What would you charge per acre?

   / What would you charge per acre? #1  

jca57jd

Bronze Member
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Apr 8, 2010
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59
Location
Charlotte NC
Tractor
Kubota L3430 HSTC 2006 Bobcat T190 (60" CID) Cat 303.5 Bobcat e55 (50" blue diamond mower)
He guys, I would like to see if I could get your opinions on pricing a clearing project. The total area of the job is 1.75 acres. The property consist of mostly 8" to 10" pine trees and the land is fairly flat on a moderate grade. I'm pricing it to clear the trees, push into a big pile, burn, and haul off left over fire debre. I will be using a cat 953b to do the clearing. I know that I am pricing against someone else using a mulcher. I would love to get the job but I am aware that a mulcher may be able to do this job cheaper than me, I just want to make sure that I am in the right price range for clearing it with my machine. I just bought this loader and want to keep it busy. I can run it fairly decent, main reason I bought it was to start doing some bigger projects like this. I will buy me a mulcher one day but I have to work from the bottom up to get there. I came up with about 5300 for clearing, burning, and hauling off leftover. What are your opinions on this price?Many thanks for your input!
 
   / What would you charge per acre?
  • Thread Starter
#2  
Ow and by the way, that was 5300 for everything (1.75 acres). Am I low?
 
   / What would you charge per acre? #3  
How tall are the trees? 8-10" with a small mulcher, depending on density, should take no more than 2.5 days but could be a lot less depending on how fine they need it. If a big boy was to come out, they could probaby knock that out in 6 -7 hours again depending on density. $5300 sounds high but where I'm from the trees are different. We have very few pines and our junipers are multi-trunked and can be tough to grind if the property is overly dense or there is a lot of oak and rocks to avoid. Our clearing is very selective because of that but I generally can clear an acre for under $2k unless the trees are over 12" diameter. Hmmm. Would need more information. Your method sounds like it will take awhile because you will have to wait on coals to cool before you haul and you will have several steps involved but the two methods are apples and oranges. You are leaving a stump-free site ready to build or whatever and the other will have stumps, shreds, and pieces of tree that don't get chewed up. Tough call.
 
   / What would you charge per acre?
  • Thread Starter
#4  
The sight has a quite a few rocks on it from what I saw wear I walked around. The trees are between 25' to 30' but prob average around 25' and I'd say there is a tree about every 100 sf. So 43,560/100 = 435.6 x 1.75 = around 763 trees.
 
   / What would you charge per acre? #5  
I just under brushed about 1.5-1.75 acres and charged $1000. Normally that would've been about 1600-1700 but it was for a buddy and there's going to be more work. I would consider being out there when burning so you can keep the piles pushed up. That'll give you a lot less to haul off. I took most of those trees in that sizes range out but there wasn't nearly as many as your describing. Good luck. Might be worth it to have a logger take a look at it too. That would be a bunch of chip saw and then jus get the stumps ground down.

Brett
 
   / What would you charge per acre? #6  
Is there not any value in trees that size? Pulpwood maybe?
 
   / What would you charge per acre?
  • Thread Starter
#7  
I called the mill the other day and they said they weren't excepting pulp right now. Haha my luck, but I'm kinda getting used to it.

So 5300 sounds a little high..... What would y'all say I should charge for a job like this. I'm figuring 2 days on the loader clearing and piling getting the fire ready, then keeping the fire pushed up while I'm cutting some ditches in for a road the next day. Then one morning hauling trash out, prob around 5 truck loads.
 
   / What would you charge per acre? #8  
I would expect 3 days clearing and burning @ $640 per day then moving out until pile cooled off then back in again for another day @640 to haul it out. I would also add another day for a safety margin on my bid. So, I would bid $3200 for a similar job in my area.
 
   / What would you charge per acre? #9  
I would expect 3 days clearing and burning @ $640 per day then moving out until pile cooled off then back in again for another day @640 to haul it out. I would also add another day for a safety margin on my bid. So, I would bid $3200 for a similar job in my area.

I'm with you on the amount of days. Sometimes those 8-10" pines are the hardest to get out. They will break off them you have to dig them. Be sure to push up clean piles so they will burn. You could also call log haulers and see if they will haul to any other mills. That is an exceptionally large amount of burning on two acres. Even if they haul it to cover their costs. It's saves you from having to mess with it.

Brett
 
   / What would you charge per acre? #10  
The sight has a quite a few rocks on it from what I saw wear I walked around. The trees are between 25' to 30' but prob average around 25' and I'd say there is a tree about every 100 sf. So 43,560/100 = 435.6 x 1.75 = around 763 trees.

763 trees is a lot of trees on that site. If they are truly 8 to 10 inch trees at breast height then they should be marketable. Might want to contact a logger who's crew is close by and offer to give him the wood if they would pile the tops in a area where they could be safely burned. This might spark their interest if they don't have to pay you a stumpage price on the trees harvested plus it will absorb their moving cost.
Pulp wood mills are notorious for not wanting wood one day then jumping up and down wanting all they can get the next.
 
 
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