Tree Service

[picframer]

Originally Posted by Steve What is your view on this pay structure? Is it worthwhile to offer services this way when you have to pay for things like insurance and other expenses? How about using a bucket, would that make the process easier and safer? My view on the pay structure is pretty simple, I have no cost other than the initial quote and the company makes 50%, almost always more as I would have staff on site to chip the wood. Looked into a bucket, roof mount on a van, truck mount, kitty crane and rentals, not worth the time or effort. In my case a kitty bucket crane could have been used by the pressure washing crews, law here is we can not use a ladder over 10 feet, rental of a bucket is $250 a day plus $125 delivery and pick up, in 30 months we only rented one twice so it wasn't worth the expense, the one(s) I was looking at were $35,000

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Andy
Halifax, Nova Scotia

[Yard Elements]

Lawn care business tips

If you are good you don't really need a bucket, plus a lot of places you can't get a bucket in. As far as it being dangerous so is driving a truck and trailer or running a shop saw. I don't plan on just climbing way up my first shot. i am going to take a few seminars and practice. I think it will be fun. I am sure I will need to add to my insurance and I am sure it will be costly, it is obviously worth it. Take a look a most of the top 100 as far as profit on lawn and landscape, they almost all offer tree service as well. I find it to be part of landscape maintenance. I figure a good truck to chip into and a chipper can be used for more than just "tree service" on clean ups it will save tons of time. We won't have two or three trips to the dump unloading by hand it would be one trip with a quick dump. Yes I know it is $20,000 or more investment. I don't plan on doing it right away. It is part of the company plan. i was soliciting advice from forum members like well. Andy.

[picframer]

Originally Posted by Yard Elements

If you are good you don't really need a bucket, plus a lot of places you can't get a bucket in. As far as it being dangerous so is driving a truck and trailer or running a shop saw. I don't plan on just climbing way up my first shot. i am going to take a few seminars and practice. I think it will be fun.

Although I sold the lawn care and landscaping, I kept pressure washing, one chipper and several chainsaws. I work full time running a large market however I still have time for quotes in the evenings and staff that look after the jobs, so far it works with no issues. For the tree climbing I sub out the climbing and send staff for the chipping/cutting the trunk and large limbs up.

As far as profit margin vs return on investment, pressure washing in my case was and is #1, followed by tree work. I live in a region where there is not a deep soil system due to granite and bedrock, storms here have become more intense in the past 10 years which results in a lot of tree work.

There isn't a lot of competition for what we do on the tree side so it works well, with pressure washing it's repeat customers and word of mouth.

When you get ready to buy a chipper make sure you post, I can tell you based on an expensive experience what not to buy, I finally have equipment that chips well however this is my 5th setup in 3 years, it's been a costly experience.