Do I Need a Dozer or Therapy?

[oldnslo]

A little Nitrogen fertilizer mixed with diesel fuel and a blasting cap and the dam is gone and the dirt is spread in a matter of seconds.

 

[sdkubota]

A little Nitrogen fertilizer mixed with diesel fuel and a blasting cap and the dam is gone and the dirt is spread in a matter of seconds.

I like the way you think!:drink:

 

[Ken45101]

A little Nitrogen fertilizer mixed with diesel fuel and a blasting cap and the dam is gone and the dirt is spread in a matter of seconds.

Until Homeland Security shows up with a SWAT team, black helicopters and a tank.....

;-)

 

[Bob Rooks]

A little Nitrogen fertilizer mixed with diesel fuel and a blasting cap and the dam is gone and the dirt is spread in a matter of seconds.

It's called ANFO.

 

[joshuabardwell]

Well, I certainly appreciate all the input; it's been very helpful. But in the end, no matter how I tried to do the math, the numbers just didn't add up. And so unfortunately, I've hired it out to a pro. I always hate doing this because it FEELS like money flushed down the toilet, when in reality it isn't. At least I still have fun tearing out trees with the 49 backhoe on the back of my JD5425, largely thanks to Eddie's posts here from several years ago.

Don't feel bad. Paying a pro to do the job just means you get to sit around and drink a beverage while he does all the hard work three times faster than you would have done it. Think about what you're going to do with all the money you didn't spend!

 

[Blackhammer]

Here recently I have had my MTL down for service and repairs, I have been using the mini excavator a lot more. I have gotten amazing at spreading material, but the excavators strong suits is defiantly digging. If you want to tackle this project your self, renting is the best option. Buying and selling equipment is such a pain, and it could take months or even years to sell a newer more expensive machine. I have the same argument with my wife all the time on purchasing equipment specifically for jobs. Rental on a d6 dozer will cost about the $6500 the pro quoted you for a month. You just need to prioritize equipment usage during that month. Also plan on spending about $1000 on fuel. Make sure you know when the rental ends. The way the rental prices work is the weekly rate is about the cost of 2 1/2 days, the month sometimes is cheaper than the 2 week rate, but usually very close to the 2 week rate. Doesn't make sense , but that is how they do it.

 

[Gordon Gould]

As a land owner it is pretty hard to justify the price of a dozer. But how do you justify a swimming pool or a travel motor home ?? Their enjoyment prehaps. That works for the dozer too - at least for me. And you don't have to buy a cheap piece of junk to get a good deal. In fact it probably won't be. Take your time. The dam isn't going anywhere. Find a good dozer that needs an under carriage and has an owner that can't afford to or doesn't want to spend the money to replace it in a pure business sense. Negotiate hard and buy it as is. Then put the u/c on it. Expensive, yes. But you end up with a good machine with good resale value or one that will last the rest of your life.
Thats what I did with my early '90s Dresser TD7G (Think JD 450 size) and I am having a blast using it and in no need of therapy, swimming pool, or motor home..

 

[MtnViewRanch]

This is what I was told a looooooooong time ago. "If you need the tool more than once, than you should have the tool". I actually have tried to live by that as much as I financially could, probably one of the reasons that we have so many.

 

[BigJim]

So here is a follow-up, posted in the hope that someone as ignorant as I will in the future search this forum and find this message and learn from my mistakes. As you all know, I really wanted to do this project myself, but in the end, was "convinced" by the powers that be that this would have been a foolish and wasteful endeavor. As it turned out, hiring a "pro" was foolish and wasteful endeavor.

In retrospect, I made quite a few serious errors in the way I handled hiring this job out. For starters, I relied on word-of-mouth, which is generally preferable to merely selecting someone based on who has the biggest ad in the yellow pages. My dozer man came highly regarded from a contractor whose work for me I had been pleased with, so I expected that this guy would be good.

The dozer man estimated it would take him about 50 hours at $125/hr, so I budgeted about $6K for the project. I should have know full well right then that hiring this job out by the hour was just volunteering to buy the guy a new dozer. As things turned out, he burnt through the $6K and got maybe 1/3 of the way done, but I'm getting ahead of myself here.

My advice to those who want to hire this sort of thing out is as follows. Get estimates from several contractors and make certain that they are firm-fixed quotes, not by the hour, and make sure they are in writing and make sure they are signed off by both parties prior to beginning the project. That way, the contractor is motivated to estimate accurately because he's only getting paid one amount regardless of how many hours it takes him to do the job. My mistake was simply accepting the verbal low-ball estimate and verbally agreeing to the job. As a result, I wasted $6K to get a job less than half done.

Another alarm that should have gone off was when the guy showed up with a D5. I might have bought a D5-class dozer had I done the job myself, simply because I wouldn't care how long it took me. But when I am paying someone by the hour, I very much care how long it will take. This project really needed a D6 or larger dozer, but more than that, it really needed someone who knew earth moving well enough to know what the right tool for the job was (which would probably be a giant motor scraper).

In the end, I kicked the guy out after eating up my $6K, and now I'm stuck with a mess. The dam is about 3' shorter than it used to be, and the pond basin is now about 2/3 as large as it used to be, but the net result is that I still have a pond and a dam, both of which need to be removed and replaced with level ground.

So I'm not sure what I'm going to do next, but I guess I learned a thing or two. My mom always told me that education is the most expensive part of life. I just hope this post helps those that find themselves in a similar situation in the future. Don't repeat the mistakes I made.

 

[MarkV]

Sorry to hear it all went wrong. Around here you are not going to get a set price on excavation/earth moving projects unless it is really high. Just too many variables involved to know what you are getting into. The better guys have a pretty good idea, the lesser tend to underestimate. Sounds like you ended up with the latter for this project. I expect to pay about what he was charging and up depending on the size of the equipment. I always ask what size equipment is being used. I will also ask for a reduced price if we go over the estimated hours. Hope you get it sorted out.

MarkV

 

[MarkV]

Sorry to hear it all went wrong. Around here you are not going to get a set price on excavation/earth moving projects unless it is really high. Just too many variables involved to know what you are getting into. The better guys have a pretty good idea, the lesser tend to underestimate. Sounds like you ended up with the latter for this project. I expect to pay about what he was charging and up depending on the size of the equipment. I always ask what size equipment is being used. I will also ask for a reduced price if we go over the estimated hours. Hope you get it sorted out.

MarkV

 

[sdkubota]

Hindsight is always 20/20 but let me add this as I work with contractors and costs alot. Should you have requested a lump sum they would have jacked their price from what they thought it would take and some extra in case they were wrong. You would have gotten a bunch of bids for $20k. The way you did it took away any risk from the contractor and should have gotten you a better price. You should have asked about what equipment he was going to use as $125/hr should get you some fairly serious iron. You might not have gotten shafted as much as you think for the amount of work that was done and time will tell. It is always beneficial to get more then one estimate for hiring out work.

 

[sixdogs]

Having been there and done that I'll say what I would do and that's to get over it right now and forget about what has happened because it's all over. The $$ are gone and the experience has been gained. This lesson will save you multiples of the amount down the road. So start fresh and buy a dozer if you want to or hire it out if you want to but just pretend whatever just happened never happened. It's the Vegas of the tractor world.

Back as a teenager I ruined a brand new sweater the first time I wore it and could not bring myself to replace it. i wore it for a number of years and never got over the trauma. Fast forward to a few years ago I was removing my belly mount mower from my B7800 by lifting it with a much bigger loader tractor and clipped the hood. Ouch, but I had learned over the years.

After surveying the damage I went inside, called the dealer and ordered what I needed to be whole again. New hood, lights, housing, etc for $450. I felt better immediately and the negative images of that day never stayed with me. I feel better. Not to make light of any of this but you probably tossed away a couple thousand $$ but it's OK. it's gone so now so just fix it and don't let it eat at you or the project will have bad vibes for you. I know it's easy for me to say so just my two cents here.

 

[YesDeere]

Having been there and done that I'll say what I would do and that's to get over it right now and forget about what has happened because it's all over. The $$ are gone and the experience has been gained. This lesson will save you multiples of the amount down the road. So start fresh and buy a dozer if you want to or hire it out if you want to but just pretend whatever just happened never happened. It's the Vegas of the tractor world.

Back as a teenager I ruined a brand new sweater the first time I wore it and could not bring myself to replace it. i wore it for a number of years and never got over the trauma. Fast forward to a few years ago I was removing my belly mount mower from my B7800 by lifting it with a much bigger loader tractor and clipped the hood. Ouch, but I had learned over the years.

After surveying the damage I went inside, called the dealer and ordered what I needed to be whole again. New hood, lights, housing, etc for $450. I felt better immediately and the negative images of that day never stayed with me. I feel better. Not to make light of any of this but you probably tossed away a couple thousand $$ but it's OK. it's gone so now so just fix it and don't let it eat at you or the project will have bad vibes for you. I know it's easy for me to say so just my two cents here.

That's some sound advice. As I've gotten older I am able to do this more. Terrible situation but definitely best to put it behind you. Sorry this happened

 

[swick1]

At least you didn't lose too bad. You got the work done that you paid for. I think you did okay even if the job isn't done. Save up some money and try again!

 

[Blackhammer]

Wow!!!!

Is all I can say!

As a contractor I try to deliver what is wanted by my customers. "Shoot" that is why they hired me. I have been asked to price jobs by the hour and lump sum. For me the price is the same. I don't care how they want it priced, in the end the price will be within a couple of points. I have exclusions for unsuitable soils, and other variables in all contracts.

If this guy estimated 50 hrs and only completed 1/3 the work, he should be held to complete the project. There should be a +/- this many hours clause. If after the first 8 hrs only 5% of the work was done, you as the owner should have raised concerns to the contractor.

Sorry for the rant, I am sorry the contractor screwed you, I hope you get it worked out. Expensive lesson learned. With this poor economy, it seems contractors are trying to get more and more out of their customers. Makes me mad.

 

[swick1]

Wow!!!!

Is all I can say!

As a contractor I try to deliver what is wanted by my customers. "Shoot" that is why they hired me. I have been asked to price jobs by the hour and lump sum. For me the price is the same. I don't care how they want it priced, in the end the price will be within a couple of points. I have exclusions for unsuitable soils, and other variables in all contracts.

If this guy estimated 50 hrs and only completed 1/3 the work, he should be held to complete the project. There should be a +/- this many hours clause. If after the first 8 hrs only 5% of the work was done, you as the owner should have raised concerns to the contractor.

Sorry for the rant, I am sorry the contractor screwed you, I hope you get it worked out. Expensive lesson learned. With this poor economy, it seems contractors are trying to get more and more out of their customers. Makes me mad.

Perhaps a lesson for the next contract. As a digger I always get everything in writing and I won't hardly work by the hour because of unrealistic expectations and pressure to work faster than I deem safe. Plus I haven't been able to do that little extra I always like to do for free to make my work stand out. All the dirt work I do gets finished to a "lawn-like" surface. No tracks, smooth, and hand raked. It doesn't take that much longer and I've had a lot of compliments so far.

Good luck on the next bid or equipment purchase!

 

[Ken45101]

I guess I've been lucky. I had a contractor for two different jobs (same guy). One job was widening our driveway with an excavator as it winds up the hillside (800'). He couldn't give me a "job" cost ahead of time since he didn't know how much bedrock he would run into. It took an extra day or so but he did a good job at an acceptable cost. We also had him cut some trails across the hillsides with a dozer. Heck, some of the areas were too steep to walk. In three days he did a tremendous job.

If a contractor "low balled" an estimate and you held him to it and he ran into problems, he could still do a half a** job.

It all comes down to finding a good honest contractor. Being fair works both ways.

Ken

 

[swick1]

Good point Ken! I try not to drive hard bargains because everyone deserves to make a little profit. I'd rather do that and we all win instead of making somebody take a bath on a deal.

I've been dealing with regular construction contractors lately and the high ballers are crazy. I told one of them that just because I'm not doing the job doesn't mean I don't know how and that his company should get their act together. I don't even bother with low ballers because they are always on drugs, playing catchup with their payroll, or ignorant of how to estimate a job.

Since we are having this dialogue I guess I'll share how I and some other people I know estimate a job. First I get all the requirements nailed down then select equipment to do it. If the job will take more than one day I rent equipment for a week usually. Materials also get a 10% markup and labor gets 10-20% depending on the job. I factor in daily travel and material shopping time at cost. If I'm using my equipment I markup my hours by 10%. Service, cleanup, and transport are factored into the equipment's rate. For my 1026r tlb it's $18/hr. That's what I have to make for the equipment to break even. Add taxes and insurance and you can see why it costs so much. I work for $45 to $50 per hour on the backhoe depending on the job plus $12/hr for a laborer.

If I worked more I would have an overhead rate to cover an office, garage, the accountant, insurance, advertising, taxes, lawyer, service, etc. This may be highly variable based on the company size.

I also have a rock clause that has me busting it at a fixed deployment cost plus an hourly rate.

So you can see for a one man show its not worth my time to go to work for less than $45-50/hr and I only operate tiny equipment. The good news is that the equipment is only eating up about half the budget. This is where you save when you diy. As the equipment gets larger though the cost savings get thinner due to maintenance costs , breakdowns, and the higher fuel consumption.