How's Business?

Stumpshot

General Purpose
Joined
Jun 30, 2018
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1,494
Location
Kansas City
How's business for you lately? Year over year, our summer was perhaps 20% slower and maybe 15% lower billing. We attributed that to a conscious choice to focusing on the hometown (Lawrence, KS) and constricting our usual 50 mile radius for the spring/summer -- maybe one Kansas City-area day per week. It's been nice working in the local area closer to home with a bit less driving time (but sometimes not more than 10-15 min less), but we've had to fight the established local market and get our name out there and set our pricing more aggressively to get the local jobs. But now we've widened our Home Advisor radius back up to at least 30 miles to include Topeka and a lot of the Kansas side of the KC metro. But overall things feel slow and work feels tight. Last year we really didn't slow down till the end of October/early November. But even then, we worked 4 days a week through the winter -- consistently enough work to keep busy. But this year, our work queue is not very far out -- it feels as if things have already slowed way down even now in the first part of September.
 
Slow year with a couple of bone dry patches, things are very seasonal here compared to the UK, the French tend to trim trees in the autumn and do nothing in August, had a worrying dead patch this summer, but I’m backed up with good paying work when I get back from our mini break later today.
 
Slow this summer. Between 2 major fires and flooding in winter for two years straight, people are strapped. Park been closed both years on and off. Rock slides fires and flooding.
 
Storms at the begining of the season were great. Still cleaning up from it. Mid August to mid September dies off, people spending money on back to school. The stump grinder and mill were a blessing for me. I can't get every tree, but there are stumps and logs left over often enough. Brush chipping has been good, HO might trim bushes or trees themselves and have no way to deal with it afterwards.
 
The couple times I tried storm chasing it absolutely sucked. If you are self contained and prepared to live with whatever you bring along then more power to you, but my idea of roughing it means not getting room service at Hampton Inn. The idea of working for days on end with no power or hot water for a shower at night just doesn't appeal to me at all.

The other aspect is that the storm chasers that make out well are the ones getting in first and charging people who just lost everything exorbitant prices to remove trees just because they have no other options. I'm sorry but I'm simply not capable of charging $3000 for an $800 removal just because it's storm work. Last year when the storm hit here I worked for 49 days straight before we had a day off and we averaged about $1500-2000 per day for a 2 man team. We did very well but I still kept my pricing fair and wasn't gouging everybody. I had one $3000 day and that was two jobs both sold and handed to me by other tree guys.
 
A guy here (Mr. Green Jeans) has made ungodly sums from chasing storms, but he goes in with EVERYTHING, including food and shelter.

Here's his shelter - it sleeps 6 comfortably. The trailer is powered from the truck.
 

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Storm work costs are way higher: increased personal risks and greater skill set needed, increased wear and tear on bodies and equipment without healing time/ maintenance time, increased loss/ damage of tools due to fatigue (just gonna happen), overtime pay, increased risk to WC rates, increase likelihood of thefts, loss of personal time, increased personal costs because of working so much (childcare, eating out, elder care), etc.
 
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  • #13
I'm sure it's lucrative (we get the FEMA job opportunity notices), but like others, we're not into chasing storms -- at least not far-flung ones on the coasts. We've done local storm cleanup after microbursts, wind storms, and tornadoes. When I was in TN, me and some friends did a day of volunteer work to help with the immediate clean up -- getting limbs off of houses & cars, etc. After that initial volunteer day or two, once things were more stable and we weren't going to gouge anyone, we offered our services for hire and did fine, with a good conscience!

Last year, we saw 2 of our main KC and Topeka competitors parade up with their mobile command unit trailers and whole caravan of bucket trucks and grapples and head out to Florida. We cheered them on -- yay, our main competition gone for over a month! That just gave us a better shot at the local market jobs over fall/winter. More power to them! We'll work all day normal hours, then return to our loved ones, warm showers, and usual beds for the night!
 
Storm work costs are way higher: increased personal risks and greater skill set needed, increased wear and tear on bodies and equipment without healing time/ maintenance time, increased loss/ damage of tools due to fatigue (just gonna happen), overtime pay, increased risk to WC rates, increase likelihood of thefts, loss of personal time, increased personal costs because of working so much (childcare, eating out, elder care), etc.

Sean, you’ve got to stop obsessing about wear and tear and healing time and all that shit, it’s nonsense.
 
:lol:

Mick, I'm gonna have to agree with Sean here that wear and tear is real. As is the costs of working so far from the house and working that many hours. We were talking about it at work, and we have decided that we can tell who has actually been working for longer than a decade in construction by how they walk and move. The guys who are new to it walk around with a purpose, thinking that walking fast will speed them up. Experienced guys walk with a slight hitch in their step because of wear and tear, and don't move too fast, because they don't care to. They get their speed by thinking ahead and knowing all the tricks to do the task with as little effort as possible. They also can work continuously all day every day, because they have figured out the pace that allows that.
 
Storm work is a God given (literally) chance to make really good money in a short period.

You have insurance companies by the short and curlies, and it’s when having the iron, the experience and the contacts really pays off.

Worrying about loss of personal time or costs caring for the elderly is stupid.

Get out there, grab it, then when it’s all done you can rest on a mattress stuffed with $500 dollar bills.
 
Storm work costs are way higher: increased personal risks and greater skill set needed, increased wear and tear on bodies and equipment without healing time/ maintenance time, increased loss/ damage of tools due to fatigue (just gonna happen), overtime pay, increased risk to WC rates, increase likelihood of thefts, loss of personal time, increased personal costs because of working so much (childcare, eating out, elder care), etc.

Mick, does storm work cost less to perform or the same, so should be charged at lesser or normal rates?

Does it cost more to perform and worth more, so should be charged higher, without feeling like you're gouging people, unless you're gouging people?
 
The couple times I tried storm chasing it absolutely sucked...


... I'm sorry but I'm simply not capable of charging $3000 for an $800 removal just because it's storm work.

What makes it worth $800 in the first place?

Why would they not just exercise their free-market right to say, "No Thanks"?
 
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  • #24
Mick, does storm work cost less to perform or the same, so should be charged at lesser or normal rates?
Does it cost more to perform and worth more, so should be charged higher, without feeling like you're gouging people, unless you're gouging people?
Storm work does usually imply overtime hours (for both you & crew), inconvenience of lack of proper sanitation and showers, difficult working conditions, increased logistical issues (people working everywhere, many with unsafe working practices), harder to access areas (closed down streets, obstructions), difficulty disposing of material, etc. We feel fine charging a 25% premium over regular rates for these reasons. But we don't gouge people or insurance companies -- we pay our share of insurance and don't want overall rates to be affected by unjust practices!

One of my friends was working Ft. Lauderdale cleanup after Katrina and was driving his pickup into the setting sun, didn't see the red light (might have been blinking all directions), crunched his pickup into someone. Cost thousands to repair his truck. Maybe it was exacerbated by his tiredness -- he's usually a careful driver. Just got to include such incidents into the overall equation. If you never encounter it, great!

I only did free cleanup around my neighborhood in Ft. Myers, so I wasn't risking a vehicle right after the storm. Just going around with a chainsaw, cutting up palms and stacking them. Biggest risk there was the Canary Island date palm thorns! Plus, the whole neighborhood was flooded from storm surge, so no vehicles were even possible right then.
 
I guess it depends on what we class as storm work.

For me here it’s probably less biblical than what’s going on due to Florence atm.
 
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