Spring cleanup estimate....need help !

[JLuck]

Hello All,
I am new to the Lawn Care business and have a question for you all and need your advice regarding an estimate for a crazy spring yard cleaning.

The yard is approximately 1/2 acre on a lake and is very hilly, as in the whole yard will need to be done without a mower. There is maybe a very, very small portion where you may get a mower but not worth the time. The yard has high weeds about 2 feet, with heavy leaves and many branches on the ground throughout....looks like a hurricane hit it to be honest. At this point the customer has only asked for the yard to be cleaned. I hope to sell him on regular maintenance care to keep the yard from getting like this again.

The customer lives out of town and this is a vacation lake home for his family. From what I have read the best way to approach this is to figure out what I need to make per hour and how many hours the job will take. As I mentioned I am new to this but I am sure if you saw it you would say wow, did a hurricane hit here? As well, being new I will only have the use of weed eaters, no DR Power brush mowers or anything like it yet. Also, with all of the debris in the yard, I will need to take it all to the landfill as there is only a small wooded area and it would just be piled high and noticeable.

I did another cleanup last week that was messy, but not this bad. I charged $130 for the cleanup, which took 2 of us 1 1/2 hours, but also got their lawn contract for the year as well as the job for pressure washing a large deck.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jim

[JP Landscaping]

Like you had said... the best way is to estimate the time it will take to do the job and charge your hourly rate. I charge $35 an hour if that helps.

[JLuck]

JP...thank you for your reply. I figured most seem to charge by the hourly rate they want, then calculate the hours the job will take. I just didn't know if some look at bumping that up some or not for more severe type jobs like this one. I guess it would even out in that your hours for a job like this would just simply be longer.

Any others wish to comment on what you do?

Jim

[NewLeafca]

JP...thank you for your reply. I figured most seem to charge by the hourly rate they want, then calculate the hours the job will take. I just didn't know if some look at bumping that up some or not for more severe type jobs like this one. I guess it would even out in that your hours for a job like this would just simply be longer.

Any others wish to comment on what you do?

Jim

I would not bump it up just don't short change yourself on the hours. I would also charge some type of a disposal fee as you are going to have to pay one when you get to the landfill.

[mburse1977]

You can learn form my mistakes if it helps. Something i thought would take 6 hours took 15 so be very careful when guessing on how long it will take and go way higher than you think you can always give them a credit if it dose not take that long but you can never add too what you said that easy.

[Steve]

It seems if you can come up with a hourly range as far as how long the job will take, you would probably do alright if you doubled that!

You may not think so at the moment, but after you do the job, come back here and tell us how long it actually took you and what you learned from it all.