This ever happen to anyone?

climbingmonkey24

climbingmonkey24

Carpal tunnel level member
Location
United States
You look at a fairly small tree from the ground and think it’s gonna be a cakewalk, 2-3 hrs at most. Give a bid.

Then you get up in the tree and start cutting and realize there’s more rigging involved, etc.

You’re thinking oh damn, did you underbid?


This is the tree I’m talking about. It’s not a big tree compared to some but there was more rigging involved than I thought because I have to take big pieces, hard to climb branches are so small. Plus is started pouring when I was climbing which slowed things down.

When I looked at the tree I was like, this is gonna be a breeze. I quoted a lower price thinking it would be a real easy takedown. Then I realize I have to rig more stuff then I thought because I have to take bigger pieces.

Just based off looking at the tree and not knowing the info I gave you, what price range would you think the job is worth? Obviously everyone has a different way of doing it which affects price.

11BCD155-5A2D-47EA-A8C3-A22201523755.webp
 
Hello,

Thank you for sharing this one. I agree with you, that we have different strategies in cutting down trees and maybe it's hard to state the time of how long you can finish that one. Is that a dead tree? It has many branches that you need to trim I guess. Yeah! The job is still worth!

Tall Timbers Tree Services
 
talltimberstreeservices said:
Hello,

Thank you for sharing this one. I agree with you, that we have different strategies in cutting down trees and maybe it's hard to state the time of how long you can finish that one. Is that a dead tree? It has many branches that you need to trim I guess. Yeah! The job is still worth!

Tall Timbers Tree Services
Click to expand...
It’s a removal.

When I say worth I mean price range
 
I almost never bid from pictures because it always looks different in person. But this one looks like a 1 hour or less tree with a 3 or 4 man crew, 3 hours by myself. Depending on access for hauling. I assume hauling away, otherwise, 15 minutes to get it down and leave it. I can't tell from the picture, but is there room to drop it whole? Distance to the pool? Even if its a 45 minute job, I still bid for 1.5 hours to cover travel time, setup, cleanup... I used to bid small stuff cheap because its easy and everyone else bids them cheap, but I would have to bid 50 of these and get most of them to make a decent week. Thats a lot of time involved. I don't have that much time! So little jobs get bid high now. If I can bid 1 larger job and get a weeks work that saves me having to do at least a days worth of bidding of small to medium jobs, so the big jobs get a little better hourly rate.
 
There are so many variables when it comes to quoting jobs - one of the most important being the local market for tree work. That job could be double or half the price depending on location alone.

Also, what is the access like? Also makes a big difference. Are they keeping the wood?

Assuming everything goes - just put your hourly rate for your staff and include travel time plus disposal costs. Probably 3 hours on site should do, no?
 
Like its been said estimating from a picture can be trouble, but from what I can see and not see, $800-$1000 no stump grind. Probably hand control a lot of cuts verses rigging.
 
I would have put just a few hours on the job.

Lately I’ve been rolling with a simi higher 2 hour minimum. Then the next tier is half day.

I screwed up pretty good last week with a pair of multi stemmed leyland between two houses. A row of shitty coral bark Japanese maples below, glass deck railing, power service drop and solar panels on the roof.

I some how thought I could get it done in 3/4 of a day by my self but know leylands are always more of a pain in the ass, so I put my daily target on it. Rolled up with a experienced groundie, and wound up taking us nearly all day. FREakin mutant nature rejects
 
I finished a job the week before last that I had bid for 5 days. I had a key employee miss half a day and one day just didn't go as well as I had planned. It ended up taking 6 days. Day 6 I only had one guy on the clock so it wasn't a huge loss, but it was a Saturday and I don't like working Saturday. I could probably have had 20% more on the job, but I don't know what his other prices were. But hey, it was a fun job, I made money, I'm not complaining. Everyone underbids something once and a while, sometimes its an hour, some times its a day, lol.
 
RBJtree said:
I finished a job the week before last that I had bid for 5 days. I had a key employee miss half a day and one day just didn't go as well as I had planned. It ended up taking 6 days. Day 6 I only had one guy on the clock so it wasn't a huge loss, but it was a Saturday and I don't like working Saturday. I could probably have had 20% more on the job, but I don't know what his other prices were. But hey, it was a fun job, I made money, I'm not complaining. Everyone underbids something once and a while, sometimes its an hour, some times its a day, lol.
Click to expand...
The longer the job the more variables. I surprise myself at how accurate I am upto 2-3 days, beyond that well I’m just taking a educated guess
 
evo said:
The longer the job the more variables. I surprise myself at how accurate I am upto 2-3 days, beyond that well I’m just taking a educated guess
Click to expand...
I think I would have been dead on if everything would have went almost perfectly. I should have included some margin of unpredictability. Also, I tend to bid big trees a little low because I like climbing them. I try to break it down tree by tree to keep myself accurate. This job was 3 large oaks.
 
I like leaning plywood up around those air conditioners. A little auxiliary protection just in case something bounces or rolls unexpectedly.

FWIW I'd bid 500$ full cleanup and stump ground. 400 miles east of me it'd probably be around 900$.
 
Bango Skank said:
I like leaning plywood up around those air conditioners. A little auxiliary protection just in case something bounces or rolls unexpectedly.

FWIW I'd bid 500$ full cleanup and stump ground. 400 miles east of me it'd probably be around 900$.
Click to expand...
And cost of living is 2 or 3 x so tree guys are still poor. In my area, on one end of town tree and stump is $350, on the other end its $550.
 
I bid $450.00. Cleanup but no stump grinding. Just two of us working on it.

But it started pouring when I was working which slowed things down. I got 3/4 of the tree done and then the weather just became too bad that I called it and we are gonna go back and finish the job another day.

Got everything we cut cleaned up obviously so no unhappy customers.

I don’t think it’s as quick as it looks based off the pictures.

I don’t necessarily think I underbid. I thought it was reasonable when I first looked at the tree in person. I guess I could’ve probably gone higher.

The picture doesn’t do the entire tree justice. Some of the leads are tall and skinny and I had to rig em out because I could only climb so high with not the greatest TIP seeing as there was really no good high central lead.

I guess the tree had fallen or been cut down before to the trunk, and everything you see there grew out of the trunk. Lol.

So it’s basically a bunch of sprouts that grew out of the trunk into what you see there.
 
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