Grounds Maintenance Team Day Rate

[ChunksBigBro]

For the sake of a real comparison i would be genuinly interested for one of you arb guys to post up a non bull **** list of your kit that you need to do your run of the mill days work, im talking just the 90% of the arb world run of the mill reducing and felling commercial trees (NON FORESTRY) . EXCLUDING the big companies that run MOGS and Artics with grabs, as i could start harping about tractors with flail arms and impact protection vehicles, so for this lets just keep it basic, a run of the mill day pollarding street trees with a 3.5 / 7 Tonner, Ill list a run of the mill kit list with prices for Standard Commercial GM, im genuine, no bull ****, just a fair comparison.... 2 man crew.... (dont include wages for this, just kit)

 

3.5T Tipper Van - £23,500

Plant Trailer - £2300

Ride on Triple Mower- £38,000

2 x Etesia Push Mowers - £1750

2 x FS 400 - £1400

1 x BR600 - £500

Line Marker - £850

1 x HL95 - £600

Weedkiller Sprayer - £120

 

=£69K for the Kit + Daily Wages of the crew who by the way arnt just any old john boy as weve only got skilled guys who dont damage things and smash windows all the time

[GTS]

Hi ChunksBigBro,

I run a garden maintenance business and Tree Surgery Operations. I feel that to make a direct black and white comparison between what you have spent on wonderful kit to how much you charge for a days work is missing the point when it comes to the wonderful world of the Tree Surgeon. Respectfully, I am not asking you to suck eggs but a Tree Surgeon has had to pass many long and expensive courses, have an understanding of so many areas in which have been gleaned off the back of others, vastly more experienced than themselves.

This cannot be bought, read from a book and involves life and limb and ultimately the bottom line.

Further more Tree Surgery is a profession, so is grass cutting and maintenance but not quite in the same respect, no ones going to tell me how to cut grass, however, the degree of difficulty in Tree Surgery is completely different, so, maybe that's why you may struggle to justify not being able to charge more for slinging the mower, stimmer around against a climber dismantling ,rigging down a mature specimen from 65-80ft up top.

And as with your bottom line too, you will have known what you can achieve before investing in all this kit and what you can push to, so keep pushing until you reach your ceiling(what people will pay for)

Im not trying to patronise, you can spend millions and still not earn any more than a crew who do the basics cleanly and efficiently

 

Hope that explains a little

 

Good luck

[eagleye]

Hi ChunksBigBro,

I run a garden maintenance business and Tree Surgery Operations. I feel that to make a direct black and white comparison between what you have spent on wonderful kit to how much you charge for a days work is missing the point when it comes to the wonderful world of the Tree Surgeon. Respectfully, I am not asking you to suck eggs but a Tree Surgeon has had to pass many long and expensive courses, have an understanding of so many areas in which have been gleaned off the back of others, vastly more experienced than themselves.

This cannot be bought, read from a book and involves life and limb and ultimately the bottom line.

Further more Tree Surgery is a profession, so is grass cutting and maintenance but not quite in the same respect, no ones going to tell me how to cut grass, however, the degree of difficulty in Tree Surgery is completely different, so, maybe that's why you may struggle to justify not being able to charge more for slinging the mower, stimmer around against a climber dismantling ,rigging down a mature specimen from 65-80ft up top.

And as with your bottom line too, you will have known what you can achieve before investing in all this kit and what you can push to, so keep pushing until you reach your ceiling(what people will pay for)

Im not trying to patronise, you can spend millions and still not earn any more than a crew who do the basics cleanly and efficiently

 

Hope that explains a little

 

Good luck

 

training and experience are not part of this debate

as both employers can employ staff that are qualified and experienced at no cost to themselves

albeit a climber may earn/cost more than a GM operative

 

to the O/P

day rate can vary vastly due to overheads

work from home Verse an office

2 man band verse medium size company with non productive office staff

the day rate has to be whatever is right for you

only you know your overheads and how much profit you would like to earn

[Billy]

For the sake of a real comparison i would be genuinly interested for one of you arb guys to post up a non bull **** list of your kit that you need to do your run of the mill days work, im talking just the 90% of the arb world run of the mill reducing and felling commercial trees (NON FORESTRY) . EXCLUDING the big companies that run MOGS and Artics with grabs, as i could start harping about tractors with flail arms and impact protection vehicles, so for this lets just keep it basic, a run of the mill day pollarding street trees with a 3.5 / 7 Tonner, Ill list a run of the mill kit list with prices for Standard Commercial GM, im genuine, no bull ****, just a fair comparison.... 2 man crew.... (dont include wages for this, just kit)

 

 

 

3.5T Tipper Van - £23,500

 

Plant Trailer - £2300

 

Ride on Triple Mower- £38,000

 

2 x Etesia Push Mowers - £1750

 

2 x FS 400 - £1400

 

1 x BR600 - £500

 

Line Marker - £850

 

1 x HL95 - £600

 

Weedkiller Sprayer - £120

 

 

 

=£69K for the Kit + Daily Wages of the crew who by the way arnt just any old john boy as weve only got skilled guys who dont damage things and smash windows all the time

 

 

It there's another assumption, quite a few on here run mogs and HGVs cranes etc that I would not consider to be 'bigger companies'. But we wouldn't have that stuff if it didn't have a use so just ignoring the bigger kit makes the comparison floored from the start. However as has been said the main issue is people can cut their own grass and small hedges but they can't fell and process or dismantle most trees. But as with anything efficiency is the key, which is why some choose to use more extravagant (for want of a better word) equipment to carry out 'everyday Arb work'.

[ChunksBigBro]

Each to their own, I'm not here to shoot anyone down, we all do it different ways, different kit, and as gets brought up over again charges should be costs + profit whoever you are, any way I hijacked this thread, so I'll end this derail as it was my fault! I agree The industry allows what the others have posted, would be great to see it being higher, but in reality those figures are about right

[NickinMids]

There's two ways of pricing anything...day rate or fixed price. Your fixed price should aim to beat day rate as you have the risk. With GM you have to think what separates us from the one or two man band who have bought a van and two cheap mowers with their redundancy money and probably do a tidy job on some smaller sites. Larger kit waste disposal, the paperwork backup required by larger client organisations and of course waiting much longer to get paid. I find the smaller subbies always want to base it on day rates but big firms give a fixed price and wont consider day rates