cemetary

[olderthandirt]

How do you price a cemetary mowing job for a village? I have the chance to bid on a 2 acre cemetary and 6 smaller ones for a small village but have no idea of where to start for a price. They already informed me they don't have a lot of money,but I live here so I thought it would be a good way to get the name around. I would be mowing with a 48 in.Z and have to trim ''as needed'' I figured around 4 hrs. just for the 2 acre one at around $60 hr. I never did commercial mowing and I'm probably wasting my time where I figure I need to be for the $ but its worth a shot. Any suggestions?

[keifer]

Why dont you count the head stones,trim one then add it up.might get you a little closer to a set time.

[David Haggerty]

Originally posted by olderthandirt

They already informed me they don't have a lot of money,

I'm probably wasting my time

Any suggestions?

Yeah, get caller ID and don't answer the phone when they try to call you back.

I apologize for sounding so cryptic, but I've never seen a cemetery worth working for.

#1 They're always underfunded, especially if they're full

#2 They're both religous and political at the same time. Someone's always complaining.

#3 They're just plain hard to mow.


Just my $.02 worth

Dave

[1stclasslawns]

Ditto what David said,

PLUS

#4 They are hard on equipment

#5 they are rough

#6 the familys of the people buried there dont care what their own house looks like, but you better not screw up the grave of dear ol' aunt Betty.


My own family has been on the board of a cemetary that my Great Great Grandmother donated in the 1800's and I wont put my equipment on the place.

Jim

[sdwally]

We have about a 130 acre cemetery that we take care of. Just to echo what has been mentioned above, cemetery are time consuming and hard on equipment. We have 4 operators that mow with 8 different units(4 reel units and 4 rotary units) and are able to mow it in about 4 days. Average life span of one mowing unit mowing full time is about 4 years and then the unit is basically junk.
Line trimmers also take a beating. Line trimmer(commerial grade) were designed for being used for a small amount of time many times through out the day. Not for 4 to 6 hours at a time in one day. Our cemetery has about 4 to 6 people that line trim about 4 hours a day and around Memorial Day it is about 8 to 10 people line trimming about 6 hours a day.
Another thing to consider is are the grave markers flat stones that you can drive over or uprights that you have to mow and trim around. If they are flat stones are they all level with the ground and not stick up where a blade might chip or damage one? Some familys get real upseat when their loved ones' stones get chipped or scratched.
My sugestion, if you decide to take on this job is to have a trial period of a month or two. This way you can get a handle on what it will take to do the job, before entering into a long term contract.

[gorrell]

You gentlemen are exactly correct on your summations of cemetery work. I mowed 3 cemeteries for 6 years and never received one compliment, but miss trimming one grave and guess who's going to show up? If I do any bidding on cemeteries now, I usually bid it at 1.5 times my normal rate because as I've stated, they're nothing but headaches..........Lynn

[Commander]

A guy who I met last year used to do a cemetary. He lost it last year due to what he calls "politics" He did the grass there, I don't know if he really made any money doing that though. However I do know that he had the contract for digging the graves with his backhoe, so that usually stayed there. He also did a little tree work there every once and a while and what not.

[Andy Miller]

When I was a young lad, I worked at a cemetary. The degree of difficulty is high, specially in the older cemetarys with above ground stones. They eat the metal away from the mower deck, you have to use walk behinds because of space limitations and the trimming. Terrible and unprofitable. Might as well dig a hole and bury your equipment.

[olderthandirt]

Thanks all, I talked to a trustee tonite and got a little more info,They been paying a guy 9 dollars an hr. to use there equipment which they bought new before last yr. I guess he tore the He-- out of it. It was a garden tractor and it took him about 20-25 hrs a week to do it.{At least that what he was charging them for} I bid it out at a little over 15,000. I figured 6 hrs. mowing and 4 trimming 26 times a yr. I have a good chance of getting it the trustee thinks becouse there tired of messing around each yr. with someone new. I'm beginning to think maybe its not worth it, any thoughts???

[shawn'slawns]

"STEP AWAY FROM THE HEADSTONE NOW" AS A LAWN ENFORCEMENT OFFICER I WARN YOU!!AAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH
this was the biggest mistake of my life. i would take another cemetary if you paid me $50,000 a year and since that is not going to happen never again. i had a guy that was going to spend all week in my 5 cems and he puttered out half way through the first cut. i was able to get out of the contract about 2 mo. into it.

[olderthandirt]

YOU GUYS ARE BEGINING TO SCARE ME!!!!!!

[Runner]

We did do an old cemetery once. There was an article in our local paper about it sating it was running out of funds, and the families were really upset about it's condition. When I decided to drive over one day I saw what they meant! Almost the whole place was waist deep! Trash in some areas, and fallen limbs and such. There were people in it trying to cut an area with pushmowers. When I talked to them I found out they were family members of the deceased, and they wre just cutting around those few plots. This was a cemetery that dated back from mid 1800's to mid 1900's. I couldn't let this be like this, so every afternoon or so, when I was done with my roster, I would go in and knock these vast areas out and mulch them up later after it dried. I moved section by section, and the beauty of it was, was that no one knew who was doing it! Here's the funny part. One evening, after work, as I was cutting in there, (toward the rear of the cemetary) I noticed a low spot around this one grave. The surface was real sandy, and I just simply told myself to steer clear of it, and wI can make it up with the trimmer later. No problem, right? Wrong! Even with steering clear, the ground started to give way, and in I slid! I was cutting with a Gravely (I know, how appropriate) Promaster 300 front deck rider, and when it sank into the grave, the deck went up, so it was wedged in. There was no rocking it out, so I looked around and found some branched and things to place under the wheels. No go. Well, at this time, it was starting to get dark now, it was SUPER hot and about 100% humidity, so by this time, I was soaked with sweat, and, I was a bit concerned about getting locked in there, as I, and my truck, were all the way at the back of this place. I thought I heard someone there, who I thought may have been locking the place up, so I sprinted down to the front, but to no avail, there was no one there. So, back up I went, and I knew what I had to do. The only way of getting that machine out of there, was to dig a ramp to drive out. So, I went to the truck and grabbed a shovel. I'm thinking to myself; Man, what could go more wrong now. Just then a clap of thunder cracked, and it just started POURing! I walked back to the grave, thinking thoughts like "watch the police pull through and see this guy at the top of the hill digging into a grave". When I reached the grave, I paused, said a quick prayer, and asked the Lord for forgiveness for what I was about to do and I dug in. after what SEEMED like an eternity of digging, I was able to free the Gravely from it's depths and drive it back to the trailer. As I looked back and saw the mess I had made of this site, I felt bad to leave it like that, but I knew I could be back tomorrow to fix it. It was either that, or a few minutes more, I may have all NIGHT to fix it! Eventually, after I told a few other guys I knew with services, (who I can now call friends), we all converged on this cemetery on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon, knocked it all out and had it all trimmed up and shining! Someone WANTed to call the media, but we preferred they didn't. They acknowledged our wishes. That was a wonderful experience being able to do for those families what we did. And Mike, Randy, Paul, and Tom, if you happen to read this- Thank you once again and God bless.

[SLS]

sdwally stated:

"Another thing to consider is are the grave markers flat stones that you can drive over or uprights that you have to mow and trim around. If they are flat stones are they all level with the ground and not stick up where a blade might chip or damage one? Some familys get real upseat when their loved ones' stones get chipped or scratched."


Yep, this happens.

My grandfather died a couple of weeks ago and upon arrival at the cemetary we saw where the bronze plaque (mounted on top of a marble base) had taken a blow from a mower. It really messed up the corner and scraped the date of birth right off! Being the nice guy (and grass whacker) that I am I smoothed some ruffled family feathers and explained how this could happen as the ground was soft from all the rain, ect. Still, you could tell it was not fresh and I KNOW the LCO HAD to have heard and felt it when it happened (and probably had to replace a blade as well) and I felt that it should have been brought to our attention and fixed before we showed up to bury Gramps. Not only are those things expensive but some could consider it an insult as well. But I know "Schitt Happens" and it was a little late to do anything about it that day. No use crying over spilt milk...at least at that very somber moment. :rolleyes:

Before we left Dad and I did pop into the Administrators office for a nice little chat...........

I have been asked to bid on cemetary mowing but as a solo operator I will not tie up a considerable amount of time on one job...only to lose it to a lower bidder the next year. That's the danger of doing under-funded commercial work if you are solo. If you only have 4 BIG accounts and 2 of them blow you off for a cheaper price...well, there goes 1/2 of your income...in the blink of an eye.

Once I start running crews I still would not bid on cemetaries for all the reasons given above.

[Runner]

As far as the cemetaries with the raised stones, I think that Stone had about the best idea for doing these, and that was putting a piece of vinyl rail on the left side of your deck, like what's put on sailboats for docking. With a search, you can find that thread easy enough. Speaking of which, where has he been? Has he been around? I haven't heard from him in quite awhile.

[cemeterymower]

Originally posted by olderthandirt
How do you price a cemetary mowing job for a village? I have the chance to bid on a 2 acre cemetary and 6 smaller ones for a small village but have no idea of where to start for a price. They already informed me they don't have a lot of money,but I live here so I thought it would be a good way to get the name around. I would be mowing with a 48 in.Z and have to trim ''as needed'' I figured around 4 hrs. just for the 2 acre one at around $60 hr. I never did commercial mowing and I'm probably wasting my time where I figure I need to be for the $ but its worth a shot. Any suggestions?


Formula used to be 800.00 x the acre mowing and trimming per year

[SLS]

Runner,

Here's a thread about people who haven't been around in a while...including the illustrious Lawrence Stone. :)

http://lawnsite.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=26861&perpage=20&pagenumber=1

BTW:

That was a nice thing you and your pals did at that cemetary. Didn't you guys do the same thing at a city park awhile back?

[landman]

We maintain a cemetary and have had no problems. Also it seems as though everytime I speak to the head priest there he always tells me that our guys are doing a great job. And as far as the money goes we bill'em and they send a check in 2 weeks. Plus the amount of extra work they give us is good too. Dig the graves & back fill, then we grade and sod them after they settle. We are always sodding and reseeding there as well as the other little projects they have. I know that most cemetaires are private but the one we do is a cemetary with a church on the grounds, a rectory across the street, a residence for the pastor, a building that has the church offices, and a residence next door that is a senior citizen housing building.

[Doc Pete]

FWIW, I do one Cemetary as my full time job and one Cemetary as my part time job. The one I cut part time is about 2.5 acres, which is about the size we are talking about. Frankly, there's no reason why you can't bit it just like any other job. If you use the same specs to judge the pricing as other jobs, you should have no problem. Actually, the Cemetary I do PT is by far the best paying job I have. However, as we all know, "walk away" if the Church says they don't have money. Remember this is a business and you can't mix the Church with Business;) . OTOH, once you get the hang of grave stone trimming, you can really start to cut your trim time down. Also, two of us use walkbehinds with velky's and have developed a system. One of us goes slow and cuts as close to each grave as possible, just like a trim mower. This is all he mows. I, then "fly" through the center of each grave row and cut only the middle areas. After the mowing is done, each of us start trimming the grave rows together. I start on one side and my friend starts on the other. As we go down the rows, we watch each other and as one of us gets ahead of the other, that person cuts the opening between a grave, then goes back to trimming on his side. Then, as I take time to do a center portion, my friend gets ahead of me, and "he" then does one of the center portions. One thing is for sure, even at just 2.5 acres, I'd use two trim people or it would be pretty hard not to end up with tendenitis in your arm or shoulder.
Pete