charge customer for day with petrol log splitter?

[Logan]

We charge £25 per hour + fuel and travel at £0.45 per mile for a processor. Think if we charged some of the prices quoted here we would have no work for it.

 

Wish you weren't so far away, would give you a call.

 

However, £25 x 8 hrs = £200 plus £20 fuel, £10 transport, your up to £230. Plus VAT? What volume m3 loose could you average over say 5 days mate? Is that for 1 man/1 tractor/processor?

 

There's no fruit flies here in the alps, just beer and champagne and charcoal burners on their 4 month winter booze up.

[Woodworks]

Wish you weren't so far away, would give you a call.

 

However, £25 x 8 hrs = £200 plus £20 fuel, £10 transport, your up to £230. Plus VAT? What volume m3 loose could you average over say 5 days mate? Is that for 1 man/1 tractor/processor?

 

There's no fruit flies here in the alps, just beer and champagne and charcoal burners on their 4 month winter booze up.

 

No VAT

 

Never done 5 days straight but on day basis can do 15 tonnes so probably 30 m3 if good supply of straightish wood and machinery to keep the roundwood coming. 1 man with Farmi WP 36 which eats around 16-17 litres of petrol per day

 

It's all about the quality of the wood though. Lots of bendy lumpy stuff that needs a saw taking too it before processing might half the amount done in a day.

 

Sure there must be chaps up that way working for similar money. Thought there were a few on Ebay

Edited December 19, 2014 by Woodworks

[the village idiot]

There's no fruit flies here in the alps, just beer and champagne and charcoal burners on their 4 month winter booze up.

 

The only mountains I'll be experiencing for the next 4 months are those mammoth log piles you've left me after your superb work around the pond! :thumbup:

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

i regularly hire out my wallenstein with two men for £540 a day thats £180x2 for the labour and £180 for the machine.For that providing the woods already diced they can get 26cube split. if they were to buy that amount of wood delivered from me it would cost between £2-3grand everyones happy. £60 aday !!! dont you mean an hour?

 

£540; that's nuts and unbelievable in an impoverished county.

 

One thing I will say is that it's a bit of a mission to transport, load and unload the machine, so make sure you have a low trailer with smooth ramps.

I went for the ls65 to save weight, and it's still not easy.

Cracking machine, mind. I'm well pleased with it.

 

I'd want £200 a day.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

 

Keep the machine in the trailer (Ifor P7e in my case) and just process left to right assuming you can reverse right up to timber. Will take pics next time we do it.

[Mark Bolam]

Please John, sounds much more efficient.

 

 

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[Dog Tag]

how much you want/need to make in a day depends on what sort of outfit your running. Someone who has minimal equipment- few saws and hand tools etc with barely any business costs- high insurance/finance/yard rental etc would be doing quite well if they earnt say £130 a day for some relatively basic chainsaw/hedge work (for example).

On the other side of the spectrum- well established tree surgery outfits with plenty of machines/yard high insurance could easily be needing £130 a day just in running costs before they,ve even begun to earn themselves a wage, a personal wage of £24k a year is roughly £100 per working day, add the above running costs of £130 and that's £230 a day before the business has actually even earnt a profit. So in short in response to OPs question- could be anywhere between £150-350 .... Just work out your own costs and don't worry too much about others- as long as you can get the work and you are happy with what you are making- all is good:thumbup1:

 

Nailed mate

[Dog Tag]

Get the client sayin I could do that much cheaper. Off you pop. Hire splitter, get it delivered, fuel it and your time, clean up, if he dosnt chop his arm off or other accident. Recon I'm cheaper in the long run.. Will get the wife's permission.ring u tomorrow

[Logan]

Round here, don't know anyone who splits 30m3 a day for £230. Then again, to do that amount would involve a loader/extra man to shuttle the cord, and deal with the output, that would cost same again? Say 5 days at £500, maybe 25m3 a day not allowing for bendy non conforming logs, looking at £20 per m3 at best, if everything was organised and like you say, good processor grade wood.

 

In poorer grade wood, then, 15m3 per day? Over £30/m3.

 

2 of us just been working through 50t of mixed size cord this last week that's sat for a year, we've split it into billet bundles. Sawing to 1.1m as we go, we did 14m3 first day, then 16, 17, on my own for part of 4th day did 6, that was all the good bits, then done 11, 12 on the ugly, got ~ 10 left for next Tues, leaving another day to ring up the super uglies and split. That's 7 x 2 men, plus my part day. = ~15 man days for ~ 100m3, about 7 m3 / man/day or 14m3 per day as team. We're using tractor and 30t horizontal, plus a 20t vertical for the uglies, a excavator log loader plus saws, fuel, insurance, ppe, work truck. This pile's been mostly fragile birch, sycamore and beech, only the ash split nice. A fair proportion was cranky 2ft diameter stuff, so pretty slow going.

If priced at £20/m3 we'd get £280/day then for 2 men and all that kit. Can't do that wood for that price. Would be working for zero wages.

£30/m3 would be around £450 day, is bit nearer the mark I think for the grade of wood.

 

If our mate there is charging £180/day, perhaps the volume split per day is proportional to the charge?

 

Or it could be that we here are greedy lazy boys.

[mixedangased]

So my overheads and insurance etc are cheaper because I'm using a log splitter are they? My outgoings don't alter just because I take a smaller machine, well apart from the fuel. They can take it or leave it, I ain't a mug, after 13 years in this game you learn a lot and one thing is don't be too cheap!