Bid that tree!

[tomstrees]

I doubt this building was insured, it’s smaller than the building permit requirements. The deductible little less than the cost of repair, and forcing the client to file a claim rates are jacked up is BS
And that is some shady shit.

I was just trying to channel the ethos of some of the area showy tree services where "whatever the market will bear" is their motto.

 

[evo]

I was just trying to channel the ethos of some of the area showy tree services where "whatever the market will bear" is their motto.

"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Mark Twain"

 

[Phil]

I basically have a "I don't get out of bed for less than $400" policy. The whole bidding it from a picture thing is aweful I know but part of me likes the little bit of a gamble. Maybe I'll be done in two hours, maybe I'll be done 8. What's life without whimsy?

Also, I will never clean stuff up. I only do "leave lay" jobs. Plus I don't have Ins. premiums to worry about. The homeowner is the one that needs to worry about that lol. I always encourage them to get estimates from local companies as well.

Update fore anyone who cares. Wrecked it this weekend. Didn't do too bad with it. Jump start my car in the morning to get on site at 7 am. Jump start my car again to leave at 1:00. Had to come down half way through to help clear brush from the base so we could get to rigging. The two bigger limbs on the left were much more over the house than the pics indicated but there was an ok rigging point in the main tops. Homeowner was out there the entire time dragging brush and trying to process limbs with loppers and I put him to work running the rope when we rigged. Was a fun little job. Plus he tipped me an extra hundred...which helped pay for the car battery I had to buy on my way home lol.

 

[tomstrees]

"Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.
Mark Twain"

And Twain had a good sense of humor and I'm sure he would find my parody of overpriced contracting worth writing about.....

 

[evo]

Just did a second opinion consult on three trees. The property is up for sale and the new buyers are demanding they are all cut down because the other tree guy said ‘they gotta go’
Really not a damn thing wrong with them could use a little pruning here and there. Guy wanted 16k for two fir removals and ‘limbing up’ a maple.
I could see a crew of 2-3 doing it all in a day, and maybe a second day loading wood at a pretty chill pace with cookie breaks.
Damn shame.

 

[Vicente]

Just did a second opinion consult on three trees. The property is up for sale and the new buyers are demanding they are all cut down because the other tree guy said ‘they gotta go’
Really not a damn thing wrong with them could use a little pruning here and there. Guy wanted 16k for two fir removals and ‘limbing up’ a maple.
I could see a crew of 2-3 doing it all in a day, and maybe a second day loading wood at a pretty chill pace with cookie breaks.
Damn shame.

That's done ridiculous pricing, still I'd rather have people pricing way too high than to low to low is hard to compete against and you work a lot and are still broke.

 

[southsoundtree]

So the guy who had a 100% vested interest in the removal of the trees said the trees "need" to go, right?

I ask customers that a lot, especially when "the guy" is working on commission, one way or the other.

 

[southsoundtree]

The propane delivery driver told established customers that the big, craggy and pecked-at bark on a big, 4-footer fir meant it had to go.

Somehow, he missed the Phellinus pini-riddled smaller fir, 10' away.

 

[oceans]

I’ve definitely been in the position to ask a client why is it that everyone knows what should be done to their tree except the tree guy!

In one case, we had spent a day working on 2 very large Silver Maples above a residence, 10% tip reduction, installing new cables since the previous were out-grown, removing all deadwood > 1” diameter, etc… A week later, her contractor came to look at the house and said the tree was a problem.

She was initially happy when we finished, but then someone had to plant seeds of doubt in her mind. I had to squash those seeds.

 

[tomstrees]

Just did a second opinion consult on three trees. The property is up for sale and the new buyers are demanding they are all cut down because the other tree guy said ‘they gotta go’
Really not a damn thing wrong with them could use a little pruning here and there. Guy wanted 16k for two fir removals and ‘limbing up’ a maple.
I could see a crew of 2-3 doing it all in a day, and maybe a second day loading wood at a pretty chill pace with cookie breaks.
Damn shame.

And quality pruning should be enough in most cases, but the big money is in removals. Has any aborist had his license pulled for false assessments on trees needing to be removed or price gouging?

 

[oceans]

And quality pruning should be enough in most cases, but the big money is in removals. Has any aborist had his license pulled for false assessments on trees needing to be removed or price gouging?

I’m going to respectfully disagree and say that removal work can become the big “race to the bottom”. If you look at margins, you might find they’re often higher in quality pruning work.

 

[Barc Buster]

I’m going to respectfully disagree and say that removal work can become the big “race to the bottom”. If you look at margins, you might find they’re often higher in quality pruning work.

100% agree here in our market. Removals are almost always lowest bidder wins and there are plenty of “two drunks with a chainsaw” types around here that removals often get bid super cheap. I’ll bid removals that are within my equipment’s ability to handle at a price that is as fair to both parties as possible but rarely win them. Pruning is far more profitable for me.

 

[tomstrees]

I'm curious what the type of line clearing work I'm seeing Lewis and Nelson tree doing around here brings? I've heard people say that they don't like to do it as not as profitable. But it is government paid for so I assume that they pay the full rate.

 

[Vicente]

I'm curious what the type of line clearing work I'm seeing Lewis and Nelson tree doing around here brings? I've heard people say that they don't like to do it as not as profitable. But it is government paid for so I assume that they pay the full rate.

Here pg&e pays a shitload for it decent climbers at mountain make 65$ an hour plus full benefits 401k paid vacation. It's considered good for one of their 3 man pickup teams to do two removals even easy ones in a day without accidents.

 

[Boomslang]

I'm curious what the type of line clearing work I'm seeing Lewis and Nelson tree doing around here brings? I've heard people say that they don't like to do it as not as profitable. But it is government paid for so I assume that they pay the full rate.

Varies by utility. I used to work for the local one detailing lines and generating work orders. When I started we were paying the contractors at their quoted hourly rate. Companies made out really well. Then the bean counters at head office ran some numbers and realized it would be cheaper to equip, train, and pay in-house unionized crews than continue paying contractors. So the past few years have seen a gradually shift to the utility crews getting the gravy areas and the contractors left with backwoods, swampy, thickets of brush areas. Plus, the utility now has a set span rate for contractors. So whatever money they make on a span with only a quick cut or two they lose a lot of it on the spans that take half a day or more. More than half the contractors have stopped doing any line clearance as a result.

 

[tomstrees]

Here pg&e pays a shitload for it decent climbers at mountain make 65$ an hour plus full benefits 401k paid vacation. It's considered good for one of their 3 man pickup teams to do two removals even easy ones in a day without accidents.

I'm not seeing any climbers on the line clearing, just youngish guys operating buckets then the guys doing the ground work and flagging.

 

[tomstrees]

100% agree here in our market. Removals are almost always lowest bidder wins and there are plenty of “two drunks with a chainsaw” types around here that removals often get bid super cheap. I’ll bid removals that are within my equipment’s ability to handle at a price that is as fair to both parties as possible but rarely win them. Pruning is far more profitable for me.

Around here removals are more expensive from what I've seen. $3500/day plus, and dump fees get added especially with the large wood so customers often opt to have it left and I'm seeing less neat piles than a few years ago and no quartering of 400# or so stump wood for later splitting. I'm just doing log splitting at a fixed hourly rate and ground chain saw work which there is less demand for.

The "two drunks, saws and pick-ups" are not common around here. Used to be the advise for getting a climber was to check area bars and ask the regulars who's the climber? Or as Harold Self used to say of just climbers he knew, "they're not tightly wrapped" which is a mean slam.

I used to do top to bottom prunes for customers, hiring an area climber I'd known for years and charge a few hundred bucks a large hardwood tree. The take downs and removals were always more.

 

[Njdelaney]

@tomstrees where are you located?

 

[Vicente]

I'm not seeing any climbers on the line clearing, just youngish guys operating buckets then the guys doing the ground work and flagging.

They've got them here can't access all our lines with a bucket truck.

 

[oceans]

Around here removals are more expensive from what I've seen. $3500/day plus, and dump fees get added...

…The take downs and removals were always more.

I guess what I’m just saying is that while a removal can be expensive, that doesn’t necessarily mean the company really made much money after paying all the overhead to do such a job. Usually a larger crew, heavier equipment, more fuel, more insurance, etc. Some of these companies pick a lane and go for volume to find a profit.

It’s not always the case, just saying that at the end of the day, the job price/cost reflects the actual profit and it might be less than some people think.

But every market is different, including the kind of work that people even consider having done to their trees. Considering @Shadowscape ’s input sheds more light on the subject. I know there are pockets of population that can afford having 6 climbing arborists swinging around in their trees “polishing buds” all day and others where just the idea of tree care is a foreign concept. Probably hard to find a good margin for pruning in the later.