, most of the time the branches are just dumped on the drive etc in a heap not butt first or cut propery to fit through a chipper so you gotta sort that out then whenyou go back to do the job the pile has grown. If people call up and ask about chipper hire I tell em stack it butt first on the drive and then I would go and chip it for £80 for the first hour with a minimum of 1 hour, anything under an hour is £80. If the chip has to be taken away then that's extra. Take it or leave it.

[dalburt]

thanks guys for your posts like you say it might be to much of an investment if i don't have a regular income coming in cheers

[samthescam]

I'm with Dean on this, I used to offer mine out for hire with operator, I would go and look and give a price, most of the time the branches are just dumped on the drive etc in a heap not butt first or cut propery to fit through a chipper so you gotta sort that out then whenyou go back to do the job the pile has grown. If people call up and ask about chipper hire I tell em stack it butt first on the drive and then I would go and chip it for £80 for the first hour with a minimum of 1 hour, anything under an hour is £80. If the chip has to be taken away then that's extra. Take it or leave it.

 

Do you charge that just to domestic clients, or to smaller firms without a chipper as well?

[Hodge]

Do you charge that just to domestic clients, or to smaller firms without a chipper as well?

 

Just domestic really mate, I know most tree surgeons in my area have chippers but if one wanted some chipping doing then I would price depending on the job, as us in the game know how to stack and process ready for chipping.