Most Expensive Tree Removal

[Serf Life]

Define too cheap? Looks like you had minimal equipment on that job. Equipment = more cost and therefore higher charges, but not necessarily more profit.

If you met your profit margin on that job, you were not too cheap. Maybe with equipment and therefore higher charge, you could have gotten more jobs done in that day (which may have increased your profits for the day, but per job your profit would have probably been around the same).

This sums up a lot of my thoughts these days. I hit my mark on 95% of quoted jobs, think my calculations for overhead etc are about right, but keep being told “you’re too cheap.”
For example: we did a job for $3400 which made a bit better than normal hourly, the homeowner said the other quote was $8k, another project was for $1200 which made hourly mark and homeowner was quoted $6k from another company. Same product quoted and always leave it better than I say it will be. Equipment setup would have been quite similar due to access as well.

Currently I have two chip trucks, 12” chipper, sk800 mini, 12’ dump trailer and work with another lic insured arborist. Looks like I am around your normal rate referenced. Part of quoting is figuring out the numbers of overhead and target profit, the other is finding what the market will bear and not making a race to the bottom.

A friend is in a different field and pretty much tailors his hourly by what is accepted which is what all of the tradespeople are doing locally too with increased building demand. Long winded answer, have enjoyed reading your posts over the years btw.

 

[Sgfinco]

Why was the tree split from the strike?

Split and rotten the strike was a few years ago and the top had been crumbling

 

[evo]

The most expensive one I know of around here was done by one of the first guys I worked for... It was still fresh enough the crew was still talking about it when I got hired on. He kept his numbers private, but what I do know is that he hired a sea crane on a barge to pick the dead madrone and land it on their deck for disposal (probably pushed if off the side of the deck when the rounded the point.

 

[evo]

Sounding like I’m still too cheap. $3500 maple on a house removed in the wind and rain.View attachment 73808View attachment 73809

how long did it take you?

 

[evo]

This sums up a lot of my thoughts these days. I hit my mark on 95% of quoted jobs, think my calculations for overhead etc are about right, but keep being told “you’re too cheap.”
For example: we did a job for $3400 which made a bit better than normal hourly, the homeowner said the other quote was $8k, another project was for $1200 which made hourly mark and homeowner was quoted $6k from another company. Same product quoted and always leave it better than I say it will be. Equipment setup would have been quite similar due to access as well.

Currently I have two chip trucks, 12” chipper, sk800 mini, 12’ dump trailer and work with another lic insured arborist. Looks like I am around your normal rate referenced. Part of quoting is figuring out the numbers of overhead and target profit, the other is finding what the market will bear and not making a race to the bottom.

A friend is in a different field and pretty much tailors his hourly by what is accepted which is what all of the tradespeople are doing locally too with increased building demand. Long winded answer, have enjoyed reading your posts over the years btw.

I once gave a lady a quote on an 'emergency' job. It was a 50' alder about 10-12" diameter. Snapped 3' from he ground and leaned into another tree. This was along the property line leaning away from everything. Damn thing wasn't going to go anywhere.
I verbalized that, but due to the previous company coming out and scaring the crap out of her about x,y,z could happen.
I told her what my minimum emergency rate was 1.5 x my daily, and she started crying. Happy tears because the other company quoted her 4x that number!
We didn't have to climb anything, set rigging from the ground. Winched it up with the GRCS, and whittled on the butt as we chipped the few arm loads of limbs (she wanted firewood). In and out in a hour and a half.
I still think that was my most profitable job.

 

[27RMT0N]

I found the photos of the big oak job, from way back in 2009. Geeze, I've been doing tree work longer than I thought....

Here are some other details I remember: The chestnut oak was the supposedly the largest in the state, was being removed due to the MASSIVE crack that developed and was going to split the tree in half, potentially crushing two houses. We ordered a 150-ton crane, but it was busy so Ness Crane sent out their 300-ton which was a truly amazing machine and we shut down the whole block for the job. Dan (the climber) made the first cut with a 20" 361 and for the second cut switched to a 36" 661 and basically used that for the whole rest of the tree. Each pick felt like it was the size of a medium tree itself. We had the whole thing brushed by just about lunch time, filled 4-5 chip trucks and the grapple truck with wood at least two times. I'd forgotten how epic these photos I took are, good thread and fun project to reminisce about.

 

[27RMT0N]

More of the crane and setup:

 

[Stihlmadd]

Radiata Pine
Over $50,000.00 australian dollars.
took ten days.
last two days with a 100 ton crane to pick out the trunk wood.
(I wasn't part of the crane work).

I spent 8 days rigging out the limbs and smaller trunk sections.




that is a lower limb end I rigged out as one piece.



I think that was about day 4?



that would have been about midway on day 7.

 

[Serf Life]

The most expensive one I know of around here was done by one of the first guys I worked for... It was still fresh enough the crew was still talking about it when I got hired on. He kept his numbers private, but what I do know is that he hired a sea crane on a barge to pick the dead madrone and land it on their deck

I did a removal with a barge crane once working for Bowdoin college, the sketchy part of those is the massive ball over the hook needed for working in the wind. Had to be 2’ diameter.

how long did it take you?

Looked back as this was a while ago, it was $3700 in a couple days, long day taking the stem off the house and short day removing the remaining stem. Insurance job, two guys, chipper and chip truck.

 

[evo]

More of the crane and setup:

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He just took out a redwood 9’ on the stump a few weeks ago with his lil 90’. I have him coming to demo a job early March where we will assist on the ground to guarantee he is in and out in a day.

 

[RyanCafferky]

My biggest payout was $16500 for an insurance job. Single stem 120' Douglas fir tree. We did it with three guys in two days. 54 man hours total.

It was an extreme high risk tree. Two other companies walked on it before I did it. It was covered in freezing rain, partially uprooted, had barely damaged a deck and was about to go down on and likely through a very nice home. The insurance company didn't even question the price considering the potential damages they were looking at if it failed onto the house. We had high winds and below freezing temps through the entire job. We had to guy the tree with two ropes and two GRCS devices to trees in neighboring yards. I had to climb it to get the guy lines on without an additional anchor point. That 10 minutes was some of the scariest time of my life. All brush was speedlined over the house (away from the guy lines). All wood was rigged off the tree and lowered to the deck below.