Bucket truck

Still considering buying the bucket truck but wanted to hear a little more about the routine maintenance. Curious what type of extra costs there are. I heard the cable needs to be replaced every 6 years and is very expensive. Any of you bucket truck owners care to give me a heads up on the expense of owning a forestry package type of truck.

Chris
 
There is no reason to buy a bucket truck that uses cables, that is an antiquated design. We like the high rangers and the altecs. The leveling chains will last the life of the unit if properly cared for. And if they ever need to be replaced its a simple job.
as far as costs of owning a bucket truck we have found the cost of maintaining our buckets to be about the same as a truck of the same size, with the addition of an annual inspection and dielectric test. Most of the wear parts in our buckets have an expected life of 10+ years.
I should say that another company may feel different about this, we have some very costly equipment to run in our fleet so by comparison the bucket trucks feel like very low maintance machines, more money goes into the chassis then the boom
 
I was a municipal arborist and worked 45 and 60'.
45 was useless.
60 was better but I still had to get out of the bucket quite often to make the cut or reposition the truck.
Now for
Over 10 years operating primarily residential,a bucket truck for me would be an expensive ladder.

I can confidently say atleast once a month I wish I had one.
The thing I don't miss is the aches and pains from reaching and over reaching from within the bucket.

Another thing missed is the marketing and validation presence of a bucket truck.This can be over or underestimate.
I see self propel lift in the future but a small crane sounds a good option.
 
55 to 60 is nice but when you get one and then get some extry money from using them.....add a 75'. Then you will make so much money you can add a nice crane. Worked for me.

Equipment is the name of the game. Still plenty of opportunity to be the refined climber that used to not understand why anybody needs thoses expensive extravagances.
 
I agree but, there are plenty of other brands that are good... Versalift, Aerial Lift of Connecticuit, Hi Ranger, Terex, etc all make a pretty good bucket truck. Some brands are more specialized for specific industries than others.

I agree that these are fairly low maintenance trucks if you know what you're doing and service them correctly.
 
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