You almost have to have an attorney read your insurance policy these days to REALLY know what it covers. Some policies will cover your personal tractor used for PERSONAL use on your other property with an additional rider to your policy. This would be if it falls off the trailer or is stolen. If you are being paid 10 cents for something and they can prove it, everything is different. A lot of guys kind of piddle around with little jobs and hope or don't know the roof can fall on them. Liability on the job is a completely different ball game. I'm constantly amazed at how many times the free utility locate services are not used. You dig up power lines, water lines etc and you're in the hole for a long time. You crush the miss's prize lawn with your ag tires (that the husband said "no problem" to doing) and you can plan on $$$. One of the county guys said the county had a person's permission to dump dirt and found in court that a husband's permission is not necessarily a wife's permission or some such, now they won't give dirt to anyone, they haul it 20 miles to a pit.
If the customer bangs his knee on your tractor or worse, if you leak oil on his property it can be a nightmare. It just isn't worth it unless you have NOTHING to loose. If you rent your place, have no possessions, your tractor's worth about $300, and you have no plans on earning any future wages that could be garnished I'd go ahead and skip the liability insurance. Otherwise belly on up to the insurance bar fellas.
Many states are requireing any work done that you are paid for to be done AS a contractor, with insurance, surety bond, the works. Those guys that charge $60+ an hour for work are a long shot from keeping much of that $60 for themselves.
IMHO, your prices should be such that you could afford to rent a tractor on a weekly basis, and still make wages, if you aren't you're just giving your tractor away. It's like saying it only costs $1.75 a gallon for gas for your new truck. I suppose on a day to day basis it does, but who's going to pony up with the 30K when it needs to be replaced? Tractors that are built these days seem to be very reliable, but go price a few parts with your dealer, you'llthink twice about letting them wear out for nothing.
There's not much "aftermarket" in tractor parts, each model is just to rare to justify tooling up. The guys I've talked to that have anything happen to their machines are lucky if the GROSS receipts for the day or two cover the repair.
I guess I'd say I agree with both fellows. It's nice to be the nice guy and not charge delivery, or have a minimum. If you don't mind working for next to nothing. I've done that for friends and neighbors and don't regret it with the small jobs. Part of life. But the general public? The general public can be a fickle cost conscious bunch. We all have to figure what's gouging and what's giving away the store, somewhere in between is where I'd like to be be.
And learning on the job, I've done it, but only on jobs where by my ignorance I'm not causing a bigger problem that someone else has to clean up. If I run long I would charge what I knew I could do the job for next time.
Some people are so happy it makes up for everything. I saw this guy I don't even know about a 1 1/2 miles away, they had put in a house, the contractor had left a bunch of stumps piled up with dirt around it and burned what they could leaving a big mess. I drove by and saw the guy swinging a pick trying to loosen these stumps out of the ground that were half submerged. I jumped on the tractor, (trusty Ford NH), went down, easily pushed them all out of the ground into a couple of piles, in a couple of passes cleared bare ground around them, probably was there 45 minutes. He was so shocked. His wife said they were just barely getting into the house as it was, and I replied I wasn't invited here I was just there to get some exercise and if she wanted to say thanks she could may cook something or take some food to the senior center rummage sale. I'm pretty sure they did, the guy always waves to me and smiles. I smile back and it was an hour I feel paid off.
He has told people about my visit and I have had to turn down a few jobs that were too big or complicated for me, but I've been able to "pass them up the food chain" to a couple of contractors that I have used that are nice guys and will treat them right.
It all comes out in the wash.
Or so we hope!
Dig on
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