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[mikewhite85]

If you can get two or three class A's in a couple few weeks, that would be impressive to say the least! I hope you can do it, will be interesting to see.

I'm pretty sure all of my trucks are insured for specific amounts. I just went through that with my ins. co. last year. My bucket was somehow under-insured at $150k. We upped it to $200k. Would've really sucked if something like happened to you went down! I mentioned something to the driver the other week about why he was going so slow back there, he said he didn't like driving other peoples equipment too fast. I thought about the images of your truck on its side and said "okay, that's cool, I just wanted to make sure it was running alright". lol

Edit: I think even my 02 international is insured for 40k. Which is fair in my mind. Even though it's old and needs restoring, it works perfect and would be hard to replace with someone else's junker.

Yeah it hurts to pay but it's worth it when you need it. After a big work comp claim and now the bucket truck I'm really glad I have it.

I think when I re-up my commercial auto I'll ask for "replacement value" instead of "actual cost value." It's crazy how much the cost of equipment has gone up in the last 18-24 months. That said, I think we're due for a correction at some point in the next couple years. When many of the ill-experienced covid era start up tree companies start going under there will be a lot more equipment on the market.

 

[dbl612]

Yeah it hurts to pay but it's worth it when you need it. After a big work comp claim and now the bucket truck I'm really glad I have it.

I think when I re-up my commercial auto I'll ask for "replacement value" instead of "actual cost value." It's crazy how much the cost of equipment has gone up in the last 18-24 months. That said, I think we're due for a correction at some point in the next couple years. When many of the ill-experienced covid era start up tree companies start going under there will be a lot more equipment on the market.

you will find that replacement value premiums are way more than what you presently have

 

[bck]

Yeah it hurts to pay but it's worth it when you need it. After a big work comp claim and now the bucket truck I'm really glad I have it.

I think when I re-up my commercial auto I'll ask for "replacement value" instead of "actual cost value." It's crazy how much the cost of equipment has gone up in the last 18-24 months. That said, I think we're due for a correction at some point in the next couple years. When many of the ill-experienced covid era start up tree companies start going under there will be a lot more equipment on the market.

I’m hoping it’s more like 6-12 months

 

[tree MDS]

Just don’t get pulled over with a non cdl guy driving a cdl rig - especially class a!! I’m pretty sure there are fines most hilljack tree-workers have rarely even thought or before the door is even opened.

 

[tree MDS]

Most of us are getting too old/in too deep for surprises at this point (if they can be averted).

 

[Haplo]

We rented the easy lift today and the homeowner let me use his Case SR240. Also just got an airspade and the first root collar excavation we did revealed girdling roots. Nice tool, ended up running about $450/ machine hour on that.

 

[Helmstein]

We rented the easy lift today and the homeowner let me use his Case SR240. Also just got an airspade and the first root collar excavation we did revealed girdling roots. Nice tool, ended up running about $450/ machine hour on that.

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Thats great the rental yard has that machine available. I saw that you should now tie into the lanyard loop outside the basket down by the jib articulating point instead of the eye bolt in the basket.

I saw something on face book about this a few weeks back.

 

[Rabid K9]

We rented the easy lift today and the homeowner let me use his Case SR240. Also just got an airspade and the first root collar excavation we did revealed girdling roots. Nice tool, ended up running about $450/ machine hour on that.

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That's a fancy machine for a rental yard!!

What day/ weekly rate do they charge on that lift? Looks like a big robot spider in the kids playground.

 

[Rabid K9]

Anyone here run the Stihl hexa chain? And have any feedback?

Like the look of it, their is a promo deal on it at the moment, thinking about trying it a couple of the 3/8 saws to compare with the Stihl full chisel.

Three & a half days on pines (P. radiata) starting tomorrow, plus stumps, little bit of a novelty dealing with that many pines for us. Sure the novelty will wear off after getting the first bit of resin on me. Embedded granite in a number of the stumps, have to apologise to the grinder being getting started.

 

[Haplo]

What day/ weekly rate do they charge on that lift

$950 for one day includes tax and delivery to the job site. Week rate with tax about $1975

 

[mikewhite85]

$950 for one day includes tax and delivery to the job site. Week rate with tax about $1975

Sounds worth it for the right job! That's cool that you have something like that even available.

I've toyed with the idea of getting an airspade. Do you own a compressor to run it or do you rent those too?

 

[Haplo]

Air compressor is 145 a day with tax. So we are planning on grouping all the airspade jobs together and sending my partner out to do those when I am out doing bids

 

[Haplo]

I want to see how much airspade work we get this year before committing to an air compressor. I think a doosan 185 cfm is only around 20k

 

[mikewhite85]

Smart. How much did you end up billing for the airspade work?

I imagine a lot of customers would have a tough time justifying $800plus. It seems like often by the time they call to see what can be done about dieback in the tree, the girdling roots have already made it too late.

 

[Haplo]

I want to start pushing it as an add on for younger trees that we get called out to prune. Or while doing the bid I often see trees planted too low. Root collar excavation you might be on site 15-30 minutes. So one guy with a pickup truck can hit a dozen or more stops in a day.

I could see full aeration being hard to sell since it is more time consuming. But root collar excavation and root pruning you can easy sell as a $250 add on to a pruning job

 

[Haplo]

How much did you end up billing for the airspade work?

We charged them $175. Really just wanted to try the tool out and cover the cost of the compressor rental. Only ran it 15 minutes. We had a half day of work there beside

 

[Glenn50]

I saw that you should now tie into the lanyard loop outside the basket down by the jib articulating point instead of the eye bolt in the basket.

Say Mr helmstein, may I ask why? Doesn't the loop inside keep you in the bucket? It would also seem the lanyard would have to be longer buckled to the outside Loop, and also it would seem like it would get tangled with branches. If you were thrown out of the bucket, wouldn't the longer lanyard create a greater stopping shock? I I'm guessing that the reason Maybe that it may help eliminate the winding of the lanyard around the body, caused by twisting every which way, but I guess I haven't found it a big deal. I will try the outside Loop next time. Just used it last weekend.

 

[Rabid K9]

Bit of pine action today, plenty of logs coming out of the job, just wish could make use of them for firewood or timber, only market I’ve found for pine product so far is softfall mulch in school playgrounds.

 

[mikewhite85]

Bit of pine action today, plenty of logs coming out of the job, just wish could make use of them for firewood or timber, only market I’ve found for pine product so far is softfall mulch in school playgrounds.

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Some slick pics. Sometimes the wood just isn't worth hauling. I'm impressed though with the market you seem to get for wood products.

Finished day 4 of cdl training today. It looks like we will test on Wed of next week. I keep failing the practice in cab air tests but I think I'm almost ready.

 

[Helmstein]

Say Mr helmstein, may I ask why? Doesn't the loop inside keep you in the bucket? It would also seem the lanyard would have to be longer buckled to the outside Loop, and also it would seem like it would get tangled with branches. If you were thrown out of the bucket, wouldn't the longer lanyard create a greater stopping shock? I I'm guessing that the reason Maybe that it may help eliminate the winding of the lanyard around the body, caused by twisting every which way, but I guess I haven't found it a big deal. I will try the outside Loop next time. Just used it last weekend.

I believe this is how upequip/easy lift is sending the new units out. It's a safety thing. If the bucket were to fall off the tie in point is on the frame of the jib. I think its a Redundancy safety measure.