Paying for itself.

[cowboydoc]

Just for you guys that keep track or have to justify things with your wife here is my breakdown so far on the backhoe.

Put in drain tile, lines for phone and electricity. Amount saved: $175 on rental of trencher.

Dug out the field and lines for the septic system, set in tank with hoe and put in sand and dirt. Amount saved over lowest bid price was $3800. Minus cost of materials at $932 and $100 to my buddy that does these for his expertise leaves savings of $2768.

Used backhoe to move materials and things in and around the barn. No dollar value but extremely time saving.

So having the backhoe for only a few weeks I've already made $2943 with it. I don't think it will take too long for this thing to pay for itself.

 

[RobS]

Thanks for the info Richard. My only hope for a backhoe right now is to do all that you did, and strike gold while doing it /w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[dmccarty]

Cowboydoc,

I have not broken down how much each attachment has saved me but I have about 210 hours on the tractor since the very end of October 2000. From what Hertz rents various tractors in my area it looks like it cost about $20 per hour to run the tractor for a day. My father-in-law just retired from the DOT and said an average equipment operator was about $10 per hour. I figure by the time you figure in insurance, taxes, profit, as well as the cost to run/purchase the truck/trailer to get the tractor/equipment to job. $50 per tractor hour was a good guess. And I'm not really counting the cost of the implements just the tractor so my number should be low. I have not tried to bid someone on this but I'm just making what I hope are good guesses. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif If the $50 per hour is a good figure the tractor has saved me a minimum of $10,000 since 10/2000. That does not include the labor in doing other things that the tractor has helped me do such as building gates, burning piles of slash, that required the tractor only sporadically but which would have had higher labor costs.

If I went down the list of jobs I have completed that I did price out I'm getting close to $15,000 the tractor has earned/saved..... Thats pretty darn good.

Now about this here spetic system? If you can remember some of my horror stories about the septic system and perc sites I have to deal with, you'll understand my questions! I hope you don't mind them because I'm seriously thinking of putting in my own septic system. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

I assume the system you put in was a conventional system? How hard was it to do on a scale of 1 to 10. 1 being the easiest. Was it easy doing the trenches? How deep, wide, and long where they? Did you have any problems with the health department doing the work your self? Did you do the plumbing part or is that what your friend helped? Was the $900+ for the septic tank, gravel, pipe, everything?

The septic system we need has been bid at 16,000 and 18,000 dollars. I don't see how the prices can be that high but they are. Bird has, what in NC, is a top of the line system that would cost 20,000-30,000 dollars. But his was pretty cheap in comparison. I talked with and have read the litterature for these high end systems and I dont see where the money is going. I have an engineer who has designed the system, would design one of the high end systems whose permits are required from the state instead of local county. There is nothing in the law that would prevent me from doing the installation from what I have read in the state regulations and according to my engineer.

Just pricing out the materials I just don't see how these guys are earning what they charge. I know what the rental rates on the equipment runs, what the materials cost, and the labor just does not seem to be that high either...... If I do this myself saving 10,000+ dollars is not out of the question. If we go this route, we will pay cash so if the county has any problems with what we are doing time will be on our side and not against us.

Thanks!
Dan

 

[cowboydoc]

Dan,
The system that I used was what is called a sand filter. Pretty common around here. Most of them are around $7k to do. The $3800 was from my buddy which was basically his cost for hours on his hoe. You dig a big pit that you fill back with sand which is where your waste goes. This is filtered out and goes into some outlets which leach out into the ground. I had two options here. 1. I could put them underground and let them leach that way or I could have an open one but had to be checked from the county every year. I opted for the inground system. It was very easy to do. I put my tank in above my sand filter then dug out an 8 foot deep and 20' wide pit for the sand and dirt. Then you put your lines in from septic and your leach lines and that is it. I had the help from my buddy an hour here and there to keep me on the right track and it was a piece of cake. At my house I put in a different one there. What we did there was to put in the tank off of the house and then had a check box. Because my place was hilly we put in a 12" pipe that had a sock on it and was perforated on the bottom. This had to be 4' deep for code and had to be level at a 100' around the hill that the house sat on. This was alot easier to do than the sand filter but supposedly the sand filter is a better system. I don't know but I did it that way. Gotta run now but let me know if you have anymore questions. All I had to do was get a perk test and inspection when I was done from the county. They gave me no problems doing either one myself.

 

[mlmartin]

You got me thinking on this $$ justification business. I pulled and buried 50 stumps so far with my JD 870 and 8B backhoe. I could have gotten them ground for $250 each. I paid $15000+- for the tractor and saved $12500 in stump grinding less two tanks of diesel. By the time I finish putting the fence around the paddock, I'll have broken even/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif Since the wife wants a board fence all the way around the pasture, I'll be way ahead of the game, including all of the implements _and_ an equipment shed. Imagine all that savings in about 6 months.

Of course, If I hadn't bought the tractor, those stumps would have stayed where they were until they rotted, but the fence would still be built.

Matthew

 

[dieselpwr]

I do the math thing all the time too, before even making a purchase. Even though these things sound expensive they really aren't a bad investment in the long run. If you really want to justify them fast just base your calculations on hiring excavators to do all those little things you just do without thinking about it. You know - leveling the driveway, doing a little landscaping, plowing snow in the winter. The money you would have spent adds up pretty quick even without thinking about the big projects... and this way you have the convenience & pride of having a tractor of your own any time you need it. /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif The most valuable thing of all is not having to rely on anyone or wait for anyone else to do your projects. You can just do them.

Troy

 

[cowboydoc]

No doubt about that Troy! Also to me it's not like it's really work to do these projects. My wife and girls usually help out and we have fun doing them. Plus it's nice to have all this equipment when you need it as well. Hard to put a price on that.

 

[Branch]

I rented tractors a couple times before buying mine, and each time it was $300 for 8 hrs on the meter. That included pick-up, delivery, and fuel. Sometimes I didn't have a full 8 hrs worth of work that day because of staging other parts of the job. Other days I had more than 8 and I was wacked with almost $50 for an extra 1/2 hr.
My better half and I sat down and calculated what we would be doing over the next couple of years around here and buying a tractor was a no brainer. Every 10 hours of meter time on my tractor is a wash versus renting. Then when you factor in re-sale value I'm making money.

Branch

 

[dmccarty]

Richard,

Thanks for the info it helps me out greatly.

The 20,000 to 30,000 dollars systems sound similar to what you were doing but obviously more expensive! /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif They are called spray/filter systems and there really is not much to them. You have two spetic tanks. Nowadays you can get both tanks in one physical box. The first tank collects the waste from the house as usuall. The second tank has a medium of some kind, usually "special, aka expensive sand, or peat moss. The pretreated water from the first tank is taken and sprayed on the medium in the second tank. The second tank has a ducted fan that keeps the O2 level high so that the wee little beasties can feed on the effluent. What comes out of the second tank is a clear water that is high in nitrogen but is supposed to be pretty clean. You don't want to drink it but is should be odorless. Some states, but not NC, allow you to use the water on shrubs and such. In NC they require a leach field so you have to buy gravel and they want the leach field supply lines to be pressurized. Depending on soil type you might have to bring in fill dirt.

But even with all of the extra requirements compared with a conventional system, you are only talking about a second tank at most, maybe fill dirt, a pump, a blower, and a control panel. Everything else is the same compared with a conventional. I've priced out blowers, control panels, and pumps and they just are not that expensive. I might have to spend a $2,000 on the electrical equipment. And that is a very high number. I just don't get how these guys are getting 20K for a system.

Thanks again.
Dan

 

[RPM]

Don't forget the gain in value of your property from maintaining the land well. Even if you just have an acre of rough pasture with no livestock on it, maintaining it as a pasture and not as rough scrub makes the land more attractive to a potential purchaser.

Similarly, for the stump removal, addition of a fence, grading to avoid water run-off problems, maintenance of the driveway etc. - it all adds to the value of the property.