equipment life/value

[rixtag]

Hello,
I just read the thread about cost to mow and it brought up a question. In an effort to recover expenses most people give a value of a piece of equipment as what it cost them, and they pro-rate it for a certain period of time. I realize that the figures are arbitrary but my question is how do you all determine the period of time? Is it based on how long you want to use it before replacing it or is it something else?

Thanks in advance,
Rick

PS. I have logo designed and I would like to post it for some feed back....but how?

Thanks again.

[1MajorTom]

Rick,

If you want to attach your logo for viewing, when you click on post reply, you will be brought to the screen where you start to type. Look underneath where you type, and you will see where it says attach file. Click on the button to the right, "browse".

By clicking that, you will be able to browse your computer to find out where you have your logo stored. Once you find your file which contains your logo, click on it. Then click on Open.
That will attach it to your reply.

I'm not the best explainer so I hope you can figure out what I said.

[HBFOXJr]

Equipment costs for job costing do not need to be arbitrary.

Some ideas for thought. For a truck take purchase price, determine usable life time miles, get down to miles per year, then days or hours of use per year. Include fuel, insurance, parts and repairs like tires, battery, oil, brakes etc.

Same can be done for a mower, blower, trencher etc.

Heavy equipment might be an hourly life span. Priced as per operating hour on the job. Make sure that the annual hours will cash flow the loan or close to it if financed. Sometimes you got to eat a small amount if it isn't used much but may have a long life in years.

[David Gretzmier]

one could reasonable assume ownership costs of a mower need to be based on the expected Number of hours it will live. for our grasshopper mowers, that number falls around 1200-1500 hours, and repairs start to get heavy. others have experienced greater or lesser lifespan, but you take your purchase price, add gas and maintenance costs, and constantly divide by the expected hours.

Dave g

[rixtag]

Ok,
If I understand correctly, us, as owners decide how long we want to keep the equipment in service and how long we want to take to "pay it off" so to speak? We then figure to the best of our knowledge how many hours it will take to do the above. If we want to accomplish this in a short period of time the costs are higher and a longer period makes for less hourly expense?

THANKS

PS. Thanks for the info Jodi. I have to get the disc and give it a try! :)