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Is any one else slow

BIGDAN315

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2008
Messages
229
Location
Newark, NY
Occupation
Self employed in the excavating buis and have been
Unuauslly slow for this time of year for me. Was just wondering if any one else is feeling it to...:beatsme What are you doing to fill in? I for one just halled a load of scrap metal in just cleaning up around the shop. $ 300 a ton for long steel. Helps off set the cost of feul any ways,,:Banghead
 

DPete

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2007
Messages
1,677
Location
Central Ca.
Slow here, I read in the California Builder Engineer flyer there are over 81,000 construction workers out of work here in Ca.
 

humboldt deere

Well-Known Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2008
Messages
223
Location
N.california
Occupation
general building and engineering contractor
Up here on the north coast Ca. there was absolutely no work last winter but all of a sudden I have enough work to last through till next year. Seams to be the story for everyone else around here to.
 

tonka

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
1,555
Location
Longview WA
Occupation
Equipment Operator
well I'm now in the garbage business because it never stops..... no down time, no slow season, it's all got to go somewhere....
 

smreed

Banned
Joined
Jun 5, 2008
Messages
16
Location
tacoma
We are both slow and busy
we are a manufacturer of attachments for mini excavators
this year has been slow for us in small sales but our large bucket orders for dealers is still steady. So while part of our business has slacked of another part has picked up some.
 

landrvrnut22

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 1, 2007
Messages
201
Location
Akron, Ohio, USA.
Occupation
Field Superintendent
I am swamped. I am running one job, which will finish in September. Another job to start in September. Also just started a fraternity house that will wrap up in October, with 6 more right behind it. We just started plans for a $100mill project, and even more projects on the drawing board. We are getting some of the best prices right now from all the subs, because everyone is hungry for work.
 

kamerad47

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 28, 2004
Messages
184
May be the better? is if your busy are get what you should be getting ? or less ? & are you getting paid? I know 4 guys that are busy BUT, there working for peanuts & other 2 that are waiting 4 months for $$$ One guy tells me owe $$ is better then no $$. I say owed $$ is no $$. I swear some guys are just brain dead!!!!
 

stumpjumper83

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 13, 2007
Messages
1,979
Location
Port Allegany, pa
Occupation
Movin dirt
I guess some companies are in debt up to their noses, and if they can work for peanuts to keep the bank from taking their digger back, that is what they do. Its a bad position to be in, but its better than loosing the means to do your business
 

eRay

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jul 5, 2008
Messages
63
Location
Southeast Tennessee
Some of it may have to do with not wanting to lose good operators. Sometimes when things get slow you can work at a loss to keep from losing a good operator you will need when things pick back up.
 

Dirtman2007

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 30, 2007
Messages
1,202
Location
Raleigh, North Carolina
Occupation
Heavy Equipment Operator
More work than we can do at the moment, just had to pull off one job so that we could go start and finish some that had been planned of a certain time. Phones still ringing...
 

CascadeScaper

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 27, 2005
Messages
1,162
Location
Lynnwood, WA
Occupation
2nd year Operating Engineer Apprentice
Slow season here, although I know other parts of the US are in worse shape than we are here in WA. I'm going on my 6th week of being out of apprenticeship initial training and still haven't been sent out to a job. Typically all 50 of us sit on the out of work list for a couple weeks following training the training on a typical work year. I'm hearing right now there's only about 10 out of 50 of us out working 5 full weeks later. Not a good year at all. Hearing this winter will pick up and next spring is going to explode here in WA, I hope it does the same across the rest of the country, we need to get out of this rut.
 

Dwan Hall

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 10, 2004
Messages
1,029
Location
Juneau, Alaska
Occupation
Self Employed
Business up 32% or should I say income up 32% so far this year from last. Every year has been a steady increase for the last 10 years. When things seem slow I just look for something else to do.
In the last 10 years I have been trying to ween myself from ditch work because I am getting to old to be down in the dirt. This year I have 1 utility (water, sewer, electricity, phone, cable) hookup job scheduled, the rest is above ground service related work.
 

stretch

Senior Member
Joined
Mar 24, 2008
Messages
784
Location
Southington, CT
Occupation
gopher
You guys sure sound lucky...home building is slow, slow, slow! There are only two builders in the town of Coventry, CT that are taking out building permits this month, and luckily we're one of them. At least we have the apartment business to fall back on.
 

EZ TRBO

Senior Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2007
Messages
862
Location
USA
Occupation
Aggregate Utility, Maintence Welder
I myself have been going non stop, between keeping things moving for the 3 quarry crews as well as helping last week with the sand dredge crew. I have a bunch of quarries to do some touch up work on and some driveways, etc. I think the redi-mix has been down a lil bit but the dump trucks are busy as well. I do know one thing, the midwest never sees the huge ups and downs as the coast. I do know however that if the farmers are down everyone is down cause they are the majority of our business in a rural setting.

Trbo
 

EqmtRunr

Active Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2008
Messages
26
Location
eastern, PA
Occupation
Paving crew
paving is slow this year. My longest week was 56hrs so far i was told in previous years they would work around 70hrs every week in the summer:eek: Theres even a rumor i heard about rationing paving oil to 50 tankers a week :eek::eek:thats split between 3 branches of the company our branch usually uses about 50 a week :eek::eek::eek:
 

tonka

Senior Member
Joined
Jan 14, 2008
Messages
1,555
Location
Longview WA
Occupation
Equipment Operator
Glad to hear you guys are busy, not glad for those of you who arn't.....
 
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