cost of living?

[Tinwoodman]

Fifteen dollars an hour is pretty good- that works out to some $30,000 a year. What's wrong with that? I worked at Target for $8.85 an hour and that just wan't enough, so now I'm making $15. Seems good to me. Remember I don't climb very often. I charge all my expenses, including mileage, as extra. Just finished a $570 job, took me about 25 hours, had about $150 of expenses. Not bad. I love what I do, and to get business, I bid competitively. But I always try to bid higher than I think I actually need. There's a fellow here I work with sometimes when he need help-- he does stump grinding at one cent per cubic inch, according to his recconning, and a 2-3 foot stump costs in the $100 range. Low prices are a hallmark of South Carolina. If I get so I have far too much business, I'll raise my hourly rate. Also, I only charge about $12 an hour for those I know can't afford very much.

 

[a_lopa]

kf tree

Good point, where can you live like a king when your on $10 an hour, the tip?

This industry pays crap money for what we do, for the jobs we do same goes ... people getting huge trees done for dirt cheap, like a ego thing where bosses want to brag about who did the biggest ... and bust everyone in the process.

Isn't it funny, you go to a lawyer here or there you'll pretty much pay the same. You go to a dentist here or there you'll pretty much pay the same.

You get 3 quotes on a removal and you'll get heaps of variation. Like a bidding war. And what do most bids think ... "what's the cheapest I can do this job, get it and make a buck". Not what's this tree worth. Some numb nuts around this place quote an hourly rate as they have no friggin idea of how long things take or how difficult

all true ekka,i qouted a big gum removal no where for anything on a hill over the house real limby tree about 15'off the roof, they told me the prices and i was in shock at how low they were(but the trees still there),i put $600 more than the nearest and said if they turn up and do it for that go for it,there options were to back out and look stupid my lead climber had been rung up by all the other guys about the same tree but he wasnt about to help them out. it was great to watch them bust ass on a job that really needed a crane.big jobs sap energy, im not in debt with my equipment i couldnt give a **** about doing big stuff just to say i did

 

[Ekka]

Good on ya lopa

Jimnz1 is over here for a short stay and has he got some stories to tell, he's doing some work for another crowd and they pull up to do a job, chitty multi-leadered ironbark all over roofs etc, no decent rigging point, no high point, big load of crap, asks the boss when the pickers turning up ... boss goes "what for". They all drove away. Jim reckons not many bosses here have climbed a tree.

You'll generally find that the more inexperienced, ignorant and incompetent will under quote. I've turned up to grind stumps for other mobs and had to help get the tree down because of the hacks have no idea.

On Sunday only 2 houses away from where we went for a party a bunch of hacks were doing a takedown on a Kadaghi (Corymbia torelliana), approx 600mm DBH, ht 15m, spread 15m. Was in a really bad spot, back cnr, over hanging 4 yards, fences, 2 houses. They hadn't even got all the foliage off by dark. Gutters ripped off, the climber cut n chucked everything as he had no idea, there was a lowering point but he scarfed it out then realised and then couldn't use it. Cut a long story short I wandered down there (under cover job) and made like I had no idea and asked some questions.

The guy cutting does it on weekends, ex power line trimmer out of buckets, ground crew is mate & girlfriend, a renta trailer (10 trips to tip easy), he's that ambitious he only hired the trailer for 4 hours. He was whinging that it's going to take a lot longer than he thought, at least 2 days. No lowering devices, 10mm silva rope for lowering (I use bigger than that for tying crap down in my trailer), no helmet, no eye protection, no earmuffs, trunk has to be blocked down onto pavers!

The home-owner said he got 2 other quotes, $3800 and $3500 but got these guys thru a mate of a mate for $1500 ... "a real bargain and jeez their good" he said. "Compared to what?" I asked.

 

[Thor's Hammer]

Hey Ekka, its great reading your posts,
my wifes got family in brisbane, we went out there for a season about 9 years ago. We didnt have enough money to stay long so i phoned a few people in the yellow pages to see about work - got swamped with enquirys and ended up staying about 6 months. At the time i was shocked by the complete and utter lack of skills out there - guys would get me in to dismantle trees over houses and look blank when i asked for a lowering rope. I remember taking down a huge stringybark gum for some guys who also build chippers (starchip?) and having to tie 4 old 10mm bucket escape lines together to lower the tops off :-(
having said that, 9 years ago i worked for no less than $30 an hour so at the time it was worth the excitement.
i do remember back then how cutthroat and competitive it was though -
Made some really good mates out there specially a lot of the Samoan / kiwi grounders, great people.
best bloke i worked for was Bob at brisbane tree experts, top geezer - we did a lot of big kadaghi's together ( funny how you always get a gigantic specimen in the corner of 4 yards ;-)).

 

[Thor's Hammer]

want some gas prices to shock you all?
over in the UK we pay $8 a gallon for gas, slightly more for diesel.

most outfits have their own climbers, average pay $18 - $20 per hour
freelance climbers get about $35-$40 per hour

its the law to have insurance, and a whole raft of qualifications to climb with a chainsaw. it costs about $2500 to put a rookie through his tests

a small hire type 6'' chipper will cost about $30000, and to run a truck over 7000lbs Gross (1ton capacity) you need cdl and an operators licence costing about $6000 to obtain.
and people still treat you no better than gyppos:-(

 

[NickfromWI]

Insurance is NJ can be frickin' expensive, I know that much. In WI and CA, I pay around $1,200/year. In NJ for similar coverage they wanted $8,000!!!!!

And in NJ I was paying 750 for an apartment that would fetch maybe $400 in WI. Granted the NJ apartment was 1 block from the beach....but the WI apartment was 1 block from the Mill Pond!!!

Heyyy, I have a friend in Hattiesburg. I oughtta call him up!

love
nick

 

[Lumberjack]

Is that your teaching friend nick?

 

[Ekka]

its the law to have insurance, and a whole raft of qualifications to climb with a chainsaw. it costs about $2500 to put a rookie through his tests

Does that type of regulation prevent door knockers, hacks and poor tree work? are there repercussions for doing the wrong thing and if so who enforces them?

 

[Thor's Hammer]

Sort of - it regulates the larger scale contracts (local Authority, Line clearence, Railwork etc.) but the domestic market is a free for all. whats worse is gyppos have the nack of knocking on peoples doors and conning them ('ere missus, yore tree really needs a good pruning, we'll 'ave that nasty treetop off for you in no time - there now dont it look better wiv none of them nasty branches on- no cheques please only cash that'll be two thousand quid please....

 

[Ekka]

And this is how the home-owner would respond

Corr blye mee cobbler, ewe naught be rippin mee orf, mee horsben bee commin orfter ewe then. Poke ewe bleedin eyes out. 2000 quid, ya daft, ere have 200 and bugger off.

And if I see you around these parts I rip ya flamin cods off, flamin con artist.

 

[Thor's Hammer]

Tell a gang of brit thievin gyppos that and your likley to come home to a real home fire...

 

[Thor's Hammer]

The trick is to tell them "fark orf you theivin gyppo barstewards or i'll set the bleedin dogs on yew and feed the rest of yore guts to the pigs" BEFORE they cut the trees- but unfortunatley its hard to do that if your a 70 year old lady living on your own...
seriously these guys are an absolute pain... they want rounding up and shooting
if i started a thread about gyppos and dids on the brit page, the bleep machine would wear out...

 

[Ekka]

ha ha , that's a beauty.

 

[PRUNER 1]

your ???? right about the bleep machine i could wear it out dont even let me on the soap box, i cant stop when on it!

 

[nyoldman]

the real upstate new yorkers stand up!gas 2.25-2.30 depends diesel 2.55,take me 5hrs drive time to get home from job in kingston area union journeyman wages 19.00 +ben.30 mi. to canada watertown area have no problem getting rid of chips&big wood have a safe day!

 

[John Paul Sanborn]

30k a year is great? If you and the old lady each make that you can afford a double-wide.

Here in MKE 150k gets you under 1000 sqft in an OK neighborhood.

Around 10 years ago I was readingf Arborage, or one of those, and an author put it very well "in the eyes of most of the public we are a step above the garbage pickers"

The only reason most climbers get what they do is because so few people want to risk doing the work. If it were skill we would make at least as much as a rough carpenter.

 

[kf_tree]

past by a gas station on the palisades parkway tonite, super was 2.89 a gallon.