planetshapers
Well-Known Member
i was wondering how most of you small contractors analyze a small site and get an estimate. a site with no enginered plan. a site that you will need to determine whether the exisiting dirt will balance...need fill...or need to be hauled off. and how much remaining area that will be useful after the work minus the cut slope and the fill slope.
for example...if you live in a mountainous region....and you see a 2 acre site with trees. relatively steep ground. basically and area you can cut the upper site leaving a steep slope and fill in the lower region. visualize a site with a 4 to 1 slope as a way to explain how steep the slope is. well...its doesnt matter cause it cant be explained. but anyways....do you get out your tape measure? or do you also get out your laser level and get a reading of how high one side is versus the other...and come up with a calculation? or pull strings from one side to the other start taking square measurements back and forth to come up with a length x width x height .......?
and...how do most of you calculate into it the summit and depression? you know..the curvature of the exisiting site? for example...a round hill?
sometimes when i look at a site..i visualize the size of a dump truck bed...and make little blocks all over the cut to get an idea and then i multiply that by 2 or more or less considering that cut' dirt is uncompacted and loamy. and of course i take into consideration how many yards that dump truck bed holds......
but the problem is also that if it has trees on it...i cant see the ground and its hard to measure! and it is so hard to tell a customer that i wont know until he spends money getting the property cleared or logged. this is especially a bigger problem if the customer needs to know an estimate befire he buys the land...or he needs to know if he can even borrow that much money from the bank to start with. on and on..... other problems arise when you cant give a price....and another guy can. or....the logger or tree guy he hires reccomends his own "buddy" to do the grading after he is done.
usually...i wanna tell the customer that ill do it by the hour. but...nowdays..no one will go for that.
i have my own ways of doing this......but i wanna learn a better way. a faster way. a more accurate way! so if we all explain techniques on this thread....it can be usefull for all of us.
thanks!
for example...if you live in a mountainous region....and you see a 2 acre site with trees. relatively steep ground. basically and area you can cut the upper site leaving a steep slope and fill in the lower region. visualize a site with a 4 to 1 slope as a way to explain how steep the slope is. well...its doesnt matter cause it cant be explained. but anyways....do you get out your tape measure? or do you also get out your laser level and get a reading of how high one side is versus the other...and come up with a calculation? or pull strings from one side to the other start taking square measurements back and forth to come up with a length x width x height .......?
and...how do most of you calculate into it the summit and depression? you know..the curvature of the exisiting site? for example...a round hill?
sometimes when i look at a site..i visualize the size of a dump truck bed...and make little blocks all over the cut to get an idea and then i multiply that by 2 or more or less considering that cut' dirt is uncompacted and loamy. and of course i take into consideration how many yards that dump truck bed holds......
but the problem is also that if it has trees on it...i cant see the ground and its hard to measure! and it is so hard to tell a customer that i wont know until he spends money getting the property cleared or logged. this is especially a bigger problem if the customer needs to know an estimate befire he buys the land...or he needs to know if he can even borrow that much money from the bank to start with. on and on..... other problems arise when you cant give a price....and another guy can. or....the logger or tree guy he hires reccomends his own "buddy" to do the grading after he is done.
usually...i wanna tell the customer that ill do it by the hour. but...nowdays..no one will go for that.
i have my own ways of doing this......but i wanna learn a better way. a faster way. a more accurate way! so if we all explain techniques on this thread....it can be usefull for all of us.
thanks!