MONSTER TREE up for grabs

[Ekka]

$3700 for the lot?

What about the stump and root ball??

 

[Tree Machine]

If the low ballers end up running home to their Mammies, I''ll be down from July 11 through the 19th. My price still stands, though.

 

[Treeinnovator]

$3700 for the lot?

What about the stump and root ball??

the job description called for a "tree removal". stump grinding would be acceptable as long as everything was flat and sod could be placed over it. the investor doesn't care how it's done as long as it looked good in the end.

they must be dumping the debris illegally on the side of the road or something otherwise the numbers don't add up.

 

[Koa Man]

A customer I worked at last week told me her girlfriend got bids to remove a huge tree. Bids were as high as $36,000. One idiot submitted a bid for $3000 and spent a week working on the tree, hauling stuff with pickup trucks and having all his relatives helping. She said they barely made a dent in the tree and gave up. Her friend still ended up paying them $3000. I told her I would have paid them a percentage. If they only did 10%, they would get $300.

I also told her that anytime someone quotes a price far below what everybody else is quoting, it is obvious that they have no idea of what the job entails and therefore no experience. I would not have even considered accepting a bid so far off. I did not get to look at the tree, but I bet they did all the easy stuff first and probably cut off all the rigging and tie in points that an experienced crew would need.

I looked at one job where the homeowner told me over the phone they wanted a tree removed and had started to cut it down but needed someone to remove the branches over a stream. I looked at the job and they had cut everything except the 25 ft. long laterals over the stream and left no uprights. I explained to them how a professional would leave a couple of uprights for rigging and tie in and now the job is extremely difficult and I declined to submit a bid. Back yard, no crane access, and I was not going to inchworm my way out there. Dropping into the stream and then trying to pull it out was not a viable option either.

 

[Ekka]

Hey Koa

I got a bugger of hairy one just like that but over fences, houses and yards to do this Friday. I'll try to get out there today with the vid camera to show you what the developers have done and left.

But we can get a bucket near it, just not all over it so it's an hourly job with no promises.

I'll get a birds eye view on Friday.

 

[BlueRidgeMark]

They are in for a big surprise and will lose their okole (Hawaiian word) on that job.

.....



Koa, help us out here. Just what does that word mean?

I looked at one job where the homeowner told me over the phone they wanted a tree removed and had started to cut it down ... and I declined to submit a bid.

I saw a sign once that would seem to apply.

SHOP RATES:

If we work on it: $40 per hour

If another shop worked on it: $60 per hour

If you worked on it: $80 per hour.

 

[Koa Man]

Ok, BlueRidge,
Ever heard of Wet Okole seatcovers? Okole is the Hawaiian word for your rear end or posterior.

 

[stingray bay]

Reading this thread makes me realise why some people own heavy machinery AND chainsaws and others just stand around at the bottom of a tree with their hand on it wondering how much they can charge the poor owner of the house next to the tree. There was nothing in this job that hydraulics wouldn't sort out double quick. If we had spent this long removing a 3.5m DBH Macrocarpa from my neighbours house we would have been laughed off the island Cost? 10 litres of diesel to drive there and back, 3 days cutting and maybe 20 litres of fuel for the saws. You guys must have some pretty gullible customers.

 

[Tree Machine]

True, but to compare a big macrocarpa to this banyan...., they're such different animals. And you never charge your neighbors the way you charge others.

Come to the US and work with me. It's Winter there on the south island. Take a vacation. Come to Indiana for a few months.

I don't get gullible customers, but we do all right.

 

[ASD]

True, but to compare a big macrocarpa to this banyan...., they're such different animals. And you never charge your neighbors the way you charge others.

Come to the US and work with me. It's Winter there on the south island. Take a vacation. Come to Indiana for a few months.

I don't get gullible customers, but we do all right.

NICE PIC

 

[stingray bay]

True, but to compare a big macrocarpa to this banyan...., they're such different animals. And you never charge your neighbors the way you charge others.

Come to the US and work with me. It's Winter there on the south island. Take a vacation. Come to Indiana for a few months.

I don't get gullible customers, but we do all right.

Tempting, the way some of those quotes read I could buy myself a 20 ton digger after the first few trees! However its a clear blue sky, 16 Deg C, the fishing is fantastic and Scallop season starts on Saturday...

 

[Tree Machine]

Stingray, this pic was for you. This is your back yard, a shot off of Queen Charlotte Highway just north of Picton.

Elizabeth and I were greeted by a Kiwi Arborist, Graeme, who took us for a three day camping over at White's Bay. We were treated to spearfishing, lobstering, scalloping and (only you'll be able to appreciate this...) nighttime drunken possum hunting with spotlight and spearguns. I was treated to some of the best your country had to offer.

We came down to NZ for two months. We had beers with Timber McPherson about halfway through. Both he and Graeme were telling me about an arborist near Nelson, some legendary dude but they couldn't pin down exactly where he was.

Where you live?

 

[Tree Machine]

Since I'm derailing this thread, let me be thorough and offer a few more pictures that have nothing to do with this thread.


Or is this thread done? Last pics were the banyan trunkage was still standing and Ekka was predicting bad things when they sunk saws into the dirty buttresses.


Did the dudes finish the job? Did they get the heavy equipment? What kind of chain carnage was there.

OK, back to the derail. Enjoy the pics. The first few are of the Marlborough Sounds, a place of beauty that is just staggering. The last couple are Graeme, an independent arborist out of Christchurch.



p.s., Do you know the arborist that Graeme and Timber were talking about?

 

[stingray bay]

Yes thats the Shakespare Bay log marshalling yard where all our pines leave for Korea , great pic. I'm glad you had a good time while over here, its a pretty neat place. We live on Arapawa Island (where all the good scallops live) which is the island in the middle of Queen Charlotte Sound, 30 km from Picton. My neighbours make manuka oil and their website has a map with a dot that covers our property , the map can be seen at http://www.mshop.co.nz/ArapawaIsland.shtml. Sorry I don't know any legendary arborists :biggrinbounce2:

 

[Tree Machine]

Is is true that Arapawa Island only has 50 human inhabitants? Or is that legend. I'll bet no gullible customers out there. Thank God for the internet. You are like, way, way remote, Stingray.

 

[stingray bay]

Yep thats the lot. It works out at 385 acres per inhabitant which is plenty close enough to neighbours (it helps keep the fishing and diving good too). It costs a bomb to get anything done here which why everyone on the island owns a digger or a dozer (or both). We have another claim to fame, having the highest wild pig population per acre in NZ (Legend has it), they were dropped off here by captain cook in 1773 and have had plenty of time to spread out.

 

[Tree Machine]

We were down in Invercargill, on a mission to find some chainsaw pants that Timber referred me on to. Found them, and on our way back northward I decided to call Graeme and ask what there was to see between here and there. I called and his roommate answered, who is also an arborist, so I ask him, I sez, "If you had a pretty girl and you've been driving around New Zealand for 6 weeks, what would you do next?" He answers, "I'd take 'er pig huntin." Not overly surprised by this answer, I said, "So what if she was ugly and you just got here yesterday. "Aww, I'd still take 'er pig huntin."




This is a pretty good derail so far, don'tcha think? Waiting on final photos, we shift to a related topic, geography, history, demographics and pig hunting on an island at the top of New Zealand's south Island.

You're now FAMOUS, Stingray.


This image is one of my favorites of the New Zealand landscape. Elizabeth would not let me get the hat.

 

[a_lopa]

all that way for some n.z cutproofs man!

 

[treeseer]

You can go for Beaver Liquor Ltd., but the best action can be found at Beaver Liquor Unlimited.

Wenya gittin that cert TM? Hear the voice of your Boss and do it!

 

[xtremetrees]

TM doesnt need the C.A. Treeseer besides all his local C.A.'s are spikeing trims and generally just got the C.A. for marketing purposes. Tm is a marketing genusis and doesnt even need to set a higher rope/bar. He's comfortable being a millionaire off your hard work BCMA.