How much do I charge????

lukedunbar19

Hey guys,
I have my first cash job on the weekend and I dont know how much to charge.......... There is 6 medium sized palms to be fully removed that are close to the house which will need to be blocked and rigged down. I was thinking minimum $150 each, is that ripping him or me off?????

Garry Brockley

work out what you will pay for Labour!
work out how heavy they are approx!
find out how much it costs to dump them by you!
vehicle fuel and insurance for day!
work out how much fuel and allow wear on equipment chains ect!
daily rate of insurance!
don't forget the your time starts when you get in your truck and finishes when you get out when you get home!
once you have worked these out see if you think $150 a palm is fair to you

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lukedunbar19

I dont need to dump it, its gonna be up to the customer, and just me doing the work with saws from work. 150 was my minimum but i just didnt know where to start

Tony Knight

As I don't do Palms I can't advise on a price. I will say that even though your overheads are cheap don't go in cheap as it knocks the sh1t out of it for those that rely on it for bread and butter, to many "weekender's" working for beer and pretzels. Hows your insurance?

Cheers


Tony

lukedunbar19

Its for an old friend, and this is the first weekend work i have done. Im not trying to undercut legitimate businesses but he asked if i could n said yes.

Tony Knight

Ahhhh, thats different, a bit of love,cover costs and a at the end of the day.

Cheers


Tony

Paul Toivonen

At least you arent getting someone to give a quote, then undercutting them.
Seems to be the way in this town.
I think 9 of 10 quotes I do go this way.
If ol' mate wants to do that , get his mate to work for beer money then laugh at how much he saved thats fine, but it is a good way to loose friends and worse, what if there is an accident?
Most of the time those type of people are a*#holes to work for anyway, so no love lost.

ArbTrain

Well said

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KevinE

Doing it for a friend, then $150 each is a bit steep IMO, but depends on how good a friend he is I suppose? I recently did what would have been a $350 tree for a mate for $150. But he loaded the trailer (stinking hot day) & provided the cool drinks.

On the other hand, we do regular work for a lovely family we're friends with & they always insist on paying double the going rate! Which I find a tad embarrassing.

Rob Chace

I did a "charity job" for an older lady 80kms from my home.
6hrs, ~34palms all dropped (carefully in specific order, to act as fall logs for following palms) and cut into rounds, helped load (1 trailer each) and dump at property 10kms away.
$300.00

that was C.H.E.A.P!

I'ld say for a mate (and what is medium sized?, med cocos or med canary Is?) assume 5m tall cocos palms, 100-150, but if they need rigging down 150 at least.

lukedunbar19

Thanks for the help guys, there were 2 alexander palms and the rest were cocos palms. Pretty tiny area to drop things and in experienced guy on the rigging line resulted in a dinted gutter so i dropped 50 bucks off for him and helped him fix it. 3 had to be rigged and the others were climbed to put a pull line in them and dropped into the neighbors yard (who was really nice about it) only did 4 of them and made a quick $450 with 2 more to do. 1 needs an EWP though as it has a major lean and a fence post in the way of the falling line. I learnt that palms arent my strong suit in this industry and will be trying to stay away from them from now on lol.
Once again, thanks to you all

Eric Frei

About 7 years ago in the Manly/Wynnum area I was cutting down palms mainly and the neighbour had a backyard with a few large eucs.


The neighbour asked for a quote to get rid of the gums, $3K I said which he thought was extreme but it was a yard lot, backyard, and some large log .... big job.

The neighbour boasted his jackeroo buddy from the bush would come and do it for him cheap.

His mate did come and did try to do the job, he died in a tree in his back yard. He cut off a large long leader that was going up at about a 60 degree angle, he was in a large fork in the tree. Somehow (I was not there and relying on my customers information) the large section speared him into the fork, he was crushed and died up the tree.

Cops and OHS closed the street and had to get his mates body out of the tree.

A few years later I returned to cut more palms for my customer when I was told the whole story, I remembered a news article @2004 and couldn't believe it was the same place. I remembered the large euc that he died in, I remember telling that neighbour of the difficulty in doing the job, the rigging and climbing etc but you know, everyone knows a legend around here.

Now I wonder how many legends end up ... up to their neck in it for egotistical gobbing off? I mean how many actually get to the job and think in the back of their mind, "holy crap, don't like this but cant back out now, have to save face".

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Paul Toivonen

I had one of those recently.
The client said he knew someone, I had my doubts but it was an easy tree.
They even ground the stump so must have been pros.
I guess he only needed the quote so ol mate could do it cheaper.
I did the rest of the yard though, no love lost.

James Sayers

how u going i would just like to say luv jobs casn bite i have torn my acl in my knee need an operation 6 to 9 months off work its trough work cover u just hav to think what if u hurt yourself and i did it up a palm (no i did not do it doing a luv job it was at work )f

Drouin Tree Service

Had a customer tell me that 2 x60' gums over a house and other tree work over sheds was " just a few hours work"and they would do what they could to make it cheaper.

so many experts out there...

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Paul Toivonen

You could make it cheaper for them.
Dont climb, just fell them.

Apocalypsse

I would have loved to hear that conversation, even more to see the home owner attempt the work.

Brent Ferris

Maybe he figured on moving the buildings to make the tree job cheaper, LOL

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Paul Toivonen

Thats what I figured, the buildings are expendable.
Now if the wind knocked them over, it would become an insurance job.