Small clearing jobs

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DSW

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Anybody here do a lot of small diameter clearing jobs? Small diameter wood, 0- 8 inch wood, occasional 12 inch or so. No value in the wood. Lots of saplings and briars mixed in but mostly saw work.

I'm pretty dialed in to how long they take and voice that but they still seem to drag on. Most of the bigger outfits probably don't get them because they're not very technical but maybe you do?

I just did a 75 pine clearing (with random sapling, briar, trash) on a steep hill, with questionable working ground and close enough access. A bigger chipper would have been a game changer on this job but usually it's not that night and day for my work.
 
We go up to a resort community in the mountains at least 4 times a year and cut into the woods for million dollar cabins. Alot of poplar and hawthorn.
Avoiding hung trees is key to keeping a good pace.
Sometimes we grind stumps out, mostly not since they plan on scraping/grading with equipment.
 
The saw work goes well, but no matter how quick you can limb a pine stumping it and sending it through a chipper is gonna be quicker.

I did another one last month, unique scenario involving water and rigging. Plan laid out, worked to perfection, busted tail, made mehhh money.

I gotta start adding more to these.
 
This sounds similar to a lot of my work, which is mostly "fire mitigation" jobs. We are reducing fuel around houses and other structure in our Ponderosa Pine forest (also lodgepole, Doug Fir, and spruce--fir woods further up in the high country). We drop and process plenty of full-size trees, but way more small stuff, as we try to leave the big, mature trees in place if their fuel value and location is not a threat.

Small stuff can throw you when trying to estimate . . . because it looks like a lot of small stuff. But it still adds up to work.

I am unusual in that I rarely bid fixed $ on my jobs. I work at an hourly rate for whatever I do, ensuring that I get paid right for what I do. Every job is different--easy access on level ground here, tough access on hills and way around back of the place there. Not having to figure in advance how all that will play out takes a lot of stress out of booking work. I don't have those jobs where you get killed because you underbid.

Don't know how it is where you're working, but another advantage I have is that homes here are in the woods (no in-town or suburban work). So I don't mess with stump grinding (just flush-cut close to the ground). But here's the beauty--I chip slash and shoot chips right back onto the landscape (to feed the ground) in an out-of-the-way location. I do not have to own/maintain a chip truck, and don't have to deal with time and cost of disposal. I do lose out on an occasional job this way. An HOA nearby decided they don't want chips on the ground, so I'm out of the running on that, and I occasionally have to turn down a place where the house is on a small lot and there's no suitable place to blow chips, but these are exceptions. Most places I operate just fine.

I also like that most of my jobs run several days on a given location.
 
Nice. Although mitigating fires isn't the concern here the work sounds very similar.

Fixed price is the standard here. I like figuring out the plan and executing I just need to tack on a little more for the what ifs.

This is a lot of countryside work and I chip into the wood lines whenever possible. How are you getting the chipper closest to the work?
 
We've rented a 6" chipper and dragged it down trails with a 4 wheeler.(blowing into the woods) We've got a BC 1000 that we normally use hooked to an 18 cu/yd dump. Can't put it deep into tight places. Have placed the chipper with a pickup then moved the truck on when quarters were too tight.
 
How are you getting the chipper closest to the work?
I pull my 12" Woodchuck chipper with a Toyota pickup. Whenever I can, I bring the chipper to where I dropped the trees, but that isn't often possible. We operate in mountain terrain, steep & rocky, so most of the time I have to skid my trees to a landing before processing. I haul either the tree, or 1/2 or 1/3 of large trees on rope, pulling with the pickup. Then process the wood & slash at the landing. Small trees I skid in bundles. Sometimes on big trees I limb them before skidding the logs out, and skid the slash out in bundles. Every job involves figuring the best strategy for getting wood out and chipping the slash.

Fixed price bidding is the standard business model here too. But I have a reputation for honest, reliable, efficient work which enables me to buck the trend and price by the hour. I give an estimate for each job. With my estimate I stipulate "I will bill for work actually performed, be it more or less than my estimate." Sometimes I'm high, sometimes low, but usually I'm close. A time or two I've eaten some work when my hours went to0 far above the estimate--don't want that kind of news following me around. But that's rare.
 
I pull my 12" Woodchuck chipper with a Toyota pickup. Whenever I can, I bring the chipper to where I dropped the trees, but that isn't often possible. We operate in mountain terrain, steep & rocky, so most of the time I have to skid my trees to a landing before processing. I haul either the tree, or 1/2 or 1/3 of large trees on rope, pulling with the pickup. Then process the wood & slash at the landing. Small trees I skid in bundles. Sometimes on big trees I limb them before skidding the logs out, and skid the slash out in bundles. Every job involves figuring the best strategy for getting wood out and chipping the slash.

Fixed price bidding is the standard business model here too. But I have a reputation for honest, reliable, efficient work which enables me to buck the trend and price by the hour. I give an estimate for each job. With my estimate I stipulate "I will bill for work actually performed, be it more or less than my estimate." Sometimes I'm high, sometimes low, but usually I'm close. A time or two I've eaten some work when my hours went to0 far above the estimate--don't want that kind of news following me around. But that's rare.

Chuck n Duck or hydraulic? Skidding with the Yoter? That takes me back to the good ole days.

I use my Dingo to get the chipper as close as possible if I can chip away from the truck. Works really well normally, but the chipper weighs as much as the Dingo. The chipper was sinking three inches just from the ground compacting. Luckily it didn't rain and the ground got better when I was pulling it up. Sometimes it's pushing it though.

I can see that working, at least gives them an idea to compare to the other guys.
 
Mine is a chuck n duck. Every hour I run it I know exactly why guys hate 'em. Beats yr hands half to death if you don't learn how to push limbs in and release at the right moment. But for the pine limbs (and other conifers) that I deal with, this machine eats 'em and spits 'em nicely. 80HP (I believe) Deutz turbo-charged diesel. And there's all of six moving parts once you get past the clutch and bell housing. My machine don't break down. Other guys . . . I'll be there in a few hours after I fix/replace the busted hydraulic hose, replace that bearing, figure out the electronic malfunction, find the thing-a ma-jig that jumped out of place, etc.

Yeah, we skid mostly with the pickup. Hang a block high as possible in a tree to reduce friction at the nose of the incoming tree and run rope to the trailer hitch on pickup. Some places where we can't get 4 wheels anywhere close, I use the portable winch for skidding. Nice machine but nowhere near the capacity of a pickup--which we have to load with wood or people sometimes to have enough traction at the rear end.

Here's something to think about if you're skidding trees. Coming from the logging world, hooking onto a log is what you do. But a log digs a trough (increased friction, and disturbs the landscape) unless you can hang its nose off the ground like a wheeled skidder would. However, grab a tree by its top and drag it "backwards" and all those top limbs just skim along which reduces friction and damage to the ground.

Wet ground, compacting, mud--there's always a complication of some sort.

No Dingo here, but that's a nice machine.
 
Oh yeah, they'll get right after it on the evergreens. My chipper is a little slower but it doesn't try to suck me in so I'm pretty happy with it.

Last job I hung a block and was doing a lot of pulling with the Dingo, this one there wasn't much advantage to it.

I've only had it a year or so but it's perfect for my setup. Looked for one for a while. I'd hate to go back.
 
The Mexican lawn mowing guys do all that sort of crap around here and they do it so cheap only a fool would attempt to underbid them. When I get calls on stuff like that I just basically hang up asap.
 
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