land clearing bids

[pcdrifter]

I have been running my own tree removal and excavating business for 3 yrs. doing very well with residential removals. Another company contacted me about doing tree removal on a gas well site in my area. My company will clear the trees and his will do the site prep. Site is approx. 4 acres of PA hardwoods. Any help on bidding a clearing job would be appreciated.

 

[memetic]

I'm not an expert at tree removal yet, but I am pretty good at making business decisions. What I would do is go to the site and rope off a few random sections say 50' x 50' maybe more, maybe less, however much time you have. Then, get a count of how many trees in each of the areas. Average these out.

Then, take your rates that you have been using for the last three years and discount it by at least 50% of your down time (if you don't have any down time figure a bulk discount out). You can discount it more if times have been slow for you. You can discount it less if it's busy there. As a last resort, if you're worried about being underbid, you can tell them to bring you the low bid in writing and you can choose to beat it.

That's what I'd do. Good luck.

 

[Burvol]

Any valuable wood in there? Maybe you can do some logging too.

 

[Husky137]

You definitely don't bid it like a residential job. It couldn't hurt to find out what the other land clearing companies are charging. Most in my area charge by the acre or by the day. A 4 acre job would run around 7 or 8 grand if the timber is low quality and a lot of scrubby BS. Are you equipped to do a clearing job?

 

[memetic]

Any valuable wood in there? Maybe you can do some logging too.

Hopefully, he's got some connections after three years. I wouldn't figure that into the price unless the other company was expecting it though. That's the bonus money for the new in-ground pool, BMW, or whatever.

 

[Husky137]

Hopefully, he's got some connections after three years. I wouldn't figure that into the price unless the other company was expecting it though. That's the bonus money for the new in-ground pool, BMW, or whatever.

In a tight land clearing market, with very little new construction occurring, figuring in the value of timber on a job is a fact of life if you expect to be competitive.

 

[memetic]

"...unless the other company was expecting it though."

You never know, that's why I said that. Only pcdrifter knows what's going on there. If that's a factor for his area then yeah figure it in.

99% of our jobs I don't even have to use our trucks or trailers. I got a long list of people dying for free wood or willing to pay. They drop their trailers and we pack 'em full. We pull up to the jobs with our two door sports cars with our saws and gear in the trunks. No one knows but us that those trailers aren't ours and almost 50% of the time that their wood is being sold.

At the end of the day, it's all about the money you bring in for your workers and family (edit: and also doing a class A a job for your client). Make a decent offer and if you feel adventurous offer to beat a lower bid.

 

[Burvol]

"...unless the other company was expecting it though."

You never know, that's why I said that. Only pcdrifter knows what's going on there. If that's a factor for his area then yeah figure it in.

99% of our jobs I don't even have to use our trucks or trailers. I got a long list of people dying for free wood or willing to pay. They drop their trailers and we pack 'em full. We pull up to the jobs with our two door sports cars with our saws and gear in the trunks. No one knows but us that those trailers aren't ours and almost 50% of the time that their wood is being sold.

At the end of the day, it's all about the money you bring in for your workers and family (edit: and also doing a class A a job for your client). Make a decent offer and if you feel adventurous offer to beat a lower bid.

Sure, free wood is always wanted and can be delt with, but I was talking about some logs. That is plain theivery anyway you look at it if is held out of the light completely....unless the wood in not of that nature, or the people are that out of touch with what is going on, and just want the bottom line done. When your talking anywhere from 5-50K, Houston might have a problem!

 

[clearance]

"...unless the other company was expecting it though."

You never know, that's why I said that. Only pcdrifter knows what's going on there. If that's a factor for his area then yeah figure it in.

99% of our jobs I don't even have to use our trucks or trailers. I got a long list of people dying for free wood or willing to pay. They drop their trailers and we pack 'em full. We pull up to the jobs with our two door sports cars with our saws and gear in the trunks. No one knows but us that those trailers aren't ours and almost 50% of the time that their wood is being sold.

At the end of the day, it's all about the money you bring in for your workers and family (edit: and also doing a class A a job for your client). Make a decent offer and if you feel adventurous offer to beat a lower bid.

Shows up in a sports car, a two door sports car no less, and then takes merch logs in a less than honest manner. Whatever, I call b.s.

 

[memetic]

I was joking about the sports cars for dramatic effect. Sorry that riled some people up.

And guess what? The only time I take a client's wood from the site is if they do not want it. They do not even want to think about that wood, no less figure out how to sell it themselves. They don't care about the wood, they don't care about selling the wood. They don't care that I am selling it. ALL they care is that it's GONE and the only thought they had to put into the whole operation was hire our fine company that always leaves our clients impressed and referring us to others.

We aren't trying to trick clients, the point I was making is that we make extra money by being business savvy. We save money on truck time/fuel etc and many times even the loading by having a list of people to take away unwanted wood. Many times we get paid, if the wood is a sought after variety.

I'm sorry if the impression I gave made people think otherwise. I don't do shady business.

I'm also sorry that this turned into a big blah blah about stupid crap and isn't helping this guy one bit. Sorry dude. I'm going to stop posting here now, maybe someone else has got some advise. Sorry mine didn't work out.

edit: "or the people are that out of touch with what is going on..."
That's the other point I forgot to make and the main reason I brought the whole issue up that caused such a commotion. The reason I brought the whole thing up about not going the logging route is because the people called a guy who does residential work in the first place. Obviously, they aren't perfectly "IN TOUCH". Maybe they just don't care and and "just want the bottom line done" like you said, and what my intuition tells me they want.

If they don't care, then there is nothing shady about logging the site. They don't care. That was the point (not ripping off customers).

It's funny because usually those who start screaming against such and such (in this case shady business) are usually the ones who are doing it. Think gay republicans. I'm kidding of course, so don't get your panties in a wad.