From my original post regarding this, I said “not paying myself,” meaning reinvesting all income. On paper, we have had exponential growth and profit every year. You have to claim some profit to be financiable by banks. For us, this meant some purchases became “personal,” as we accrued assets...
My goal is to run two crews. One with the big toys for big projects and big trees, and a satellite crew with smaller equipment and smaller overhead.
The purpose of the satellite crew would be to be able to price small jobs at a lower rate, perform work with smaller staff requirements like PHC...
Assuming I am included in your shout out, respect rightfully returned.
To answer your question, that is why I (now) have nice equipment. There was also plenty of “wheel spinning” as I learned the true costs of this business for myself. Last, it was always our intention to put everything...
I am advising to wait. To me, our last option would be some serious trenching and the customer doesn’t want to commit to that. We did treat with shortstop. Meanwhile the trees are also dealing with BOB. We will see what spring brings, but it looks pretty grim after today.
Performed a number of root crown excavations today while the soil was nice and moist. These poor Bur Oaks have 24” of hard clay fill graded over one side of their collars. We found lots of large broken root members pushed against the stems- outlook isn’t good. New construction as of a year...
I have tried to explain this to a few of these individuals, and they don’t get it. They won’t be able to afford replacing their little trucks that they are pushing to the max level of service or more day in and day out when they need major mechanicals. I do get a reaction when I tell them that...
*I had one guy, who couldn’t pass our climbing test, tell me he could go make $45/hr pulling weeds.
Not sure how that got cut off, the text box gets glitchy on iPhone sometimes
There will be a reckoning with this, and in some places it is already brewing.
In our small metro (130,000 ish people) there are 40 some licensed “tree companies” at this point in time- inexperienced individuals benefiting from the little to no barrier to access the market. Established...
Everyone I know of who runs a DW loves theirs. We run a Vermeer CTX 160 with a hydraulic rotating BMG and wouldn’t be without. They have a lot of the kinks worked out of these machines at this point, regardless of the manufacturer, in my opinion.
Acceptable but very limiting. I would at least want a swivel. If you are trying to shorten your system, try a DMM perfect O, or experiment with an adjustable bridge? I just girth hitch a carabiner to my bridge outside of the rigging plate to shorten for ascent anymore.
You learn to anticipate and avoid situations that create lost time- that is one of the efficiencies of experience.
I notice that when I am stressed and in a hurry I get things stuck. It’s a kind of negative feedback loop.
Most people give up learning to fly fish because you spend about a year...
Just a midline girth hitch on the carabiner is what I have used for years to pull everything. If I am near a bitter end sometimes I will add a half-hitch, but I have never seen the rope slip without. We girth onto trailer hitches behind the ball or pintle to pull with trucks and the girth...
I walked into a back yard for a scheduled estimate, not realizing that the local Davey sales arborist was still there, to hear him say, “…Silver Maples are bulletproof.”
I have priced out a couple trailers with Felling, and they are always almost twice the cost of other brands. I believe the finish is better and some components more durable. If it’s a trailer that isn’t going to get abused, they are supposed to last a long time. I can’t speak from experience-...
I have to admit that I haven’t ever given AllGear a fair chance either. Looking at their website, they have a lot of nice stuff. Who are their main distributors online?
Atlas 5/8” is my personal favorite for negative rigging. It is miserable for pulling (it’s like a rubber band). All atlas and higher strand sheathed lines glaze badly when used natural crotch, in my experience.
We use 1/2” double esterlon for general use, pulling, and lifting. The 9/16”...