Help...pricing per hour

[Rowski]

I need a little help pricing out a job with multiple peices of equipment? I'm not looking for exact number but more general idea. Also I am looking to be fair to my customers and fair to myself.

I'll give you a situation:

Culvert replacement on a drive way, dry no water to deal with. Work needed because original headwall was not built properly causing culvert to start undermining. Job requires removal of old headwall on both ends. The "inlet" headwall is about 3 feet "outlet" headwall is about 6 feet. Equipment used: rental mini ex cat 302.5, my own 43hp 4wd tractor, loader and blade, my S1754 dump truck, my equipment trailer. I was on the job for about 10hrs all in one day. Had laborer help to build inlet head wall by hand with proper backbuild. Tractor was used approx. 2 hrs to get stone for building headwall, bringing in fresh material about 100 ft way. Mini ex was used 6 hrs digging out gravel and marteial, good material was put into dump truck other material was piled next to work are, used to help backfill, removing headwalls building new headwall outlet side (stacking large rocks), dump truck used for holding one load very full load of 5-6 yards of good gravel that got removed from diging out the culvert and to be used for fill on new culvert in addition to fresh material.

Usaully I get $65 per hour with the mini ex., $55 to $60 per hour for tractor work, non pto work, $55 per hour with my truck and/or trailer. Is it o.k. to this mentioned price "scale" or are there other ways?

Comments...Suggestions...

 

[DmansPadge]

I'm not in the business, but, I think I would want about $50-60/hr for my time/equipment. (Could be less due to that a lot of work was done with a rental unit) Plus the rental fee and the amount paid for the outside help. So maybe something like $550 for you, $200 for rental (He could have found somebody that already has all the needed equipment and didn't need to rent.... so I'll go with half price of the rental fee for the final bill), $100 for help... totaling $750? I'm just taking a stab at it.

 

[tlbuser]

I need a little help pricing out a job with multiple peices of equipment? I'm not looking for exact number but more general idea. Also I am looking to be fair to my customers and fair to myself.

I'll give you a situation:

Culvert replacement on a drive way, dry no water to deal with. Work needed because original headwall was not built properly causing culvert to start undermining. Job requires removal of old headwall on both ends. The "inlet" headwall is about 3 feet "outlet" headwall is about 6 feet. Equipment used: rental mini ex cat 302.5, my own 43hp 4wd tractor, loader and blade, my S1754 dump truck, my equipment trailer. I was on the job for about 10hrs all in one day. Had laborer help to build inlet head wall by hand with proper backbuild. Tractor was used approx. 2 hrs to get stone for building headwall, bringing in fresh material about 100 ft way. Mini ex was used 6 hrs digging out gravel and marteial, good material was put into dump truck other material was piled next to work are, used to help backfill, removing headwalls building new headwall outlet side (stacking large rocks), dump truck used for holding one load very full load of 5-6 yards of good gravel that got removed from diging out the culvert and to be used for fill on new culvert in addition to fresh material.

Usaully I get $65 per hour with the mini ex., $55 to $60 per hour for tractor work, non pto work, $55 per hour with my truck and/or trailer. Is it o.k. to this mentioned price "scale" or are there other ways?

Comments...Suggestions...

There's nothing wrong with pricing by the hour. Most residential customers prefer that method (need to stipulate half or whole hour increments though and equipment delivery / minimum hours). Separate charge for laborers time also. Your prices are not too far out from what we charge either.

But, I'm lost as to why you loaded the excess material into the truck rather than placing on the roadway (or nearby). From the way you've described it, not something I would be charging (truck time) a customer hourly for.

 

[Rowski]

But, I'm lost as to why you loaded the excess material into the truck rather than placing on the roadway (or nearby). From the way you've described it, not something I would be charging (truck time) a customer hourly for.

No other place to put the material and keep it with reach of excavator. Also I wanted that particular material kept "clean" for back fill around the culvert. This is the third try (not for me, my first) to keep this culvert from undermining the inlet headwall.

Thanks for everyones advice... I just wanted to make sure I was in the ball park on my pricing.

 

[plowking]

It depends what part of country you live in. I know the rates are higher where I live, then down on the Mass. N.H. border for septic systems, etc. The cost and distance to get good material is higher here. A pipe job of 25-40 feet would run you 1000-1500 dollars to replace . Schedule 40 pvc pipe runs 20.00-25.00 a length and that job wasn't as involved as what you did. Years ago I had a underdrain dug down my driveway to culvert. The contractor used an excavator, and I have rock and ledge. With materials the job ran me 3800.00. It was pipe and crushed stone drain. plowking