Which equipment purchase next?

[Griff93]

I'm three years into my own tree service. I'm trying to buy more equipment to make the jobs faster/easier. We to 99% residential tree work. I have the following equipment:

BC625a
BC1220
F550 12 ft flat bed dump with a chip box built on to it
Fuso with 16 ft bed
GMC C6000 chip truck
32 hp 4wd yanmar tractor FEL
16 ft utility trailer
Saws, rigging, and climbing gear

I'm considering buying a mini skid steer, a forestry bucket truck, or a smaller(15-23 ton) crane. I would plan to sell the old chip truck if I bought a forestry bucket. I also plan to sell the BC625a in the spring. Those two would give me some money towards a down payment or some payment money held back. I've been spending an average of almost $300 per month renting a genie lift for the last couple of years. I would/could utilize a bucket more if I had my own. I don't want a towable lift even though I like them because for large removals we would have to take three trucks to end up with the chipper, loader, and bucket. My average drive is about 20 miles one way to a job. If I didn't have the tractor I'd be all over getting a mini skid. The tractor will pick up about 1800 lbs and doesn't do any lawn damage unless its soupy. I still want one though because not being able to have a grapple kinda sucks. The crane guys around here won't even return my calls. Apparently if they don't know you and have been working with you for a long time, they aren't interested. I'm leaning towards a small crane. Most of the trees we do are 50-60 ft tall. I can always continue renting a genie lift when I need a bucket. Tying into the crane would eliminate a lot of what I would use a bucket for. Thoughts?

 

[treecutterjr]

In thIs order:
1. Crane
2. Mini
3. Bucket

The crane does the work of 20 men.
A mini doors the work of like 5 men.
A bucket only replaces one man. Buckets are handy, and I love mine. But the crane can lift a person into the tree, abd lift the log. I know some guys that just lift the climber into the tree, he ties in& makes the cut. And waits on the crane to take him to the next spot. Crane, mini, bucket

 

[Griff93]

You're a big reason I'm considering a crane first. I've seen how well it serves you guys and from talking to you it has put some of the unknowns at ease. Do you guys mainly chip into your forestry bucket truck or do you have a separate chip truck? I guess I should have put this in the commercial tree section.

Thanks,
Griff

 

[treecutterjr]

I've got a separate chip truck. We use the bucket sometimes but I prefer not to

 

[BC WetCoast]

The more important question would be "Do you have the sales or sales potential to justify the expense?" Don't forget you are going to have to project several years into the future. If you buy a crane, how many removals a month would you require? Can your sales and market support this? Are you a good salesman?

 

[Griff93]

Other than payment, insurance, some expected maintenance, tags, and dot crane cert, I'm having a hard time coming up with other regular expenses for a small crane. If I can quit renting a genie lift, I can put that $300/per month towards the crane. I will also not do this unless I sell some of my current equipment which will let me pay off my F550. This is the only payment I have on equipment. I also just got rid of my worthless yellowpages ad at $300/month so I could use the same money I've been putting on that if needed. I'm thinking a smaller crane like what treecutterjr has. I've seen them repeatedly in the $30-40K range with current cert and supposedly in good shape. I'm leaning hard towards the crane. When I look back on recent jobs, I think there's a lot of time savings to be had with one. We climb everything now unless I rent a genie lift so it won't bother us to tie into the crane. Seems like a lot easier than climbing from the ground every time. I have plenty of room to park it so that's not a problem. I think it will save me quite a bit in labor costs due to the increase in speed of being able to get jobs done. We did a Black Walnut 26 dbh a couple of weeks ago that was about 5 feet from a house. I bet it would have cut that jobs time in half. Seems like if I can get a forestry bucket to the tree, I'd probably be able to get a crane to the tree.

I've had enough sales that I need to do something as my labor cost is to high vs gross. Doing everything manually is time consuming. My sales have steadily been getting better for the past couple of years and I have no reason to think they won't continue to do so. I'm currently studying to take the ISA certified arborist exam so that shouldn't hurt either. We have a good reputation of being honest and doing a good job with a thorough clean up. I'm getting more and more referrals as time goes one. I'm actually going to do an estimate first thing in the morning for a 4 tree removal next door to where I removed 5 pines last year.