Friends and neghbors quotes

daveman · Jun 27, 2005

Hey all. I'm in a bit of a pinch with ideas. My friends have been asking me to do side jobs with the TLB setup. I started out just doing one here and there for the cost of the fuel. Well word travels fast here in small town Geneva. Now I've got request for work from Friends of Friends. /forums/images/graemlins/crazy.gif I hate not helping folks out. But I don't know what would be a fair charge. Especially since I'm not insured to do the work.( I made the friends sign a paper stating they take all the risk as far as their property goes and or damage to the TLB! No complaints on that so far.) Any ideas on what is a fair price for projects by the hour? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif I've figured out rather close on how long it takes me to do a heavy job when I did my own excavating. So my time are close. (Always give myself a buffer for the unseen!) Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!
Have a great day everybody. /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

ByronBob · Jun 27, 2005

For reference for you. When the guys putting in my gravity drain did my work they were charging me $7 per foot for the trench and pipe. I did have 360 foot of pipe put in.

jeffinsgf · Jun 27, 2005

I've always heard that anything requiring an expensive piece of equipment and a skilled operator demanded 50 to 75 an hour or more. The pricier the equipment and the more skill required of the operator, the higher the price. Take your investment and your familiarity with your equipment and adjust from there. Even if you're pretty green on the machine and working under the table for "friends of friends", I would think you should base things on a minimum of $25.00 per hour.

40Kchicks · Jun 27, 2005

I have this same problem with helping with my skid steer. It will do an incredible amount of work in an hour. I try to always be cheaper than what the person could go rent the equipment to do the job. Eventually I have come to realize that for the small jobs that I do people think its pretty fair if I’m around $40 an hour with a $40 minimum. So far all of my jobs are in the ½ hour to 3 hour time range. I don’t charge a setup fee. I find my friends usually want to pay me more because of all the work I just saved their backs and shovel and I’m usually happy to help. I usually take the kinds of jobs that the home owner can’t justify a professional but is going to have an all weekend back breaking job without the right equipment. The other thing I think about is suppose I have 20 yards of gravel to move to the back yard and move around. I would hate to move that by hand but it is too small of a job for a pro so it would be worth $40 to me to get that moved. My friends agree.

Prices are different everywhere so this may not be right in your area.
Eric

daveman · Jun 27, 2005

I've tried not to do any jobs so far that would be better off done by a pro. I'm no where near that good yet. (First time I've been on a tractor in 30 years and I only have 60 hours on this one so far! /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif ). Other than some trenching and dirt moving. Not much else. Got a request once to drill some post holes. 24 holes for $500 plus he would give me the "New" post hole digger for my tractor he bought. "Only a 27º grade" he stated. Checked with the manufacturer and the hyd.'s are OK to 30º. So I went to check out the Job before I loaded the tractor. Well it was 26º as the string flys. But four or five 60º drops in between. I walked away from that one. Told him I liked my tractor to much!! /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif He still never found anyone willing todo that job.

Tim_in_IA · Jun 27, 2005

I came into this thread thinking I was going to see a bunch of funny one liners from your neighbors /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

"friends and neighbors quotes"

Aside from this. I think there has been a similar thread not too long ago asking what to charge. I'll see if I can find it for ya and edit my post with it later.

here's one:
Click here for link

I'm sorry I can't find the one I was thinking of. THere was a guy that was asking how much to charge for some backhoe work a while back. I can't seem to find the post.

EDIT: Shortened long URL. M.R.

40Kchicks · Jun 27, 2005

Tim that was a pretty good link. I was pleased to see that my guess of $40 wasn’t to far off from what the others were thinking then eventually calculated.

Eric

slowrev · Jun 27, 2005

Lotsa links on this board on this subject. One must is to get insurance that will cover you if you damage someone's property or a utility facility. I know they are "friends" or friends of friends, but........They do not have to sue you, their insurance can do it. Pretty risky without liability insurance, you could lose everything....

$40 would be as cheap as I would ever go. Any lower and it is family work aka free /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Ben

daveman · Jun 28, 2005

I am looking into the insurance since this is becoming a side line of work. I didn't know about their insurance company could come after you. (The form I came up with seemed good enough but that was only to cover me from the homeowner! Never thought of that angle.) As far as the utility companies. I stay as far away from projects involving being anywhere in the sites of power lines and other nasty accidents waiting to happen. Most of the work so far has been drainage ditches and one finish job where the cutout for a basement outside entrance looked like a downsize scene from the grand canyon. (The person hired for that job went "Out of town" and never came back! Liked Florida to much I guess!). Looks like the next job I'll be shooting around the $40 mark. That seems to be the general concensus. As far as the Family freebees mentioned in a different thread. I don't have to worry about that. My brother lives in Manhattan. And my dad live in Tenn. That's just to far to go without a trailer. And you need a thousand permits to do anything in NYC. /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif