pricing small logging job

BeaverMonkey

TreeHouser
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Jun 27, 2015
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I'm putting together a quote for a small (50 trees) logging job. First time I've needed to do something 'official' like this and not just around the farm/family/friends/free-ish. I can leave the stumps, and the HO wants to clean up the limbs/slash, but wants me to provide a separate quote if that ends up being too much for them to handle. I have a large tractor to skid the spars out behind, and trailers/trucks/etc to load and move them with. I've accounted for consumables and wear and tear on the saws, equipment, and climbing gear. Anybody have any thoughts on anything I'm missing? Am I about to make a rookie mistake here??
Thanks for the insights!!
 
A picture would be good.
I'll second Mick on the clean-up price.

There is a WAST difference between how one cuts stuff when one knows he/she has to do the clean-up him/her self and the mess we leave behind when the homeowner wants to do it.
 
I would price the cleanup hourly unless it was part of the original scope of work. You can't bid what you can't see/define and there's no telling how the cleanup will change from the time you drop the trees to the point where they call for help.

Also, like Stig says, cutting to leave a mess vs cutting to clean up is a different methodology. Granted on some jobs it wouldn't matter, go in with the track loader and push the mess into a pile then use the grapple truck to haul it out.
 
The hourly thing was a good idea, Carl.
I'll go with that next time I have a situation like this.
 
You can bid clean up provided you know you'll be cleaning up before the job starts. Any time after that it's hourly.
 
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  • #7
Sounds good- thanks for the advice! I think I've got all my costs worked out. Now I just have to figure out what % over that figure a fair/reasonable quote would be. I WANT the job, but doing it for free would be silly...


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Are the logs going to be sold to a mill? Hardwoods , softwood? Usually around here most guys do small jobs on 1/2s if the logs are going to be sold. I dont know much about softwood but if its good hardwood trees and you can handle the logs fairly easily doing the job on 1/2s would be pretty profitable.



Denver
 
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  • #10
Logs are a mix, maybe 15 out of the total would be good timber. The rest are future firewood. One or two look to have fencing or other metal in them... HO just wants them gone. No burn in that area, unfortunately. Cleanup will almost surely be with a rented a chipper. Only question is who's feeding it? Yes, the job is clearcutting fairly dense woods 15-20 yards back off an existing clearing.


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Pictures always help. Don't price anything based on value of the logs. Let him have all the value, and you get a bid price. Assure him that the price to come and clean it up, after you plan on leaving it for him, is going to be quadruple what it would be if you clean as you go.
 
Whenever I've worked a job like that, it was done on a percentage cut, and all chipper rental, machinery and extra man power came off the homeowner. They don't always get a check, sometimes they have even had to write a check. But they always ended up with a nice woods. The only other way to do a job like that would be drop the trees and skid it to the landing, then limb it and top it and have a firewood crew there blocking and chipping brush with just an hourly charge for clean up. But when the last tree is out your done
 
I would bill by the hour, get all the trees down, haul the logs, and find somebody with a tub grinder to do the clean up, and spread the chips.
 
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  • #16
Ahh! Moot point- I was scooped on the job! 😥


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