Help with this bid please....

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ddhlakebound

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I looked at a job today, a cleanup and thinning of a small patch of small to medium sized trees. The property is triangular shaped, 1000' long, and 210' wide at the base of the triangle. The property has a medium density of trees, mostly siberian elm, then wild cherry and hackberry, with a few mulberry, sasafrass, black locust, and cedar mixed in.

Nothing has been touched since the January ice storm, and there is a large amount of debris on the ground, most too large to simply brush hog over. To complicate matters, nearly all of the undergrowth is viney and tangled, and grown thigh high. Its gonna be a nightmare to get everything freed up enough to chip. No burning is allowed, so we cant just push into a pile and light. We can blow the chips onsite, and pile all the block into one big pile there.

Our objective is to clean up all the storm damge, remove badly damaged trees, and clean up the trees that are staying. Remove all ground debris larger than one inch diameter, remove 39 trees smaller than 6", 19 trees 6-12", and one 16". Approximatley 25-30% of the trees are being taken out, and 70-75% being left. Remove all breakage from the largest elm on the section, which is over a fence, and has a lot of breakage. Seven other trees to climb and remove breakage, mostly pretty easy. And another ten man hours budgeted to clean up the remaining trees, they have lots of small broken stuff to clean up with the jerk saw and pruner pole. All the removals cut alap, and sprayed with stump killer.

Our plan is to rent a bobcat for 1-2 days to push all the ground debris clear of the undergrowth. When that's all blocked and chipped, we'll start removing all the marked trees by sections, and taking all the damage off the trees to stay, and cleaning up a section at a time, leaving the whole area ready to mow with ease.

Here's the problem.....$$$....isn't that ALWAYS the problem. This isn't a high priority area for the owner, but they don't want to leave it trashed and becoming more and more overgrown either.

After all my calculations, bobcat rental, chipper time, labor, fuel, etc.....I come up with a price of $3905 to make the area how the owner says he wants. It would have been easily $1000 less if everything on the ground wasnt grown into the viney brush. That price includes a break because its all easy, even if sweaty, buggy, grubby work, and he's been a good customer since we started.

Is 3900 bucks too much to clean up and thin an area that size?

His other option is to bring in a dozer, and demolish everything completely. Then he'd still have that great big pile of dozer debris to deal with, no burning allowed. How much would he spend to get it cleaned up with a dozer, then much more debris hauled off?

Any ideas to be able to get this area cleaned up and mowable, to the owners satisfaction, more efficiently?

How many square feet are in an acre?
 
43,560 square feet in an acre. In my area I'd charge double that for what you have described You'll have to be careful not to damage the remaining trees when bulldozing stuff around with the bobcat. 1" for ground debris is awfully small. Sounds like a full weeks worth of work.
 
Too little $$

An acre is 43,560 square feet. Sounds like you are really under cutting your bid IMO. 1000 by 210 A base.. If it s right triangle use the are of a triangle thereom. (1/2 )Base * Height. Witht he base being 210 feet, and the height being 1000 then you come up with 105,000 square feet. In other words a little over 2 acres. Cant you sell the guy on a time and materials clause? It takes a salesman to do so, but if you can swing it it may be your best bet. Charge a different rate for the climbing and bucket work versus the grubbing etc.. Sounds more like a 7-10,000 dollar job to me...
 
43,560 square feet in an acre. In my area I'd charge double that for what you have described You'll have to be careful not to damage the remaining trees when bulldozing stuff around with the bobcat. 1" for ground debris is awfully small. Sounds like a full weeks worth of work.


Contract work pricing here is generally cheaper than in other areas of the country, but most everything costs a bit less too.....

We did discount our normal rate some for this job, I'm hoping no too much.....Have not turned the bid in yet, so there's still time to move it up some.

I started out asking if 1.5-2" was small enough to leave down, but he felt like that was a bit too big.

Yeah, we've got it estimated at 4-4.5 days
 
An acre is 43,560 square feet. Sounds like you are really under cutting your bid IMO. 1000 by 210 A base.. If it s right triangle use the are of a triangle thereom. (1/2 )Base * Height. Witht he base being 210 feet, and the height being 1000 then you come up with 105,000 square feet. In other words a little over 2 acres. Cant you sell the guy on a time and materials clause? It takes a salesman to do so, but if you can swing it it may be your best bet. Charge a different rate for the climbing and bucket work versus the grubbing etc.. Sounds more like a 7-10,000 dollar job to me...


Yeah, 105,000 sq ft is what I had figured, just didn't know how many sq ft were in an acre.

We've got several customers who just tell us to go to work, and give them the bill, but he really wants a solid figure for the job, he's not comfortable with doing it on time and materials. Or maybe I'm just not very good at sales.

We want to give him as good a deal as possible, but we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot by underbidding a sizeable job either. But like I said, it's a low priority area, and isn't going to be developed or sold that I know of, he just doesn't want it to look shabby. I'm already hoping I'm not caught in the area between what its worth to him, and what it's going to cost him.

Thanks for your replies, any other input or thought are welcome.
 
Seems low but then again havent seent he property.

Couple things i would like to know.

A. How good are you on a bobcat?
B. What is the clearance between the trees, in other words is there sufficent room to run a bob cat through the trees.
C. You said through viny brush, how rapped up is the brush around the trees that he wants to keep?

Just questions to bring up..
 
DDH I don't know about your schedule but you stated in the first post this isn't a high priority area for the owner. Would it be better (cheaper for you and him, and easier) if you could wait until this fall/winter to do the clean up? You wouldn't have to fight near the undergrowth and it will be cooler.

Land clearing for a Dozer around my parts runs about $2,500 per acre for heavily wooded tracts. That's level ground ready to build with the brush piled. I think you are gonna bust your hump to compete with a dozer and your providing a whole different service.
 
DDH I don't know about your schedule but you stated in the first post this isn't a high priority area for the owner. Would it be better (cheaper for you and him, and easier) if you could wait until this fall/winter to do the clean up? You wouldn't have to fight near the undergrowth and it will be cooler.

Land clearing for a Dozer around my parts runs about $2,500 per acre for heavily wooded tracts. That's level ground ready to build with the brush piled. I think you are gonna bust your hump to compete with a dozer and your providing a whole different service.

I would try for the offseason work too. Also, how many guys are you guessing? If just you and one guy than $1000 a day, assuming 4 days, isnt too bad. 2 guys and it def isnt looking so hot. Add all general overhead plus your labor and then decide what you want to make. I would guess you wouldnt walk away with about $2000 before taxes after all the other BS is paid.

Basically, can you make more than that amount doing other work? I have not seen it, but I would try and push for a bit more. At least $4500 to $5000. I have not seen the job so really my esitmate of time is pointless.

Just decided what you want to make yourself, add overhead. Just do this and the price will come. Go less than this amount and you will be unhappy in the end almost always.
 
On something like this, I would ballpark for 5 days, half days can bite you in the tail.

Some alternatives are to sell it as T&M with a ceiling of $5k, Winter work as said above, "at my convenience" you can drag the job out over the year. Doing work you can w/o the skidstear to fill in short days, rain days and days where you need to reschedule.

One thing with these jobs is that you can cut and pile so you don't have to take all the equipment out every time. then that day does not have as many equipment hours to it, or you can leave the guys on a cleanup while you fell some stuff while near by.

So you present it to the client as say $5500 if you dedicate a week to the job, and no more then $4500 (your 4.5 days) if you can drag it out and bill for services rendered. By doing the latter, you may give him some extra hours, but you have work to round the days out.

Another thing I've done is work out a deal with the rental company to get an 8 hour rental on a weekend, if I keep the engine timer under 8 hours. Use the skidder for 2.5 days pushing piles, stuffing the chipper, but shutting it down regularly. Another thing is get them to do 1/2 day rental on short notice, as long as you get it back the next AM. You win by the discount and they have income from something that would be sitting in the yard.
 
They make brush grinders that go on the front of tractors that can take down small trees to 8". The larger the tractor, the larger the stuff that they can cut and mulch. They are made for Bobcats to D-8 size tractors. You might get a tractor with a brush grinder in for the under brush, vines and down limbs and then do the heavy tree work. If there is room to work and not to steep, a good sized rubber tired loader should be able to do the underbrush in a day .
 
Tell the client that the cost could vary depending on exactly what work is preformed and in what fashion. Ask him what his budget is for that particular area of property and work within what he can afford.
 
On something like this, I would ballpark for 5 days, half days can bite you in the tail.

Some alternatives are to sell it as T&M with a ceiling of $5k, Winter work as said above, "at my convenience" you can drag the job out over the year. Doing work you can w/o the skidstear to fill in short days, rain days and days where you need to reschedule.

One thing with these jobs is that you can cut and pile so you don't have to take all the equipment out every time. then that day does not have as many equipment hours to it, or you can leave the guys on a cleanup while you fell some stuff while near by.

So you present it to the client as say $5500 if you dedicate a week to the job, and no more then $4500 (your 4.5 days) if you can drag it out and bill for services rendered. By doing the latter, you may give him some extra hours, but you have work to round the days out.

Another thing I've done is work out a deal with the rental company to get an 8 hour rental on a weekend, if I keep the engine timer under 8 hours. Use the skidder for 2.5 days pushing piles, stuffing the chipper, but shutting it down regularly. Another thing is get them to do 1/2 day rental on short notice, as long as you get it back the next AM. You win by the discount and they have income from something that would be sitting in the yard.

+1
 

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