What do you do if the customer don't allow the crane on there driveway?

Just what the title says.. If the customer wants it done without a crane do you do it manually or skip it?

 

Can you charge more?

 

Unless I could do the job off the driveway or they wanted to pay extra for doing it more traditionally, I'd get a new customer.

 

is it unsafe or unreasonable to remove manually? The advent of cranes to our industry makes any other way seem obsolete but I've run into the same issues. Maybe stress the integrity of the jobs safety is based off the crane and any other option poses an unacceptable level of risk.

 

We put mats down on every driveway even with the 90 ton have never left a mark or damaged a driveway even unilock with mats over is fine. I don't know why they would object. Since buying my crane every job I look at is can we do it with the crane first bucket truck second, lift third, flop it 4th and manually climbing last which I'd rather not do anymore ! Just have to sell the idea hard to customers

 

If your highest value is crane removal work, maybe build a good relationship with someone in your area whose highest value is non-crane removals/pruning. Refer clients to one another. Before you do refer it out, quote a high price on the job reflecting what it would cost you if you were to do it without a crane.

 

So in other words you guys that own your cranes are biding/doing a job for less than if you'd have to do it the traditional way..

 

Not necessarily, but I'm not going to spend 4x longer on a job for the same money while the crane sits in the shop.

 

I'm not necessarily bidding any less, but we can knock out 2-3 jobs that would normally take a day each to do in one with the crane. It's about efficiency and still charging enough and making $!


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Now if everyone had a driveway like this for each crane job would be sweet! Nothing on the road no permits, traffic people etc....


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I like to think a tree is worth so much to remove it. Doesn't matter what you have for equipment.....its a 2K dollar tree. The crane guys have higher costs.....but can do three or 4 of those 2K dollar trees a day. Thats how they make the money to cover their higher costs. It all depends on how your company is set up and what you have for equipment. If you can do that tee by hand and still make money at 2k then good for you...do it. Or, if you can sell it at a slightly higher cost because you have to hand climb it....then do that.
I own a crane and like others have said try and get the crane to every job. However......last week my crane sat for two days while we removed trees with just the log truck, chip truck and chipper and tractor. I made my daily quota no problem. however their are certain trees IMO that are just super hard to do without a crane. I will price a bigger crane, or just walk from a job like that.

 

Mat into the yard maybe? I remember a post of someone that had a huge roll of timbers that went down to distribute forces under a crane or trucks that were driving on sensitive property like the driveway or lawn

 

That was Paul Cox

 

Paul puts mats down and then his rope ladder timbers on top to help in softer ground. I believe they are 3"x3"x4' long white oak strung together with old 1/2" climbing line. Even the mats bow under load. His rope ladder definitely keeps the bow out

 

Timber mats are another option but they weigh in at a ton each. 16'x4' made out of 8x8's. PITA to deal with.

 

Bigger crane, farther away, charge more.

Or

NEXT! Ready to serve the next customer.

 

I've had cranes on jobs were we matted with steel plate the crane company brought with them. Not a single bit of damage. We do removals in whichever fashion makes the most sense with safety being the first consideration. As Royce is pointing out, the value of the removal is established by the tree, the limitations of the site and the parameters of the site access for whatever equipment is best utilized under those conditions.

If you can't afford to have the crane sit for a day or two revisit your job costing. Maybe you need to build downtime into your model to allow for a day where the crane is not on the job. Can the crane op do other work with the crane that day to bring in revenue? It may also be a good day to schedule maintenance on the crane.

This is a service business after all.

 

Why don't you just climb the thing, like treemen have been doing since the dawn of time. God lord, has this industry really gotten to the point where a bunch of crane spoiled "arborist" don't want to do a job, because they have to actually climb a fucking tree? Sad! Seems that cranes just might be ruining this industry?

 

Dudes have been getting soft since the invention of the crosscut saw. An axe is the only iron a real tree man should need.

 

It's not about getting soft, it's about losing a skill set. Do you think it's a good thing that a few guys here said they would not do the job if they had to climb it? I sure don't.