Hourly rate for larger dozers

[Pete1468]

I'm curious what others are charging for an hourly rate for larger dozers. I was at $160 with my old d7e. I was going to charge more for my d7r as the work difference and fuel difference is considerably different. Just wanting to make sure I'm not wat out of line at $200 an hour. I did hear someone near me was getting $220 for a 40,000 lbs machine with laser, whether he uses the laser or not.

 

[DMiller]

Mid MO they have been over $200/hr for awhile for larger machines. Especially if have to transport any distance due to permits, escorts. Time on job day one starts as machine leaves yard; end day stops as machine returns onto the yard

 

[CM1995]

Hourly pricing is regional, what someone gets on the east coast compared to the west coast or Kansas all has to do with local conditions, competition and work load.

The short answer is charge as much as your local market is wiling to pay. You'll find out the rate pretty quick, if you are getting more work than you can handle then you're too cheap and need to raise your prices. If you aren't getting much work you're too high.

I do very, very little hourly work. The majority of our revenue comes from contract priced projects. I've found I can make more giving a hard price and most customers want a definite number on how much the job will cost. It's just risk vs reward and which party is willing to accept more of the risk. There is money to be made in spread and knowing what it will take to get the job done.

 

[cuttin edge]

Government rate around here goes by horse power.

 

[Shimmy1]

Like CM said, what your customers are willing to pay is a big factor in hourly rate. Another is competition. If you have guys running around doing acceptable (I use the term loosely) work at below market value, you are going to have trouble getting what you need at first. In contrast, if you have some guys charging more than what would be considered fair, you might have a good opportunity. As for your question, a 7R would fetch around $200/hr here, depending on workload.

 

[td25c]

$200.00 an hour for the D7R sounds more than fair to me .

I have a crazy random thought question for anyone & everyone .

If Pete1468 gets $160 hour for the old D7E now .

Going to charge $200 hour for the D7R .

After all the input costs which machine is earning more profit ?

 

[Shimmy1]

I would guess them to be similar. The 7R is going to do most things in an hour when it is going to take the E two. The 7R has a 70 hp and 20K pound advantage.

 

[Pete1468]

The old d7 was a very good return on money, but I got this R bought very right money wise and now I'm sitting in a cab not eating dust for just a little over double what I sold my old 7e for.

According to the owners manual and weighing the old one the new one is only 2,000 lbs heavier. The old one had a winch and rops.
I liked the old machine but the straw that broke the camel's back was the day it was 100 degrees with a 10 mph breeze. I was in a cattle yard pushing into the breeze with 4 inches of fine powder on top of mud. I was covered in sticky dust that turned to mud on me.

 

[Shimmy1]

I found this on the ACMOC site. Just realized that this is bare tractor weight. I do know that a bareback 7H with a canopy and straight blade weighs around 56k.

 

[Queenslander]

You blokes must be rolling in money...lol.
Those tractors would earn much the same rate here, but..we pay more to to purchase the machine, more for fuel, more for labour plus our dollar is only worth %75 of yours.
And they call Australia the lucky country.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .
You beat me to it Queenslander, I was going to say much the same in slightly different words. (grins)

Cheers.

 

[td25c]

You blokes must be rolling in money...lol.

We are . I don't settle for anything than the best Mate . Even have two blades for it .
http://www.heavytruckforums.com/showthread.php?263-Some-Holmes-750-action&p=2647&viewfull=1#post2647

Years ago we charged $ 150 hour for the 16 . I finally figured out it was worth more & quit the per hour dozer game .
Still have a new customer ask what I charge an hour for it and I reply ," let's take a good look at your job and I'll give figure on the whole task " .

 

[wrwtexan]

td25c; please take this as just a question from someone who is just getting into the business by accident. Pardon my detail. I had purchased the D6C which is my avatar pic for personal work and a tractor repair customer with over 2200 acres asked about me doing some dam repair work as I had offhandedly mentioned having some equipment. After he was happy with that job, he asked if I could take on cleaning up a huge tree clearing mess left by a local operator as he had pushed more dirt in the piles than trees. He was impressed with my cleanup and has given me over a hundred acres of standing timber to clear and another spillway to repair. To do the best job I can for him and not leave a mess as the previous op had, I've purchased a 55K hoe with thumb for the big stuff and an older Kershaw/Fecon grinder for the small. The woods to be cleared are uniform in growth. I have good work prospects after this job is over, which for all I know if he's pleased, he may add more.
My questions are myriad regarding bidding. Even with years of experience, how do you keep from getting bit in the a$$ by something unforseen without bidding high? My thought has been charging by the hour (stopwatch in all machines, only running when producing) , the op is paid for his time spent and the customer only pays for work performed. How do you bid a job large job and both sides have faith that they are getting a good deal? I had done skid steer shear clearing and every job was different when I got into the bush (thick/thin/small/large growth). Even with shifting dirt which is measurable (yardage), how do you deal with finding a spring or rock layer? Wouldn't that get into change orders? I've had people ask what I'd do a job for and I tell them it's hourly or I don't run as a hard bid is too much of a risk for me as I will short myself on the estimate. What about working hourly doesn't pencil out? Honest questions all as I am excited about maybe branching out from straight repair wrenching which is getting very frustrating (very good money but stressful trying to keep everyone happy) to getting some seat time.
Pete; I hope I haven't hijacked your thread but maybe added to it.

 

[Pete1468]

I don't feel like you hijacked it at all. I'm small potatoes myself as I work a full-time job and do dirt work in evenings and weekends. I myself have problems with bidding a job, everything I do is odds and ends work that larger guys don't want to mess with and then I get the repeat customers. On large jobs for me I give an estimate that's on the high side and tell them I'll keep track of hours and they pay the least amount not over my estimate. So far I've never had anyone complain about a bill to high. I did loose a job to someone else on hourly rates, the first one in 8 years and it bothered me at first until I saw how they left the job. I don't advertise a happy customer and word of mouth is the best advertising you can get.

 

[td25c]

td25c; please take this as just a question from someone who is just getting into the business by accident.

My questions are myriad regarding bidding. Even with years of experience, how do you keep from getting bit in the a$$ by something unforseen without bidding high?

How do you bid a job large job and both sides have faith that they are getting a good deal?

What about working hourly doesn't pencil out?

Yeah wrwtexan , sounds like you are getting a good customer base & relationship already . That's very important , take care of them and they will take care of you .

I'm not talking about actually " bidding " . That's pretty much like a reverse auction where 6 or 8 contractors are at the table waiting to see who will do the job for the least cost . I quit doing that BS as well .

What I do is go scope out a job after customer calls and give them an estimate of what I think the whole task will cost in the end .
If unsure of unseen " pitfalls " on the project give the customer a best & worst case scenario costs .
Keep customer informed , if you get in to more than expected let them make the decision to proceed .

Working on the hour pencils out fine . Nothing wrong with that , we measure everything else with time .
Only problem with it is most people want to know what something is going to cost before they buy it .

 

[stars&bars44]

We had a D7F no ripper or winch, I want to say it weighed about 44k? Can't remember. Anyway 10yrs ago in NC we were getting 85$hr for it and a D8H w ripper I was charging 125$ hr. Those tractors are gone and I have a D6D now, not sure of an hourly rate. I would say 140$ for it? Talked to a guy yesterday and a cat 320b trackhoe he was running for 130$ hr. Don't do much hourly work anymore. But it's nice to know what to base things on.

 

[stars&bars44]

WRWtexan: I always always always use a paper contract and estimate. And every estimate has a place for exclusions. I always exclude and surveying,engineering,locating, landscaping and the usual stuff. I have a rock exclusion and unsuitable soil exclusion. If I look at a job and think it's gonna be rocky, i know different engineers classify rocks differently. Some say unrippable with a d8 ripper is rock and can be blasted. If state in your contract if it can't be moved with your biggest tractor or backhoe you kinda cover yourself. Estimating this kind of work is tough. So many pitfalls you can get into. I've been lucky and only been swindled a few times by pros who got everybody around. Do your homework before estimating. I've done the stopwatch thing and it works. Around here we just lump land clearing and charge by the acre. Price will depend on timber standing, or mess left by tree cutters. Burn or bury. Distance pushing stumps and laps. By a drone and fly it and study pics of big tracts. I did and it's saved me a few times. It's a learning process, I've been doing this 21 yrs and I'm still learning.

 

[wrwtexan]

Excellent responses! What I read is give a soft estimate from years of experience with constant updates to the customer. I do very similar in my repair business in how much say will an engine overhaul cost. I give them low and high labor and likely parts needed gleaned from past work but no hard estimate as I never know what might be wrong or what someone had done in a previous repair that needs correcting.
I have been told by others I should use a signed work contract but have been afraid of its effects on my old line customers but I definitely see a need for it. Thankfully this clearing job customer hasn't asked yet what it will cost, just get it done. I've written some big to me bills so far without so much as a twitch from him so I have confidence in him but later customers will likely be different.
One benefit I see to working hourly is if things go sideways, I can probably walk away with at least my time spent without having met a contract requirement. I understand that for some customers though, a good estimate or bid is necessary to plan out a larger project and its costs.

 

[stars&bars44]

You're on the right track. Simalar to repair estimates keep them informed. Problem with this work I tell many people, me, you, or that 150,000$ engineer don't know what's under our feet, only the good Lord knows. Makes it tough to guess in what you will find, and harder to price for someone. I agree with you that some may take offense to the signed contract. It's boils down to how much you can stand if you hand them a bill and they light a cigar with it and walk away. My grandfather never had contracts, he belived a handshake and a mans word. He was very successful but he's owed hundreds of thousands of dollars doing business that way. If a man doesn't pay you, generally he never intended to. We (he) did a lot of hourly work and it worked well for him. I try to stay more on the commercial side now dealing with general contractors and the headaches that come with the bigger money. But I sure miss those days workin by the hour for farmers and small developers clearing land, building roads and lakes.

 

[CM1995]

WR use the same approach to your repair customers for your dozer customers, after all business is business when all boils down, doesn't matter what the business is.

Stars&bars sounds like he grew up like I did. My father did land and lot deals with a shake of the hand and a deposit check, he was a homebuilder. However those days are gone from my experiences.

With that being said I do have one commercial customer that I've done the site work for 3 of their restaurants without a contract - only a non-signed proposal, we're about to do the 4th. Our relationship spans back 25 years when I was just a green horn in the construction business. That is the only person I would do a $75-150K job without a contract.

If a man doesn't pay you, generally he never intended to.

Stars&bars there is a lot of wisdom in that statement. Talking to the super on our current project today who owned a masonry company prior to the 2008 crash. We were shooting the bull and telling war stories about not getting paid or being jerked around on retention on commercial jobs. He had a large apartment complex where he did all the masonry work. Project was completed and they owed him $14K in retainage. The owner and the GC called each trade individually into the office. The owner and GC told him he could take the check they had for $7500 or file a lien for the entire amount and maybe get paid in a year. He called them every low down dirty name in the book and took the $7500.

It easy to say one would fight it in that situation but cash flow is cash flow and everyone's situation is different. Who knows how much money the owner pocketed from that dirty trick.

Moral of the story is a contract is only worth the paper it's written on when you're dealing with a professional lowlife that knows the legal system and has no character.

Now a funny one. Last year we did a steakhouse which I had a difficult time getting the retention on. They were open for business for 3 months before I got paid - that chaps my ass like nothing else. The super and I became friends on the job and still talk today. I was getting no where with the GC so I called the super and he gave me the owner's email along with several others in the office. Sent that "the next correspondence will be from my attorney, CC'd to the owner" email and my phone rang saying they were overnighting a check.

Last week the super called me to say the PM on that job got fired for not processing pay apps. Now the funny part, the recently jobless PM told the paver that he wasn't going to pay him his last $8K - the paver told him he would drive to Atlanta and whoop his ass for $8K... Now the paver was a big ol' boy I wouldn't want to tangle with - he got his check overnighted the next day.