How to bid tall shrubs- hedge trimming

[tk4454]

i have a property manager that wants a bid for trimming hedges arund the whole trailor park complex, its a senior citizen living area. I have no idea where to begin . I know there could be alot of money made. but they are extremely tall, like 15 feet or so, and a hundred or so yards of them. I know i will need to get an exact measurement but whats a roughball way to bid it? any help is apreciated thanks.

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

First off, what are you going to use to trim them and do you have that equipment?

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[tk4454]

I have a few hedge trimmers now, but figured id get a taller ladder and buy or rent more equipment if neccissary

[dougcaskey]

Get yourself a trimmer that has an extension pole on it to reach the higher shrubs, saves a lot of time without moving a ladder here and there...

[FaccLndscpng]

Forget the ladders, are the hedges along a road or driveway? In the past we would just stand in the back of a truck and use the long reach trimmers. And of course the small hand trimmers for the bottoms and lower sides. But ladders never worked for me theres alot of variables such as is the ground wet and are the ladders going to sink into the ground? And I was always worried that the guys would fall.

[tk4454]

thanks for the helpfull input so far. I'm sure i can land the job because i know the owner of the property, I just need to know what to charge roughly, and any tips on the proccess is apreciated, thanks again

[Steve]

What is your estimate on how long you think the job will take using the equipment you have. Don't forget to include the time it will take to cleanup and haul away or dump the clippings.

If you have no idea on how to estimate the time, find the total length of the shrubs.

Then on your property, reenact how you will trim those shrubs. Set up a ladder, climb it, pretend you are trimming it with your trimmer, get down from the ladder and do it again for a certain distance and then divide that into the total length you need to.

Performing the job with a ladder could take quite some time.

You might find it a lot easier to get a new trimmer.

[FaccLndscpng]

Not sure what to tell you to charge there are way too many variables for a job like this. If you're that close to the prop owner maybe have them get some estimates and see if you can beat them?

As for the hedge trimmers, you can also just buy an attachment head for your string trimmers. We use Redmax and have brought the LRTA heads before. I dont know how much of a difference there is on price vs the actual long reach hedge trimmers but I am pretty sure that the attachments that go on the string trimmers have more reach.

Also since its a string trimmer you will use it all season not just when you do hedges so you wont have equipment sitting around and gumming up.

Just something else to look into.

[Steve]

Keep us posted on what you decide to do or go with.