What to charge

[amos]

Need some pricing guidance please. I've got multiple dozers (350B,350C,450C,D6C) that I have acquired to work with on my farm or to fix and sell(lots of fixin but no sellin so far). I put an ad on a web-site for light clearing with the smaller dozers which I can haul with my dually and a 21K gross trailer. On the 350's I'm at $65.00 an hour and on the 450 I'm at 85.00 an hour.1 caller asked about D-6 and I told him $145.00 an hour plus $1000.00 haul fee.
Bid 3 good sized jobs totaling 110 acres combined and told the 3 men that it will be 2-3 months before I complete jobs and all said they would live with that time frame.
Now I think my rates are too low. With the smaller dozers and with a root rake installed it works out to +/- $450.00 an acre to clear and pile(I don't burn because of liability) to clear heavy brush and trees up to 8"-10" at base.Larger trees I leave standing.Lighter clearing is $250.00 an acre range.
Operator costs me $20.00 an hour(cash) and fuel is 2-3 gallons per hour.
North East Texas piney woods with sandy loam to red clay soils.
Am I leaving money on the table?

[cantbeatadeere]

Here in upstate N.Y. I have done a handful of site work for local people building pole barns and have been charging 100.00 per machine hr and no hauling charge if within 5 miles....everyone has been happy so far and commented on the amount of work that can be done in an hour when they thought it would take all day.

[amos]

I look at it 2 ways: cash in hand(as in 100 dollar bills in MY hand and not the feds) versus pricing higher and seeing reduced inquiries/jobs.
These first 3 paying gigs will dang near pay what I have in all 4 dozers.
Old business saying goes if everyone is happy it was a good deal.
Just don't want to get a reputation for being too cheap:that also brings a set of problems as well. Quality of work is exceptional: I won't stop until customer is pleased.
If current call volume stays strong I'm considering going whole hog with a new 450J at "only" $105,000.00 with a 8 year warranty. Math works out.
I'm trying to find out why the call volume is so high: here in east Texas we do have a lot of dirt contractors and I don't understand why they apparently pass on the smaller jobs.

[CuttingEdge]

Welcome to business where there is a huge difference between profit and hidden costs. As many business owners can attest, it is the hidden costs that do a business owner in. In fact most businesses fail, not from a lack of money outright, but a lack of cash flow. There is something to be said for the new comer to the field that is hungry for work and competes at a fair rate and the established guys that are a bit greedy. But at the same time, the guys that are new quickly go out of business as the hidden costs catch up to them.

I don't know a lot about the inner gears of a John Deere 350D bulldozer, but I sure know a lot about clearing land from forest back into fields. I got 63 acres of clearing on the docket this year alone, but I sure won't use a John Deere 350 to do it; much too small and hard on the undercarriage, I'll rent a John Deere 850B for that. At $3000 per week and no responsibility for it, and its ability to easily clear 12 acres per week; it makes no sense not to utilize it.

When it is all said and done, my cost on a per acre basis is $201.02 going from stump to growing green grass. That is dozer transportation, dozer rent, fuel, fertilizer and grass seed.

When charging for jobs with my own little dozer however, I always utilize the Maine Dept of Transportation online list for applicable equipment because I live in Maine. In my case I would just look up a bulldozer and charge accordingly ($57.46/hour)

http://maine.gov/mdot/csd/documents/2016/slrper16.pdf

[amos]

Good advice. I did forget to mention that I own a manufacturing company going on it's 26th year of operation. Business of manufacturing I know well along with cash flow etc.
How I got into dirt work: dingbat doc told me to get a stress relieving hobby and I've been re-building assorted equipment and have had 2 dozers working on my farm and have acquired 2 more in need of repair(repair being the stress relieving part).
Using larger equipment is faster(Have a D-6C) but I'm looking at the smaller dozers for ease of transport(can haul up to a 450 series with my dually pick up).
On specific clearing I do I leave the larger trees and won't do stumps from logging operations.
Jobs have been fairly light clearing and the smaller dozers leave less of a foot print.

[CuttingEdge]

I kind of had to laugh when I read your original question because this same thing happened to a guy here.

He was a logging contractor and made a deal with a landowner to clear 30 acres of woods. He would use his feller-bunchers and skidders and clean off the wood then use his excavator and bulldozer to clear off the stumps for X-amount of dollars per acre.

Then he did another job where he did not clear the wood, but got the job of clearing off the stumps onto itself. Upon doing so he realized how big of a job it was and needed more money per acre, so when it came time to do finish the first landowners 30 acres, he told him the price had jumped up. The landowner was infuriated and said that he would have someone else clear the stumps and that he wanted his money for all the wood that was cut.

The logger had spent it though.

So the land owner went to the Maine Forest Service for timber theft because the logger had cut his wood, spent the money, then tried to change the terms of the agreement. Under Maine Law timber theft automatically means the landowner gets paid 3 times the value of the wood. If he wanted to really be a jerk he could press forward with the timber theft charges, get triple his money because the logger tried to gouge him, and then hire someone else to clean off his stumps and keep what remains.

If it was me, I would have paid for the wood I cut, then charged the landowner for the work done at clearing it of stumps. Two different jobs, two different payment arrangements that way everyone is paid even if it is passed back and forth, and to create a paper trail.

I will barter, but only with a few select people I really trust. It is sad, but it is 2016 and not 1966 anymore.

[CuttingEdge]

I see. That is vastly different for me. I typically do old growth forest which can mean stumps 2-3 feet in diameter. Logging brush is everywhere and its a crap shoot whether to burn them which means returning later in the winter after first snowfall and letting them smoulder all winter, or spend the time pushing them across the clearing. Burying them is not an option because they rot down and create pockets that livestock can break legs in, or equipment can get busted up on.

One trick we do have here to conserve topsoil from being pushed up with the stumps, is mother nature. By ripping out the stump with an excavator, then letting the stump freeze over the winter. But as soon as the dozer pushes it across the field in the spring, the dirt all falls off the roots and you have more topsoil in your field. You pay for that though...literally and it is something you brought up...the cost of transportation. My dozer rental company charges me $250 and hour to haul that big dozer to places and another $250 back. With (2) pieces of equipment the transportation costs doubles to $1000! Yikes. The cost for a neighbor to move my 350D is $25 on his gooseneck trailer pulled by his 1 ton, so I fully understand the transportation effect.

Rocks are a little easier to deal with as they can be buried below plow depth. A favorite trick of mine is to push them to wet spots in the field then drive over them with the dozer. The lags pounding on them drives them below plow depth pretty easily and saves long trips across the field.

With rock walls, which we have many here in Maine, I dig a trench deeper than the rock wall is high then get on the backside of it and push it into the trench and level it off with topsoil.

BTW: I fully understand the therapeutic effects of wrenching on bulldozers. Myself I would rather wrench on them then operate them, but sadly the money is in the work they do and not the cost of maintaining them.

[amos]

@cutting edge: I'm in NE Texas and a few words you used confused me: freeze,frost line, snow :all foreign words down here

[bennyt]

Some wise advice an old black farmer/logger once gave me. There are no losers in a deal. In other words if you are satisfied with your price and they are satisfied every one is a winner.

[CuttingEdge]

@cutting edge: I'm in NE Texas and a few words you used confused me: freeze,frost line, snow :all foreign words down here

That is okay, Maine is the only state in the nation that does not have poisonous snakes. I like that.

The last few years has been warm enough too where the frost has not gone that deep and winter stumping can take place. That is good because there is no real pinch for rental equipment as typically in the winter months it is just sitting anyway. You can get it at a discount rate then too. The other good thing is we can burn stumps without permits and without fear of causing forest fires. I like that because you light a stump pile in October and its still burning in may. Oh how stumps burn slow.

Myself I can tolerate the cold but not the heat. I will admit though that when it is hot out, the woman folk tend to be more attractive.

[CuttingEdge]

Around here the Amish are the worst offenders. They will try to make a deal with you then halfway through switch it to more of their favor. I don't deal with them because of their reputation, but a friend of mine does and gets right up into their grill until they smarten up. I figure he must be on the Amish Mafia hit list by now.

[amos]

I too like the cool but kinda locked into Texas because of my factory.100+ with humidity over 60% is what we have in August and it is deadly.Made it as far north as New York but never to Maine. I do hear it is nice there 3 seasons of the year.
Wife and I went to Nebraska a couple of years ago in the dead of winter to pick up a used travel trailer.2 degrees with a 30 MPH north wind.COLD! A/C cover was plastic and didn't last 2 miles because the cold made it so brittle.
Didn't get above freezing until we got back to Texas.
People ask what we do here when it's so deadly hot. Answer is simple;you stand around sweating with everyone else.
Equipment wise you make dang sure you keep your radiator clean and filled.Same with oil coolers. Even then there are days that you have to shut it down because it will still get too hot.
Gloves are a must because the steel will burn your hands especially if it's dark with oxidation or anything painted black.

[Frankdozer]

Hey Cuttingedge, do you go to Bridgton, Maine? I might have some lot clearing work for you. Where are you located?
Frank

[CuttingEdge]

No too far away for me. I live close to Belfast which is about 2-1/2 hours away.