Estimate for trimming bushes

[Keegan]

How would you price a job to trim back large bushes and possibly hall the brush away?
This is my first time estimating this type of job.

Thanks!

[SCAG POWER]

Just how much brush do you have to haul a way. You might want a roll off dumster delivered to the site.I did a clean up about 3 weeks a go and the client came home and saw all the lawn bags that we were loading up.The next day he called in the early morning and said he left some thing in the drive way for us. A NUMBER #30 ROLL OFF man that was great.:alien: :alien:

[EastProLawn]

Hourly plus dumping fee....

EXAMPLE: 4 hours @ $55 = $220
Dumping = $35
Total= $255

[Wells]

I would agree with EastPro.....

Charge this type of job by the hour and include disposal fees.
Be sure to include your time (both there and back) that it will take you to make a run to the landfill.

Try to estimate how many hours it will take you to do the job completly, once you feel comfortable with the number of hours then increase them by at least 20% as these types of jobs never go as planned and most of the time you will end up taking it in the shorts.

[tiedeman]

that is what I do, charge by the hour. It covers my butt so if I get in there something takes longer than expected

[Trevors Lawn Care]

i charge $45 per hour trimming bushes.

The nice thing, I hire someone to do it, and pay them $10 per hour.

Trevor

[LCME]

Just finished trimming 4 bushes. I estimated higher for small jobs and lower for larger ones. Estimate was $35 per man hour with a 2 person crew. Travel was in the 35 per man hour. Plus, $30 for dumping fee. I estimated to complete about 1 hour. Boy, glad I charged by the hour. Job took 1 hr and 40 min. Customer was not happy. But, the estimate was approve by him and was in writing. Do not under estimate, go high. Better to beat the estimate than go over. My mistake again. Good luck.

[HydroBC]

Keegan-
I started out doing trimming and Pruning exclusively about 8 yrs ago. There is no reason to expect to take it in the shorts on trimming jobs. on the contrary- do a nice job and youll make 3x the $$$$ you can make doing lawns.
I NEVER use hourly wages because that puts me at a huge disadvantage. I use very powerful Tanaka commercial trimmers and I can really trim fast. If youre talking about Pruning Rhododendrons or azaleas, they take considerably more time. They should be done by hand and pruned from the middle out.
I basically charge $75.00/hr for all bush jobs and I do about 65 accounts per season. You need to look at a bush and decide how long it will take you to trim it nicely. If you have 10 small bushes that look like they will take 15 min. each. Youve got 150 min of trimming (2.5hrs) or roughly $185.00 plus another $30. for cleanup. I never break it down to the client, I simply tell them this is the cost for the job plus clean-up. Trimming is a premium service and the homeowners will expect to pay for it, just do a great job or they'll do it themselves.
As for hauling the brush- what are we talking about exactly? If you need to go to the dump, its gonna be whatever the dump will charge YOU for the load plus hourly wages for general cleanups, roughly $40.00.

Good Luck