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John Deere 310 SE Project

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
Hey Fred, after Precious reached cruising speed, we made to the site in about 30 minutes. We hit it yesterday morning at about 6:45. Worked till about 5. I hate this DST time change thing.

We ended up with 4 loads of chert delivered late Thursday. First thing Friday I started building a road across the ditch swale with the chert. The land we're on is soooo soft. I underestimated how soft. It took a whole load of dirt just to have a stable enough road for me and a full bucket load to cross it. We just had the truck keep bringing loads. On about the 7th load the truck broke through the crust and got stuck. They had to call another operator to unload the truck with my backhoe. Guess they were afraid me and the dump truck driver would beat the truck to death if we tried it. Ha! It was funny, when they were talking to the guy coming, he kept asking if it was a wobble stick backhoe. Guess he was dreading it. But he stood Precious up as high as she'd go and she unloaded a lot of it. Then they strapped Precious' backhoe bucket to the front of the truck and she pulled him out. I didn't take any pictures, but I did take a picture of the stuck truck and my phone rebooted!! So I don't have any pictures of it. I'll take some pictures today of what it looks like. It was a war zone yesterday and just a mess. But we finally got it into shape. It looks decent. We spread 9 loads of fill and cut the new ditch.

About to head back over to spread a bit more dirt. Will probably have some top soil coming next week hopefully before the rain to finish this job up.

Yeah, he's gonna get a good deal on this total project and he knows it.
 

edgephoto

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2019
Messages
727
Location
Stafford, CT
Around here $100/hr is a good price. Usually they give you a ridiculous price for small one day jobs. It is near impossible to find someone to do a smaller job. Getting them to actually show up is the challenge. I have entertained the thought of specializing in these small jobs as a side hustle or a retirement business. I would need a truck and a trailer.
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
Around here $100/hr is a good price. Usually they give you a ridiculous price for small one day jobs. It is near impossible to find someone to do a smaller job. Getting them to actually show up is the challenge. I have entertained the thought of specializing in these small jobs as a side hustle or a retirement business. I would need a truck and a trailer.

Yeah, I don't know that I would advertise $100 an hour, but for this particular job I really didn't know if I wanted the job and so I priced it up there in case he said yes.

I've also thought about running a social media ad for small little couple hour jobs for $75/hour, digging stumps, burying livestock, small clearing. I'd be super picky about what I get and they'd have to be within driving distance for me. I'd be picky. Staying out of easements and like Fred mentioned not digging along where someones's water, gas or power line is located. I figure if I'd get three jobs a year, I need to start thinking about insurance. Not sure if I'm ready for that, but my brother have discussed this as a retirement gig. Pick and choose what we want to fool with. A small dump truck and trailer would be a nice addition to a backhoe.
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
We finished it up today without getting top soil. I ran over the bill with the customer first thing this morning to let him know where we were going to be at the end of today. He didn't want to get anymore top soil so we raked out as much as we could. It could've used a few loads. I was at 9 hours on the backhoe, including travel time. I also bid the big Kubota and the little Kubota at $60 and $40/hour. The invoice was around $3k, but half that was fill, hay and seed. He said it is what it is and he was going to go over to the corner of the house and throw up now. He was hoot. Would love to work for people like him.

My brother did take one picture Friday morning. I'll explain with some better before shots on what we're doing.

-7675001687937314784.jpg
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
So this house was moved here. The guy we're working for did not move this house here. The lady that did, put it here and put it somewhat sideways between my brother's fence and this ditch. That's a whole 'nother story I won'tget into. Anyway, this guy bought it and had to do something about this ditch and get it away from the front porch because you couldn't even hardly drive a lawn mower between the ditch and the porch of the house.

This picture was taken the day I surveyed it. Hurricane Zeta's memory was in the ditch the day we moved it. This was soft land and a load of chert in my front bucket was just about too much for even the ground beside the ditch. Somehow we made it through. I only have before and after shots.

IMG_20201017_160633273_HDR (1).jpg

We did what we could given the wet mucky conditions. But it turned out decent. The customer didn't want it any wider than the upstream nor any deeper, so what you see is what he wanted. It was carrying water all the way down. We spread 50 lbs of rye on it and used 9 bales of hay which also had plenty of seed in it.

IMG_20201107_140859285_HDR.jpg
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
Front view from the road.

IMG_20201017_160156458.jpg

He's got a lot more room beside the house now. We put as much top soil on it as we had, but it gonna have bare spots on the fill dirt, but he knows it.


IMG_20201107_151802899.jpg

I'm curious what you guys would charge for this and what equipment would you use?
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
Nice work!

I think if I was living in that house that ditch would become a french drain and my yard would be one parcel.

Thanks, yeah, that ditch kinda splits the parcel. He has a small bridge toward the back, but it's rotten. I think he's getting a quote on getting someone to build a new one. We had mentioned a big underground culvert, but I think that was out of the budget.
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
Ha! Its Saturday morning Boone, are you there yet are are you still driving the 7.5 miles there??!! $100 bucks an hour sounds good for you since guys around here charge $60-85. I thought about getting a little old mid 1980's C70 chevy and a trailer to do the same thing like you and earn a little cash on the side, but what scares me is the liability of digging into something that the owner of the property doesent know is there like gas lines, water lines, sewers etc. But if you work in a rural area only as opposed to the suburbia area you would be in much better shape. Good Luck show some pics of what you are doing. I just dug 220' of water line for the ship and going to do another 440' of electric line. Good luck!

The dump truck driver said their outfit is developing the roads in a new subdivision and the developer has already sold 32 houses. People are buying the lots from out of state, sight unseen. It's crazy.

How's the shop coming along? You'll be digging trenches in your sleep. Post up pictures when you do.
 

JL Sargent

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2018
Messages
842
Location
Alabama
I"m looking to paint the boom on mine. I remember you said that you used a small roller to paint. So I'm thinking it was a 2 or 3" long foam roller?
 

JL Sargent

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2018
Messages
842
Location
Alabama
Great. Thanks for that. So I'm guessing you sprayed a coat or two of primer first, and then rolled on the finish coat? The front of my boom has had most of the paint knocked off it and I'm hoping to wire brush the surface rust and maybe sand the light scratches out first. Then primer and paint similar to what you did. I appreciate your tips.
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
No primer. Just a good wash down and sanded some of the bad spots where paint was missing. I was just going for "looks good from the road".
 

JL Sargent

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 15, 2018
Messages
842
Location
Alabama
Well, it looks good and appears to be working good too. Nice job on the ditch moving project. The homeowner should be happy with the job you did.
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
It'll look great JL. Once you start on the boom you won't be able to stop. I'd recommend the JD construction yellow paint.

The 310 did great this weekend. I was proud of it. I had one loose adapter hose fitting on the boom start dripping oil while I was digging the new ditch. Kinda scared me. But was an easy quick fix.
 

Fred from MO

Well-Known Member
Joined
Oct 14, 2010
Messages
146
Location
MO
Occupation
Engineer
The dump truck driver said their outfit is developing the roads in a new subdivision and the developer has already sold 32 houses. People are buying the lots from out of state, sight unseen. It's crazy.

How's the shop coming along? You'll be digging trenches in your sleep. Post up pictures when you do.
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
I drove by the ditch job today. It was exactly 3 weeks ago. Mild weather and a bit of rain has made the rye really take off.

Happy Thanksgiving.

IMG_20201127_085948584.jpg

IMG_20201127_085941907_HDR.jpg
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
We picked up another job with the lady next door to the ditch job. She wanted a gravel pad behind her double-wide out the back door. The only backhoe work on this was removing the little stump pictured between the bucket and the steps.

IMG_20201107_150940068.jpg

We estimated a half tri-axle load of gravel. When he delivered it, it didn't look like enough, but it turned out about right.

image.jpg

We recommended some of those retaining wall blocks as a border around it to give it a cleaner look, but she mentioned she had some low profile block laying at the back of the property so we just used all she had. We laid down plastic underneath as a moisture and weed barrier.

IMG_20201114_103401769_HDR.jpg

IMG_20201114_103327954.jpg

Still not sure what to charge for stuff like this. We had $325 in gravel plus couple of hours. We charged her $575 and she gave us $675. Turtle soup tonight!
 
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edgephoto

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 13, 2019
Messages
727
Location
Stafford, CT
I would mark up material 50%. This gives you 33 1/3 gross profit on materials. I would charge $100/hr. So for that job, $487.50 in materials and $200 labor.
 

boone

Senior Member
Joined
Aug 25, 2009
Messages
1,047
Location
AL
I'm glad you brought up material markup. I was curious what others do. My brother and i debated about material markup. I had actually typed up an invoice on the ditch job with markup on dirt, hay, and seed. Not quite 50% but enough to cover the setup and handling of the material to make a little extra for time since we had time in procuring the materials. But my brother said if he were a customer he'd rather know exactly what the item cost and itemize out handling separate if not just include it in labor. He said when building his house the concrete guy charged a mint for his services and up charged on concrete too. He said he felt he got reemed twice. I don't know. I guess most people who are hiring out wouldn't know what materials cost. He said it wasn't wrong, he just would rather pay more for labor than for making someone think you're paying X amount when it was Y.
I definitely think there needs to be markup. Especially when using my equipment, fuel and wear and tear to go get materials plus my time.
 
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