we're havin fun now.

[lawnboy82]

i really dont get it. i just dont. you guys say you can spread 30 yards of mulch in one day 4 guys. well so far in a day and a half with 5 guys and 1 skid steer we have moved about 30 yards of mulch and accidentally torn up the lawn due to wet weather. for right now the bill for the mulch is up around 3500 dollars. not bad, right? here is the thing though. this woman told me that 5? years ago she had a guy do the same thing we are doing now for 500 dollars. this one garden that this guy had worked on so far has taken up about 30 man hours, and 25 yards of mulch and chips, give or take.

[Stonehenge]

Wow.

Are there tons of annuals or perennials you have to work around? Otherwise, I can't see two guys spending more than a day working on that, with skidloader and 3 wheelbarrows.

I had one of my guys spread 8 yards of mulch himself, by hand, in one day.

As a rough benchmark for me, each of my guys should be doing $1K of work for me per day.

You got a great price for doing the job. I'd probably charge around $2K for 30 yards, but I'd have it done at the end of the day.

What kind of help do you have?

[lawnboy82]

wow, 1,000 dollars per day is a nice figure. per guy that is. i have equadorians working for me. today and yesterday it was myself, 2 women / 2 men. the women actually work harder than the men do i must say, as the women have been specially requested by these customers. um no annuals to work around. but for about 150 feet there were vines, small trees, weeds, firewood to be moved, trees / shrubs to be pruned within ground height that you can reach, etc. rocks, i am getting 30 per yard for the mulch seeing as how i am getting it for 15 a yard. then 200 per day per guy. each guy costs me 100 per day. my rate just went up though to 250 per day per guy. i am getting 300 per day for the skid steer and i am paying 200 for it per day. what else? there is flagstone that has to be installed and that will be about 200 for something that cost me i believe about 125 then what else? i think that is all the materials there were. there were some chips i had a friend deliver for free nothing paid nothing charged for that. except labor. this job is T&M. time and materials for those who are not in the know. longer we take the more money i make. i dont have to push the guys, they do good work, if something has to be fixed the customer gets billed for it, etc. we still have another good 2 days there i think the skid steer will be done tomorow. hopefully. i know that this bill will be up over 5,000 easy. the reason the lawn got torn up was because of the skid steer. the woman said to me that we should try to avoid using it due to its wear and tear on the lawn. however i asked my employee who has done this work before how long it would take, same amount of guys no machine. 2 weeks. maybe 1 week if they are cooking. so that isnt that bad, i gotta go back next week and fix up the machine damage. also the reason why i did the machine is because the woman said it had to be done by tomorow (sunday) so the landscaping will be about 3/4 of the way done, then there is just the flagstone and fixing up the damage, as well as planting some annuals and weeding one large bed. i am sure as heck happy i didnt agree to do this all for 1700. the cleanup alone thatch / blow gardens was $700 now i am off to shower, and to update this woman's bill. by the way, seeing as how we got rained out today i looked at another job and got it, small job. 1200+ for just throwing in some plants and mulch.

[Lanelle]

For residential sites, I figure on about an hour per yard of mulch. This includes the move to the area and the actual spreading. Sounds like you have done lots more than 'just mulch'. The flagstone portion might be worth a little more than you charged, especially if you put down a compacted base for the stone.

[paul]

With a skid steer three guys better spread more than 30 Cu yds in a day. Our best day spreading mulch was 1500 yds 2 men and a skid steer and my Quad, Ok that was a different story....... but 30 cu yds is only 60 buckets out of my smaller skid steers, we've mulched way more than that in a half day.

[lawnboy82]

all i have to do with the flagstone is rip out the old ones and put in the new ones. again, whatever time i spend doing it, and whatever materials i use up. however the stone is in soil and will remain in soil for the time being. and you are right, we have done a lot more than just mulch. we re-did a garden about 150 feet long and at some points 20 feet deep. we pulled out enough garbage to fill up a triaxle about 2 times, once with brush, once with leaves, roots, etc.

[lawnboy82]

paul, i hate to say this, but you are full of it. 1500 yards in a day with 2 guys. lol. the mulch blowing trucks i believe can only blow about 100 yards a day, tops. however i dont even think it is that much. and you are saying that 2 guys and a skid steer can move and spread 1500 in a day. hahaha.

[AndrewLawn]

so,lawnboy82,how much are you,personally,putting into your pocket here.In other words,whats your total profit and on how many days?Did you work on this site too?.....just curious.

[paul]

I think you miss understand something, my Quad moves 16 cu yds at a time. http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1504403&a=11355600&p=45348734&Sequence=0&res=high

[FIREMAN]

Not being one to criticize anyone but that comment about Paul seemed to be a bit below the belt...also you have 4 laborers and a machine with an operator on this job and it's taking what seems to be a long time......my advice hurry up, finish and get paid before your client wakes up.

[paul]

He doesn't know what a quad is so I'll forgive him this time:)

[steveair]

Paul,

There it is again. I love that thing! I have to convince the airport into ordering a few for myself to play with.

On another note. I've learned one thing in this business. Believe the unbelievable. Just when you think you can 'do the most', someone will come along and make you look like you did nothing. Respect others, for you have NO idea what they may be doing, or in this case, what they have to do it with.

steveair

[AndrewLawn]

speaking of below the belt steve...I think that one was borderline.:)

[greens1]

Even with the quad and skidsteer 1500 yds must have been one long day.

Jim L

[paul]

It wasn't a short one but we finished the job the next day, total of 2000 yds.

[lawnboy82]

sorry paul. when most people who i know say "quad" it means a suzuki, yamaha, polaris, etc. i am gonna keep doing what i am asked to do, when i get finished then i will send them the bill. we are working at a good pace right now. we got most of around the house done today. there is not much left for the mulch and whatever. i really should have had a second skid steer there though. too much crap to move around. and this one area, it had so much vines and plants that you couldnt walk through there. we did a lot and it looks beautiful. that is all that matters, right? for what i am taking home:
600 - 400= 200 - skid steer
200 - 150= 50 - stone
900 - 450= 450 - mulch
800 - 300= 500 - yesterday's labor
1000 - 400= 600 - today's labor
100 - 80= 20 - grass seed
800 - 200= 600 - labor to come
45 - 25= 20 - salt hay

so before taxes, gas, insurance, etc. i come away with: $2340.00 we were there for 3 days as of tomorow gas should be around $100 or so, give or take a few dollars. so is this too much profit for a job with a price tag of about $4,500.00? the numbers will most likely be worked down a little bit. what would be a good number for profit here? and what would be a good number to charge?

[greens1]

That big a job is a little out of my range, but it's nice to know it can be done with the right equiptment and people.
Jim L

[steveair]

Hello,

a lot of those numbers sound low.

For one thing, you have no trucking charges at all. Sure, the stone cost 150 and you charged 200, but how bout the delivery charge. Same with the mulch. Or, was everything delivered and that was included in the price already.

Another is debris removal. You said you have taking out almost 2 tri-axles full of material. Do you have to pay for disposal?, and again, what about trucking, etc.

Also, what about overhead....a whole other world that seems to not be in here at all.

On a job like this, I would definitely have written out a contract before hand. Time and material pricing of a job like this can lead to problems, especially when it comes to handing the homeowner the final bill. If you gave the homeowner a initial price before hand, and then talked about the 'extras' before doing them and giving them a price, you wouldn't have to worry about 'is my price to high' now.

It sounds like you are doing a whole lot more than just mulching, yet the price is what I would expect to see on a job that included mulch only, no grass/seed/stone/ removal of materials.

[lawnboy82]

the stone, i picked up. the mulch if i had picked it up it would have been 11 dollars per yard. to have them deliver it was 15 dollars per yard. so at 30 yards was 450 dollars. there is no trucking for removal. i am making a big pile with the skid steer and we are gonna level it out and chip over it. why does this number sound low to you? that is about 50 percent profit. no material leaves the site. trucking is already taken care of, so what should i charge for this amount of time or costs.

[steveair]

Why does the price sound low?

Because I live in New Jersey! I can't believe what others charge myself.

steveair

[Stonehenge]

Gross profit sounds in line for a total bill of $4500, but it's taking you way too long for that many people. At that rate you will only do about $120K in sales with 5 peops. For perspective, I believe Paul does about 10x that with 2x the people.

And I'm a pretty good source for that kind of criticism....I did almost exactly the same thing a few years ago. 1 crew of 5 guys (for part of the season), and only did $130K in biz.

I've found (through my trial and error, mostly error, process) that 2 man crews work really well for us. Very efficient.

You might also want to make sure the customer is aware of the cab fare to this point in the ride. You'd hate to find out that you're driving them further than they wanted to go.

Greens1 - your post was referring to 1500 yds, not 30 yds, right? You sound like you've been to the end of the block and back a few times, and 30 sounds very well within the range of your abilities. :blob3: