How busy are you this year compared to other years?

Calendar is dwindling by our standards. Hard to pay bills on 2-3 days per week work. Today was a 3 hr day. Sold more work though.
Costs are up, income down and may ain't even full yet for schedule. Not panicking. But tad concerned.
 
Plumbing is slower than usual. We seem to be making it by the skin of our teeth though. Good weeks, bad weeks, good days, bad days. The tree thing is steady enough. Lots of smaller jobs but they are jobs.
 
How much wider does that make your castnet go to, Sean? IIRC, you have kept to a pretty tight geographic area in the past, which is certainly desirable.
 
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5-10 minutes from my gf's house, probably 15 minutes from mine. Maybe 20.

It's on the next peninsula, Cooper Point, over from mine, Steamboat Island.

Also had many 5 acre parcels and lots of waterfront.

Took a small pruning job at a waterfront house in Cooper Point, recently. They'll need some bigger trees down for a garage to be built, sometime.
 
Treeaddict said:
Plumbing is slower than usual. We seem to be making it by the skin of our teeth though. Good weeks, bad weeks, good days, bad days. The tree thing is steady enough. Lots of smaller jobs but they are jobs.
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They say you always have to have a side gig in construction, over the years trees have helped get me through. It kinda turns into a nice little atm you can hit when you need to, and you'll often pick up jobs from your day job, especially as word gets out that you do trees. I hope to get going again this year myself, I've had tree jobs offered left and right but haven't felt good enough to start again, but I've also been working at least 40 hours a week since then too. Soon you'll want to work your day job less and less, and might even take a day off here and there to go do trees because it pays better. I used to work on the road quite a bit too both by choice and necessity, staying local really helps you grow a business. I would have to shut down the tree business when i was traveling and then try to get it going again when i came back, fortunately tree work has a very short time per job compared to other side hustles, and simply being out and about cutting trees often leads to more tree jobs.

We had about 1/4 of our hall off this winter (pretty normal unlike the last few years where we've kept the bench pretty empty), but it's opened back up and i think we're damn near empty again. Lots of travel work going still, and will likely be that way for the foreseeable future, it's about the best time to be in the trades since the 70s. I really really wanna go back on the road and money up, ideally running my truck again doing pipeline, but most building trades jobs are damn near paying the same anymore just to get guys. But the wife is dead set against it so i stay 😪. I couldn't even talk her into a month long turnaround this last fall, even when i explained that i could be gone for 1 month then sit for 4 and still have more money than working 40 here, but she was still completely against it.

Oh well, I've been with a pretty good local outfit for around 4 years now, they keep me busy and I'm 12 min from the house, so it could definitely be worse. Not to mention it's good to be around the kids everyday and not just a talking head on a tablet, but knowing i could make 3 to 4 times as much just by leaving messes with my head a bit, not even counting the fact that i work m-f at a minimum so it's really hard to get anything done for yourself or rest up a bit. Once you get used to the cycle of working a ton of overtime then being laid off for a bit it's really hard to go back to something steady, especially if there's enough work where you can pick and choose when and where like you can currently. I used to push local work, but when stuff got slow i learned that heavy overtime road work on the tools pays so much more that it's not worth the headaches that come with being the boss. Hell, they kept trying to make me a foreman there too :lol:
 
Burnham said:
That's sounding like a positive thing from an arborists' business plan perspective; short travel times has got to be a boon, and that still sounds like a close drive from where I sit :).
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In an ideal world you’ll always be working next door.
But it’s not like that, localish today then a two day job an hour away Wednesday/Thursday and a bit further Friday for a one off priced from photos.
I don’t enjoy it, theres more likelihood of losing money if it overruns or a machine breaks but if it’s priced right we go.
 
Sure, there are different demands on different businesses due to geograhy, competition, debt levels, employees and even ambition.
I’m hoping for three more years till I’ll join you in (semi) retirement.
 
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I still have work but the phone isn’t ringing like it should. It seems bigger jobs are up but the smaller jobs are staying away. Maybe this week since it’s warming up.
 
Tree09 said:
They say you always have to have a side gig in construction, over the years trees have helped get me through. It kinda turns into a nice little atm you can hit when you need to, and you'll often pick up jobs from your day job, especially as word gets out that you do trees. I hope to get going again this year myself, I've had tree jobs offered left and right but haven't felt good enough to start again, but I've also been working at least 40 hours a week since then too. Soon you'll want to work your day job less and less, and might even take a day off here and there to go do trees because it pays better. I used to work on the road quite a bit too both by choice and necessity, staying local really helps you grow a business. I would have to shut down the tree business when i was traveling and then try to get it going again when i came back, fortunately tree work has a very short time per job compared to other side hustles, and simply being out and about cutting trees often leads to more tree jobs.

We had about 1/4 of our hall off this winter (pretty normal unlike the last few years where we've kept the bench pretty empty), but it's opened back up and i think we're damn near empty again. Lots of travel work going still, and will likely be that way for the foreseeable future, it's about the best time to be in the trades since the 70s. I really really wanna go back on the road and money up, ideally running my truck again doing pipeline, but most building trades jobs are damn near paying the same anymore just to get guys. But the wife is dead set against it so i stay 😪. I couldn't even talk her into a month long turnaround this last fall, even when i explained that i could be gone for 1 month then sit for 4 and still have more money than working 40 here, but she was still completely against it.

Oh well, I've been with a pretty good local outfit for around 4 years now, they keep me busy and I'm 12 min from the house, so it could definitely be worse. Not to mention it's good to be around the kids everyday and not just a talking head on a tablet, but knowing i could make 3 to 4 times as much just by leaving messes with my head a bit, not even counting the fact that i work m-f at a minimum so it's really hard to get anything done for yourself or rest up a bit. Once you get used to the cycle of working a ton of overtime then being laid off for a bit it's really hard to go back to something steady, especially if there's enough work where you can pick and choose when and where like you can currently. I used to push local work, but when stuff got slow i learned that heavy overtime road work on the tools pays so much more that it's not worth the headaches that come with being the boss. Hell, they kept trying to make me a foreman there too :lol:
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Traveling seems like a normal part of the more industrial trades. But, I’ve seen standard commercial guys working 10 hours away from home as well. I’ve never traveled more than 2 hours for work. It’s understandable that you’d want to go out of state when the per diem and OT/ wages would be on a grand scale. I’ve never been given the opportunity or experienced this. The ladies just don’t like us gone too long when young kids involved I guess. It’s the same here.

You’re right about taking off from the day job to do a tree. Take a vacation from one kind of work to do another kind of work! I try to keep the smaller, hyper local jobs for those days I’m off early. Easy to squeeze those in when home by 2:00 and it’s light until 7:30.

Hopefully you are up and running shortly and start your tree removals back up! I’d imagine it will feel good to get back to it.
 
We finally finished planting the 140000 trees this week.
Still extremely busy and it doesn't seem to change.
I'm looking to hire 2 people, if I can find them.
Until then I'm not taking any new jobs on, passing them on to the two small companies, that sub for me, instead.
 
Went and looked at a job a few days ago. I was led around, looked at some pines, scribbled some notes, and never brought up numbers, because I knew the job wasn't happening. You know that vibe you get. Felt like the wife had complained, so he did the good husband thing, and called someone. I'm sure it got her off his back, and I'm sure nothing will come of it. There's just no money in that house, just like there's no money around for a lot of folk. Until something crushes the neighbors junk, nobody thinks of tree work.
 
biggun said:
I’ve been reasonably busy. It naturally slows down for winter here. We still do some work but I am happy doing 2-3 days a week. Work harder when the weather is better.

No point in busting a nut in horrendous weather. Take it on board and spend more time with the family in the mountains, boarding Hiking and hunting.

It’s a work, life balance for me. I work to provide me the time and resources to have fun with my family and friends.
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Opposite for me Rich, no friends, no hobbies, I have very little fun, unless getting drunk and shouting at the tv because there’s too many minorities /homosexuals or disabled on there counts.

Still, different strokes and all that..

Edit, I do like looking at memes on the internet now I think about it..
 
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Our job this week is 12 minutes away with out trailer. 20 mins with.
A job in town, about the same 12 mins with or with out trailer. Return trip 20.
Once they get out to 20 minutes plus with out trailer, sometimes can push 40 minutes with. 40minutes can add 3 7-8% grades to your trip. So hill climbing turns into a 35MPH chug up hill, and low gears going down.
If you start hauling out logs, it becomes a real joy.....
I stopped servicing a lot of the county once fuel prices went up. I can't charge enough for the portal fees and job to offset the maintenance and fuel.
Tell ya, if I was younger, I would contract climb out the back of a 4 banger.
 
It is of course the most extreme case of comparing apples to oranges to look at how travel times impacted my job with the Forest Service with what y'all do as independent business folk. But it may be interesting anyway...perhaps :).

For me, the impact of the distances and time involved to get from my duty station in our little town to work sites on the NF was all about productivity. The more windshield time, the less you could get done on the job itself in a day. Planning had to account for that.

When I was building a proposed budget for a year's work, all the associated costs for vehicles and personnel had to be placed against what I needed to accomplish. You don't get very far if you promise your masters to achieve one thing, but then cannot hit those goals.

Travel time was always an important piece of that calculus, as I often would spend 2 to 3 hours out of an 8 or 10-hour workday in travel. Some days multiple work locations demanded even more. A 200-mile day was not unknown for me when I was doing the road maintenance gig. Much of that on forest roads :).

I'll bet @stikine has it even worse so far as how travel times impact actual work on the ground accomplished. He has to use boats a lot of his days, I think :).
 
pete mctree said:
I do live in a very rural area and nothing is close.
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My area is very suburban so everything is close. I only work in the town I live in and the adjacent town. My average travel speed with the convoy is 23-25 mph and 15 or 20 minute door to door is the norm. Close range saves on appt time too which is big. We aren't real busy but things are picking up a bit with improved weather.

Gotta love this one:

I hear the call of the wild (chainsaws) a few Saturdays ago, so I hop on bicycle to check it out, turns out to be my neighbor more or less across the street; a big leader fell off a huge dead maple, landed in driveway, he was sawing it up with a POS saw, I offered to cut it up for him to be neighborly. A couple years earlier the same tree dropped a big leader on his volvo and crushed it, we cleaned up that mess and all went well.

So I spent 10 minutes cutting and we were both happy that I saved him alot of work. He cleared the driveway making brush piles and log piles. We agreed I'd send him an estimate for the tree removal; one price for crane and therefore no lawn divots, a lower price for no crane and lawn divots. A week or 2 later he brought over a box of chocolates to my wife as a thank you for the cutting; nice gesture but unnecessary. A week or 2 after that, I drive by and see the tree is now a stump. A no namer who is a fireman on the side used a crane to do it and left the place looking clean.

Business: The Ultimate Adventure. :rockon: ;)

Wouldn't ya think that he might have said to me, 'hey I got another estimate and it was lower, I'd love to use you if you can do any better'. Then the ball would be in my court and he's off the douche hook. Oh well!!
 
That's just not right...your neighbor the treeman helps you out with cutting up wood you are not really able to, then gives you a bid to make the potential rest of the problem go away.

And you, because you're a cheapskate and not really all that honorable a man, try to thank-you-bribe the family with a few bucks of chocolate then give the job, and the real money, to a competitor.

That's a shame, Cory. Hard to keep a reasonable perspective, as you have, I would think.
 
Well, he of course he's free to use anyone he wants and find the best value he can, but yeah, I would think he would have reached out just to give me the option, it's called right of first refusal, I think. Then, if I get underbid it's on me.

If roles were reversed I definitely wouldn't have the nerve to 'shaft' my neighbor by not even giving him a heads up.

Such is life. As the World Turns.
 
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