Just wondering how many cranes are in your fleet??
Hank- right now there's a 15 ton galion- fa150, a 23 ton mack with a national boom truck mounted- 1295. 25 ton tms 250 grove, 35 ton tms 300 grove, 40 ton grove-rt740, P&H 70 ton -t650, and a 100 ton liebherr- LTM1080-1. Which is really one or two too many, but the work always varies. Lately its been all bigger stuff, in a month the bigger crane stuff may be dried up, and we may just be running around in the boom truck and 25 ton setting trusses. Who knows.
Likely the P&H 70 ton is going to be looking for a new home. I can probably swing the new 100 ton without selling it, but it would make the new 100 ton a lot cheaper if I did sell it. If I can keep the 70 ton busy enough to justify keeping it, it can stay, we'll see how it goes. The other rigs I think will kind of stay. The last few weeks I've had cranes scattered all over working where its not raining, and just running around in pickups to where we can work, and then the extra numbers of cranes is kind of nice. If we get rained out we can just leave them set, and get a different rig to go somewhere else with.
I'm really on the verge - actually past the verge- of needing another operator again. We've been getting it all done with the employees I have right now, but the right guy I would probably hire if he came through the door, I just don't know that I can keep him busy all the time. I hate to hire a good guy away from a job where he's secure, and then in six months have to tell him "sorry, the work kind of dried up for a while, I can't use you".