Starting a part time brush cutting business

[jhellwig]

I am thinking of starting a brushcutting/trimming business. I have an fs86 handle bar to start out small with. I would possibly consider getting enough work to maybe expand and/or go full time. I am aiming to do brush, weed and grass trimming where tractor powered equipment can't go ie pond dams steep hills and electric fence lines. I think this is a viable business idea and would have low overhead costs to start out with.

My question is what would be a way to figure out what to charge for this service? I am thinking it would be easy to come up with an hourly rate to charge by. I think I just need to figure out what supplies are going to cost, equipment upkeep/ replacement, insurance cost and what I would be able to pay myself.

I hope I can get started just by word of mouth and a simple craigs list ad. What else am I missing?

 

[TheJollyLogger]

What do you have to offer that your competition doesn't?

 

[jhellwig]

As far as I can tell there isn't anyone that does it. It is either an unneeded service or everyone is doing it themselves or are just satisfied with what can be done with tractors and skid loaders. That is why I am going to start out small with little overhead.

 

[pulphook]

I'm not sure that you have many of these around there, but I work for an outfit that operates nine hydroelectric dams. We contract out all of the brush cutting around them. FERC requires us to keep the steep areas on both sides of the dam clear of brush and tall grass. If you were in New England, you be so busy you wouldn't know what to do with yourself. We put it all out to bid once a year. The contractor can bid on one, two, etc. or all the dams. I guess what I'm saying is go talk to who owns your local hydros (yes, I understand you are in Iowa)

 

[jhellwig]

We do have a hydro dam in our town. It is concrete on one bank and rip rap on the other right up to where the city mows.

There are however a ton of pond dams and fence lines that you can't get close to with a tractor.

 

[ropensaddle]

If you just brush cutting invest in a good straight shaft weedeater and put on the skil saw looking blade that can be sharpened with a chain saw file beats bending over all day! Now trimming is different, learn all you can about proper pruning, learn to make nodal cuts, learn to manipulate growth by knowing response. Learn what apical an buds role in auxin regulation does and how you can use that to your advantage pruning. Clean your tools with bleach or lysol to not spread disease. Learn phototropic reaction which can also aid in pruning efforts, invest your time learning to prune correctly if your not well versed !

 

[jhellwig]

Thanks for the info. I will have to look into all that.

Most of what I would probably be doing would be grass and weed management but I will learn about managing wood lots.