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Montana_Sam

ArboristSite Member
Joined
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Messages
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Location
NW Montana
I recently watched a few YouTube videos on bidding tree work, something I’ve been doing for years, and heard a line that stuck with me…$250/10’ of tree height. Considering this 32” fir, at about 90’, that puts the price at $2250…which is surprisingly accurate….hard lean over a vacation home, power and utility lines everywhere, tiny drop zone, etc. Full clean up, standard procedure.

Just curious to hear some varying thoughts or price per foot for hazard tree removals….if you have a quick $/ft for bidding on the fly.



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I know of a very successful company that runs knucleboom cranes and conventional cranes that prices jobs by dbh.
Not sure how they do it, but it has seemed to work for them.
 
A guy could probably make something like that work most of the time in places where they're primarily dealing with conifers. It wouldn't work if you're primarily dealing with hardwoods.

That’s fair. A 90’ hardwood can be, and typically is, a whole different ball of wax compared to our conifers.
 
That certainly makes bidding easy, and if you get all the bids it probably averages out well. My concern would be that it is too high on the easy trees (so you loose those bids) and too low on the hard trees (so you get all those). I'd think you need some easy trees in the mix to make up for the tough ones for the average to work out though?
 
Yes, agreed. The $250/10’ number is meant to ballpark hazard tree removals, definitely would put you too high for the easy ones. I’d think $150/10’ would be a closer average for simple conifer removals, no homes to hit, no utilities or rigging, etc.
 
I recently watched a few YouTube videos on bidding tree work, something I’ve been doing for years, and heard a line that stuck with me…$250/10’ of tree height. Considering this 32” fir, at about 90’, that puts the price at $2250…which is surprisingly accurate….hard lean over a vacation home, power and utility lines everywhere, tiny drop zone, etc. Full clean up, standard procedure.

Just curious to hear some varying thoughts or price per foot for hazard tree removals….if you have a quick $/ft for bidding on the fly.



View attachment 999028
setup seems relatively good, id say a solid 2300. half day job
 
Great success! Homeowner was an old man with a new smartphone, so he took a million pictures and just sent me a few. First job hanging tops with my own business. I was fairly puckered, working with new rigging and ropes, but everything worked beautifully. Two full loads of chips in the Sierra, shoveled out at a farm a mile away. Wood was all bucked for firewood and left on site...pushed the limits of my 362 w/ a 28" bar. Great day!


IMG_4291.jpgIMG_4299.jpg IMG_4275.jpg
 
Nice work, Sam!! I retired last year, pretty much...46 years was enough. I'm 73... Here's the largest we ever did... 2010. 158' tall, 32'6" ft at the ground in girth, 70 or more yards of chips, a whole bunch of branch wood that we chipped the next day, 6 man crew day one, prolly 3 on crane day. $5500 crane bill for about 5 picks, plus helping load the first log truck. Two full length log truck loads. I think I under bid it, but I'l go close to $20k today, including the crane. The craftsman that got the wood paid the trucker $1200! Nest to last pick was cut while I was away, too low, 27' long weighed 27k lb... was a bit much for the 90 ton crane at the appx 50' radius. Operator finessed it to the LZ. Butt averaged 2-2'5 feet long and weighed 6500# Sequoia/redwood trunk wood, especially low down, weighs close to 70 lb/cu. foot, if not more..and sinks!! Click the TV shaped icon upper right for a slide show! https://flic.kr/s/aHsjqT7iU4
 
I recently watched a few YouTube videos on bidding tree work, something I’ve been doing for years, and heard a line that stuck with me…$250/10’ of tree height. Considering this 32” fir, at about 90’, that puts the price at $2250…which is surprisingly accurate….hard lean over a vacation home, power and utility lines everywhere, tiny drop zone, etc. Full clean up, standard procedure.

Just curious to hear some varying thoughts or price per foot for hazard tree removals….if you have a quick $/ft for bidding on the fly.



View attachment 999028
Take it and 5-6 more if the owner is game, shove em over with the essavator, buck em at 33', stack the brush and burn it, mill PAYS the owner $1000-2000

But I do things a little different then you'ze guys

Part of the reason I got involved in what I do is the horror stories of 1-2k for a tree removals, that I can do in 45 min from the ground, then these same folks get involved in "land clearing" and continue to charge by the tree, and by the stump. Bunch of outfits local to me, that have zero business in the "land clearing" side of forestry, renting machines and passing alllllll the cost on to a hapless owner, then pocketing the cash from the mill.

I get it that single trees generally aren't worth sending to a mill or bringing in a machine, but if you can get 3-4 you can make a log load, might even pay for the work and give some back to the owner.
 
Wow! Incredible tree and awesome pictures. What was the reason for removing the sequoia???
It was next to a multi-million dollar home in a gated, exclusive community. The likes of Bezos live there. Had pushed the carport up a foot, and nearby doors in the house wouldn't work properly. It was 102 years old. Had been bought for $7 as a seedling. Right tree, wrong place! There's another, but it's at least 30' from what was the gatehouse, now is it's own property. It has a narrower canopy and was at least a foot smaller dbh, iirc. Wouldn't surprise me if it's pushing 170' plus by now!
 
It was next to a multi-million dollar home in a gated, exclusive community. The likes of Bezos live there. Had pushed the carport up a foot, and nearby doors in the house wouldn't work properly. It was 102 years old. Had been bought for $7 as a seedling. Right tree, wrong place! There's another, but it's at least 30' from what was the gatehouse, now is it's own property. It has a narrower canopy and was at least a foot smaller dbh, iirc. Wouldn't surprise me if it's pushing 170' plus by no
Nice work, Sam!! I retired last year, pretty much...46 years was enough. I'm 73... Here's the largest we ever did... 2010. 158' tall, 32'6" ft at the ground in girth, 70 or more yards of chips, a whole bunch of branch wood that we chipped the next day, 6 man crew day one, prolly 3 on crane day. $5500 crane bill for about 5 picks, plus helping load the first log truck. Two full length log truck loads. I think I under bid it, but I'l go close to $20k today, including the crane. The craftsman that got the wood paid the trucker $1200! Nest to last pick was cut while I was away, too low, 27' long weighed 27k lb... was a bit much for the 90 ton crane at the appx 50' radius. Operator finessed it to the LZ. Butt averaged 2-2'5 feet long and weighed 6500# Sequoia/redwood trunk wood, especially low down, weighs close to 70 lb/cu. foot, if not more..and sinks!! Click the TV shaped icon upper right for a slide show! https://flic.kr/s/aHsjqT7iU4
Ya might want to rethink the story a wee bit, pictures show 24' in circumference, making it only 7'6" DIA at dirt level BTW where the roots flair, 158' tall? and you got 2 loads out of it? when the pics clearly show most of the tree on one truck? Maybe the butt log on a separate truck, but hard to tell from the pic. Though except for the butt log, that you clearly didn't cut off at 7'6" I'm damned sure it all went on one not full log truck.

$7 for a seedling in 1920? so a months wages? really?

I'm all for stories, and embellishment, but damn dude, that fish got pretty big pretty fast.

Also that 90t crane struggling with 6500#? really... those crane ops are pretty full of **** most of the time too
 
Nice work, Sam!! I retired last year, pretty much...46 years was enough. I'm 73... Here's the largest we ever did... 2010. 158' tall, 32'6" ft at the ground in girth, 70 or more yards of chips, a whole bunch of branch wood that we chipped the next day, 6 man crew day one, prolly 3 on crane day. $5500 crane bill for about 5 picks, plus helping load the first log truck. Two full length log truck loads. I think I under bid it, but I'l go close to $20k today, including the crane. The craftsman that got the wood paid the trucker $1200! Nest to last pick was cut while I was away, too low, 27' long weighed 27k lb... was a bit much for the 90 ton crane at the appx 50' radius. Operator finessed it to the LZ. Butt averaged 2-2'5 feet long and weighed 6500# Sequoia/redwood trunk wood, especially low down, weighs close to 70 lb/cu. foot, if not more..and sinks!! Click the TV shaped icon upper right for a slide show! https://flic.kr/s/aHsjqT7iU4
Wow!! They could use the stump as a patio it’s so big! That stump
Will be there awhile
 
I think he was referencing a 27k lb log @50ft radius being at the limits of that rig, and I can attest to that. Especially if he didn't set the boom length for the heaviest pick like tends to happen in a multi pick job.

He did get a deal by today's standards at $5500 for the day for that crane. You'd be in it for double that or more today.

those crane ops are pretty full of **** most of the time too

Maybe the backwoods guys are, the ones that call themselves "crane operators" in a very liberal sense with a cracker jack (no) license.
But guys that do it for a living tend to take their job pretty serious. Most are irritatingly anal and detail oriented. Well, at least the good ones.
 
I think he was referencing a 27k lb log @50ft radius being at the limits of that rig, and I can attest to that. Especially if he didn't set the boom length for the heaviest pick like tends to happen in a multi pick job.

He did get a deal by today's standards at $5500 for the day for that crane. You'd be in it for double that or more today.



Maybe the backwoods guys are, the ones that call themselves "crane operators" in a very liberal sense with a cracker jack (no) license.
But guys that do it for a living tend to take their job pretty serious. Most are irritatingly anal and detail oriented. Well, at least the good ones.
I've only worked with a handful of em, because of the log truck... was not impressed, they talk a lot about detail, but I don't think they knew what any of it meant.
And I get that a 27k load would be a whopper at full extension, for any crane, but I also highly doubt the claim of 27000# in one short log. the biggest heaviest single log I've ever hauled was a full 6'6"(on the small end) and 21' long wet cottonwood, and it only weighed in at 23000#, that took a 200 excavator annnnd the self loader to wrestle onto the truck. It was well over 200' tall and did get a load and a half out of it, though the 3 load load had a butt log off a different tree. So really only one.
 
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