Cutting brush

[turfmaster]

I am bidding property maintenance for an upscale subdivison. There are approx. 8 acres of outlots and walking trails that need to be cut once a year in addition to the regular mowing/maintenance of 6 acres. What is the best equipment for field / brush cutting and how fast can you cut? I have heard of brush hogs but have no experience with them. The fields look to be about 2 ft tall. Thanks

[picframer]

Lawn care business tips

We use two things: Alders grow like nuts here so anything say 3/4" to 4" gets cut with a brush saw, depening on how bad it is I can do an acre in about two hours, I use the John Deere, It it's just grass, raspberry bushes etc we use an attachment on the tractor called a Flail mower attachment (will do an acre in about 30 min) or Sickle Bar Mower, we use the Sickle bar a lot to clean ditches for municipal contracts, really good coin doing this, we average 10 miles a day per unit.

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Andy
Halifax, Nova Scotia

It will depend a lot on what you are cutting. If it is mostly weeds and light brush, a tractor and brush hog would work just fine. Unless you can or want to purchase a used tractor and a brush hog, there is another cheaper option. That is the trail mower type of mower.

I have a Swisher, but I am not very impressed with their quality, especially for extensive mowing. Kunz Engineering have several machines I am really impressed with from the research I have done on them. The day may come where I retail these myself. Check them out. The down side to these is that you have to use an ATV or a mower/tractor to pull them. If you are going to use a tractor that has a PTO attachment, it would be more cost effective to just buy a brush hog.

Good luck,
Eli

[turfmaster]

Thanks for the reply guys. I already have the John deere tractor.
I think my best option is to purchase a pull behind flail mower or brush cutter.
The fields are primarily over grown grass and weeds.

[picframer]

Originally Posted by turfmaster

Thanks for the reply guys. I already have the John deere tractor.
I think my best option is to purchase a pull behind flail mower or brush cutter.
The fields are primarily over grown grass and weeds.

Then the Flail will make very light and quick work of it.

[Steve]

How long are you thinking this job will take?

I'd love to see a screen cap overhead image to get a better visual of what you are going to be working on.

Keep us posted on how all this goes!

[turfmaster]

Originally Posted by Steve

How long are you thinking this job will take?

I'd love to see a screen cap overhead image to get a better visual of what you are going to be working on.

Keep us posted on how all this goes!

Not quite sure yet as to how long it will take (field cutting).
I do have an inside track on this job though.
The company that did it this season was contracted for $14,000.
Knowing that helps my bidding on this job. I know I can beat that price because of my low overhead. I'll try to get a google earth shot of the subdivision for you guys.

[Steve]

Oh I'd love to see it. How long is the cutting season in your area? When things slow down in the winter would you have to do any other services for this contract?

[turfmaster]

Originally Posted by Steve

Oh I'd love to see it. How long is the cutting season in your area? When things slow down in the winter would you have to do any other services for this contract?

The contract will be for 24 weeks of mowing: Duration from April 15 thru Nov.30th

There is no winter work involved.

I think this could be huge for my business if we get this account. There are 99 homes ranging from 1.5 acres to 7 acre lots. I would say the homes range from $500,000 to $1,000,000 in value.

[Steve]

I think this could be huge for my business if we get this account. There are 99 homes ranging from 1.5 acres to 7 acre lots. I would say the homes range from $500,000 to $1,000,000 in value.

So potentially you could get this job and service all these walking areas and then use that as a platform to market to all the home owners in the area?

What about offering dog clean up stations along the walking path where you could install those device that hold the dog doo bags. Then they could be restocked and you could have your ad on the stations to further promote your business.

Maybe you could also empty the trash bin for an additional fee.

This is also a service one could potentially do for free to promote their business in a newer area.