luckydozenfarm
THE MAN OF STIHL
I've heard from a friend that he paid about $3000 to bring down a 100'+ tall loblolly pine in his backyard. That's nuts! thank goodness I don't live in the city.
Homeowner gets taken advantage of
- Thread starter Alex Kriss
- Start date
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zogger
Tree Freak
You can't get someone to help and just pull it over? Or does it have to be blocked down?
KenJax Tree
Terraphobic
Good work comes with a big price
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jimmycrackcorn
ArboristSite Operative
That's a joke right? LOL...
He got "CHEAP" alright.. Well.. Full price, but cheap outcome.
Regardless of that, cheaper isn't always better my friend, do you want it fully removed, all the brush chipped, professional clean up not just a rake dragged across the ground a few times, you want your cars blown off, do you want insured PPL... Lately I'm amazed at the amount of voicemails we've been getting from prospects who reference that word at least five or six times in there msg.. Cheap cheap cheap..."I want the cheapest option available". Of course we will bid on the jobs unless we are weeks out, excuses as to why can't or won't don't get you a good reputation anyways.
With these clients we will give them the least expensive option available, usually just get everything on the ground & limbed out but leave everything. We will get on site, inform them a second time about the amount of cleanup involved with tree work. The household male will usually be gloating about, talking about how his "$800 farm boss w/18" blade & burn permit" will take care of the mess & not to be concerned, "I just want the cheapest".. We will go drop 7-8 good sized trees, take care of dangerous binds/pressure points etc & leave it all as contracted. At this point the yards are a disaster zone but its what was asked for so we leave. 7 times out of 10 we will get a phone call a few days later to come back & haul everything away. It's the biggest pain in the a$$ as the homeowner on a chainsaw crusade had chopped everything into a thousand little pieces. Anyone who slings a saw for a living knows how long that takes to clean up. The only saving grace to these jobs is when we find the farm boss bound up in whatever tree he started with. The avoidable tangled mess still sucks but that means his crusade was limited.. Now these PPL have paid us to come out & set up twice which ends up costing way more in the end. Did one of these this week & have to do another on Monday. This pattern needs to end..
A 100ft pine is pretty tall for the east coast.. A $3000 price tag to go along with it sounds like it could be alot, but what most homeowners don't understand is, how is this contractor going to remove this thing safely. In my experiences, a 100ft tree goes beyond just the accessibility factor, never mind a cities accessibility factor which always sucks to begin with & increases the risk factor by a fairly large amount (low power lines, gas lines, fences, cars, tiny driveways, houses on top of each other, no room to drop, no where to rotate booms, many, many unseen obstacles). Even if a bucket truck could fit into his back yard most don't reach 100ft, it would take a serious climb with alot of rigging just to piece the bare pin down after you have somehow gotten the limbs down without issue.. If the bidder doesn't want to climb it, you then have to use a crane, if you don't own one you have to hire. This is only an option if you can fit it somewhere & safely land the picks that then have to be processed. You still have a dump truck & chipper you are going to need room to use & safely remove the brush. After that you have to find room to operate your log truck & load the pins. Now, back to the crane, if you had to hire one, most operators I know have a $400-500 minimum & that is going to get tacked onto the bid itself, that's just a minimum..
So could your friend get it cheaper? Possibly.. but like I mentioned before in this thread, the HO would have to "do his/her homework"... figure out who owns their own crane as oppose to who farms it out. We don't have a crane at the moment so our bids on certain jobs end up higher than others will, we always tell the HO, """Look were not trying to talk ourselves out of work but, we will need to hire a crane for this job, his rates are X pr hour & has a $400 minimum just to come out. This job will take 8 hours & you will be paying that much more so there is a good possibility you can find it less expensive elsewhere""". Most of the time they will hire us just based on our reputation & word of mouth because they trust us to do it right without damage but some companies aren't like that, they won't mention the extra charge for the crane built into the bid & just hope it goes unnoticed. Did I mention the accessibility factor...? LOL..
jimmycrackcorn
ArboristSite Operative
Jimmycrackpot, give it a rest already!
Seriously!
Mr. HE
You clearly have no clue what I'm referencing..
Seriously..
It'll need to be blocked down unless someone with good insurance wants try falling it 90 degrees to the lean into the only open spot.
Harry K
What's to joke about? I recognize that work like that doesn't come cheap and am willing to pay it. The $1800 to take down that monster in the picture sounds underbid to me.
Harry K
"QUOTE="turnkey4099, post: 4776813, member: 2122"]It'll need to be blocked down unless someone with good insurance wants try falling it 90 degrees to the lean into the only open spot.
Harry K
What's to joke about? I recognize that work like that doesn't come cheap and am willing to pay it. The $1800 to take down that monster in the picture sounds underbid to me.
Harry K[/QUOTE]
So if I have a contractor come out and give me a bid, and he assures me he can get the job done for x amount, do I as the homeowner have to pay him more when he realizes he under bid the job? Am I expected to finish the job myself because he feels like he's getting screwed? I realize that there's a lot of hacks out there who under bid everything and make it difficult for an honest guy to make a decent living sometimes. The homeowner doesn't write out the bid, he just pays what is asked for. It's up to the professional to know what the job is worth up front, or eat the extra cost, not the other way around. I've never heard of a contractor offering a refund for a job that goes easier then planned.
Harry K
What's to joke about? I recognize that work like that doesn't come cheap and am willing to pay it. The $1800 to take down that monster in the picture sounds underbid to me.
Harry K[/QUOTE]
So if I have a contractor come out and give me a bid, and he assures me he can get the job done for x amount, do I as the homeowner have to pay him more when he realizes he under bid the job? Am I expected to finish the job myself because he feels like he's getting screwed? I realize that there's a lot of hacks out there who under bid everything and make it difficult for an honest guy to make a decent living sometimes. The homeowner doesn't write out the bid, he just pays what is asked for. It's up to the professional to know what the job is worth up front, or eat the extra cost, not the other way around. I've never heard of a contractor offering a refund for a job that goes easier then planned.
So if I have a contractor come out and give me a bid, and he assures me he can get the job done for x amount, do I as the homeowner have to pay him more when he realizes he under bid the job? Am I expected to finish the job myself because he feels like he's getting screwed? I realize that there's a lot of hacks out there who under bid everything and make it difficult for an honest guy to make a decent living sometimes. The homeowner doesn't write out the bid, he just pays what is asked for. It's up to the professional to know what the job is worth up front, or eat the extra cost, not the other way around. I've never heard of a contractor offering a refund for a job that goes easier then planned.[/QUOTE]
??? what does that have to do with anything I posted. I basically said that he got a bargain. That he got the shaft still has nothing to do with the amount of the bid.
Harry K
I'm plenty clued in about you and your making a whole lot out of nothing. Why do you care so much what a guy paid for tree work?
Mr. HE
??? what does that have to do with anything I posted. I basically said that he got a bargain. That he got the shaft still has nothing to do with the amount of the bid.
Harry K[/QUOTE]
I was referring to the part about under bid. My brain went straight to the possibility of that being the reason the guy didn't come back to finish the job. Sorry to put words into your mouth.
jimbojango
ArboristSite Guru
who wants to buy some wood pellets?
jimmycrackcorn
ArboristSite Operative
I'm plenty clued in about you and your making a whole lot out of nothing. Why do you care so much what a guy paid for tree work?
Mr. HE
I don't care at all.. Never said I did. Simply explained why bids & numbers can look like they do to someone who isn't in the biz.
KenJax Tree
Terraphobic
I like bacon!
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I had 6 Pines, 70 years old to take down. Right next to the building.
$400 for a chain saw and do not remember how much for 100ft of rope.
Got as far up as I could in the tree and roped it from there to the truck.
Tensioned the rope cut the base most of the way and then helped it over with the truck.
Took my old bones a day and a half, the felling was a few hours. After I had done the first one the others were pretty quick to fell, clear up was another issue. I have a burn permit so that got rid of the branches.
I had a bid of $3,000, at the end I still had my Chainsaw and Rope.
I had thought of what would have been the safest way, certainly a factor if you are working on other peoples property. I would have rented a cherry picker, taken off all the branches of consequence and then worked my way down.
Getting rid of the stumps was the biggest pain.
PS Rope has to be longer than tree is high.
$400 for a chain saw and do not remember how much for 100ft of rope.
Got as far up as I could in the tree and roped it from there to the truck.
Tensioned the rope cut the base most of the way and then helped it over with the truck.
Took my old bones a day and a half, the felling was a few hours. After I had done the first one the others were pretty quick to fell, clear up was another issue. I have a burn permit so that got rid of the branches.
I had a bid of $3,000, at the end I still had my Chainsaw and Rope.
I had thought of what would have been the safest way, certainly a factor if you are working on other peoples property. I would have rented a cherry picker, taken off all the branches of consequence and then worked my way down.
Getting rid of the stumps was the biggest pain.
PS Rope has to be longer than tree is high.
KenJax Tree
Terraphobic
macattack_ga
ArboristSite Operative
Mission accomplished. Alex is a super nice guy. Could not have finished without the help from his son.
Mac
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Mac
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Sawyer Rob
Addicted to ArboristSite
Glad you was able to help Alex and get the job done, best part is, you have some firewood too...
SR
Awesome.
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