Making it so the water can run

[Shimmy1]

Hey guys. Neily, get ready to have your mind blown. Average cost per acre to tile is around $700, more if you need to put in a lift station to get the water to the surface. I do a lot of drain cleaning with a scraper, too. Moisture and shape determine the method used. If there is water, the scraper doesn't work so well. Or, if it has too steep of sides where I can't crawl in and out with the tractor, those get the excavator too. Here are a couple pics of what I was working yesterday.

 

[Delmer]

"HASSELS"??? How's your cranberry crop doing down there Scrub? What, no cranberries? how bout your rice crop? Corn/maize?

I will admit the sheep industry over here (whole of the North American continent) has been on the downswing for a full century I'd guess. That has more to do with mountainous ranges than dryland ranges, also wild guesses.

I wouldn't have much idea what drainage costs. None to speak of within a hundred miles of me due to topography, about 400' drop within a mile of me so not much call for it. Many of the flat ag areas are sand so they either don't need drainage, or they don't need tiling, only ditches at the section lines. So there's not the custom tiling industry that there is in Iowa, Illinois, Ohio.

 

[Shimmy1]

I have a question for some of you smaller operators. The pictures above are from a project I just finished, it was a bid job for the city. It definitely would have been more productive with a couple of tandems hauling spoil, but I only have the sidedump. On a project like that, where the hoe is loading a truck, and sitting while it goes to dump, how would you charge? Full time while machines are on job, truck full time and hoe time spent loading, or excavator gets billed while working and truck so much per load? Cheapest way would have been working alone and running truck myself, but there was a lot of truck moving so I had a driver in the truck. I ended up with a few less actual hoe hours, but several more loads than I estimated. I'll wait to share how I bid it until some of you guys weigh in.

 

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . .

Delmer My bad, the word is "hassles".

Not into cropping these days but there is a big wheat crop out there if they can eventually get it in the bin . . . unseasonable wet weather is causing concern and hassles and prices aren't that flash.

Cheers.

 

[movindirt]

I've always heard it called "field tile" here Same thing. It gets done in a lot of areas around me that are just flat, or don't have the room to cut a ditch.

 

[Neily]

Shimmy1. Yeah rito $700 is getting up there, country around my area isn't worth much more than that lol. Some nice work being done there.

 

[DoyleX]

I have a question for some of you smaller operators. The pictures above are from a project I just finished, it was a bid job for the city. It definitely would have been more productive with a couple of tandems hauling spoil, but I only have the sidedump. On a project like that, where the hoe is loading a truck, and sitting while it goes to dump, how would you charge? Full time while machines are on job, truck full time and hoe time spent loading, or excavator gets billed while working and truck so much per load? Cheapest way would have been working alone and running truck myself, but there was a lot of truck moving so I had a driver in the truck. I ended up with a few less actual hoe hours, but several more loads than I estimated. I'll wait to share how I bid it until some of you guys weigh in.

Depends on a few very important variables. The biggest is the relationship with the customer.

You have to make X amount per day, per machine on the job. Depending on how much you like to work for free after paying your equipment.

Personally I like to do it all and keep it all. Unless its hourly then sign em all up!

 

[bam1968]

I have a question for some of you smaller operators. The pictures above are from a project I just finished, it was a bid job for the city. It definitely would have been more productive with a couple of tandems hauling spoil, but I only have the sidedump. On a project like that, where the hoe is loading a truck, and sitting while it goes to dump, how would you charge? Full time while machines are on job, truck full time and hoe time spent loading, or excavator gets billed while working and truck so much per load? Cheapest way would have been working alone and running truck myself, but there was a lot of truck moving so I had a driver in the truck. I ended up with a few less actual hoe hours, but several more loads than I estimated. I'll wait to share how I bid it until some of you guys weigh in.

Shimmy, I have been dealing with this issue a fair amount lately. Using an 8 hour day as an example and lets say you racked up 3 hours of actual time on your excavator. I would probably charge your excavator out at @ 5 hours and 8 hours on your truck. Like DoyleX said.... a lot has to do with your relationship with the customer. I wouldn't feel comfortable charging 8 hours for each piece of equipment and you probably can't afford to just charge 3 hours for your excavator. I usually just try to find a happy medium. I personally do most of my work by the hour and most of the time the customers don't even ask for an estimate. I had a call today from one of my best customers who I have a very good working relationship with that wanted me to tear out some concrete and use his dump truck to haul it away. I'm sure that will be a job where I take it in the shorts a little bit. Just my $.02

 

[Shimmy1]

Thanks for the replies guys. Like I said, this was a bid job. I do not care for bid jobs, but it was for the city that I live in, and I'm a city alderman. I prefer hourly work, and pretty much everyone knows I don't mess around and my hourly work is as fair as I feel it can be. I'm generally very close with my estimates, most times I come in under. Estimates are a funny thing, though. Everybody is happier than hell to pay less than what was quoted, but nobody ever wants to pay more. These cleanouts are very difficult to guess. Sure you can take grade readings every 10' to get a good idea at what has to come out of the bottom, but the slopes are a wild card. This particular job I figured 10 loads of spoil, I hauled out 15. I figured 16 hours with the hoe, total time spent on job was 15 hours with about 10 hours actual excavator time.

 

[JBGASH]

I have a question for some of you smaller operators. The pictures above are from a project I just finished, it was a bid job for the city. It definitely would have been more productive with a couple of tandems hauling spoil, but I only have the sidedump. On a project like that, where the hoe is loading a truck, and sitting while it goes to dump, how would you charge? Full time while machines are on job, truck full time and hoe time spent loading, or excavator gets billed while working and truck so much per load? Cheapest way would have been working alone and running truck myself, but there was a lot of truck moving so I had a driver in the truck. I ended up with a few less actual hoe hours, but several more loads than I estimated. I'll wait to share how I bid it until some of you guys weigh in.

I personally would charge full time with all equipment on the job, even then it would not be a get rich thing. If my company was doing similar repetitive work like that, I would have it bid per load hauled or by the cubic yard of dirt moved or something of the like, simply because one would get better and faster the more of it you did, thus taking less time to generate revenue.

 

[Shimmy1]

even then it would not be a get rich thing.

Nothing ever seems to be a "get rich thing", but as Iong as you're busy, and the bills are paid, I guess that's about the best you can do right now.

 

[Shimmy1]

Haven't posted in a while. This one has been an adventure. Never have had to wear the seatbelt to keep my a$$ in the seat before.

 

[Shimmy1]

Had nice drop to work with. These 2.5 miles were a 0.045% slope.

 

[DoyleX]

Your gettin pretty good at that.

 

[Shimmy1]

Your gettin pretty good at that.

Thanks, DoyleX. It's been a crazy year, first you're wondering if you're going to have enough to do, then the floodgates open and you could keep three excavators busy. Feast or famine, man. I guess that's the name of the game in construction.

 

[Twisted]

Thanks, DoyleX. It's been a crazy year, first you're wondering if you're going to have enough to do, then the floodgates open and you could keep three excavators busy. Feast or famine, man. I guess that's the name of the game in construction.

I hear ya. If I could find a young guy that was good at excavating, dozing, surveying, mechanicing, plumbing, wiring, showing up on time and wanted to work some crazy hours for 5 months a year but nothing for 7, I'd hire him.

I actually stumbled onto one of those recently. A little rough now at 19 but a hard worker and lots of potential.

Anyway. Running water. That looks funner than a fair ride! Nice straight lines on those ditches. It's a lot harder to do by the eye than most people can imagine. Easy on a scraper or dozer but hard as heck sitting off to the side with an ex.

Thanks for the pics.

 

[Shimmy1]

Well, these last 6 days have been a time to remember. Over the past year I have asked Case numerous times to check out the engine in the 210. I felt that there was an injector that was not 100%. The first time they checked it, a year ago last summer, they tried to bill us over $400 to run the injector cut-out because the mechanic claimed he couldn't find anything. I told them what they could do with that bill, and they backed off. This summer, I had an issue with the bucket closing, and while they were there I inquired again about the engine running a little rough. That mechanic also was unable to determine if anything was amiss. So, I'm working last Tuesday, and finally the problem seemed to be getting worse. Wednesday, it definitely was. Called Titan, guy came out on Thursday, he determined number 4 cylinder was not firing. I was there during his tests, and told him I also felt number 3 was trouble as well, he disagreed and said he would get A injector. As it turned out, injectors were back-ordered (shocker), and the closest one was in Sioux Falls, would take 3-4 days to get. I told him that I had been complaining about this for over a year, and that injector better be in Bismarck in the morning. It wasn't, supposedly because of the snow, so he brought it out yesterday and changed out number 4. Started it up, and what do you know, still had a slight shudder. After some more investigating, he "determined" number 3 was faulty. No $hit, Sherlock. After some pretty tense discussion where he asked me several times if I really had had 2 other mechanics check it out before and both claim nothing wrong, he said he would do his best to get an injector ASAP. So, when he leaves, he says he will call me as soon as he knows something in the morning. This morning, he calls at 8:05 and says he has an injector (???????) and is on his way up. Put the injector in, and engine runs like a brand new one. 6 lost days this time of year to a problem that should have been fixed LONG ago is not good for a man's frame of mind.

 

[Shimmy1]

Anyway. Running water. That looks funner than a fair ride! Nice straight lines on those ditches. It's a lot harder to do by the eye than most people can imagine. Easy on a scraper or dozer but hard as heck sitting off to the side with an ex.

Thanks for the pics.

Thanks, Twisted. I have to confess, I cheated a bit on this ditch. I am completely swamped with cleanouts right now, with more coming in daily, so I've been working long after dark. I have the other two guys running the scrapers, so I have had to go out in the morning and get them lined up for the day, then get to the hoe in the afternoon. The ditch is pretty much dry, so I climb down into the bottom, and walk a track the length of the ditch. Then I can use the tracks as a guide, I'm giving it a 10' flat bottom, and work as long after dark as I can stand. Last week I had 100 billable hours, not including the "manager" time for the scraper crew.

 

[Mark13]

Thanks, Twisted. I have to confess, I cheated a bit on this ditch. I am completely swamped with cleanouts right now, with more coming in daily, so I've been working long after dark. I have the other two guys running the scrapers, so I have had to go out in the morning and get them lined up for the day, then get to the hoe in the afternoon. The ditch is pretty much dry, so I climb down into the bottom, and walk a track the length of the ditch. Then I can use the tracks as a guide, I'm giving it a 10' flat bottom, and work as long after dark as I can stand. Last week I had 100 billable hours, not including the "manager" time for the scraper crew.

I'm kinda far away but if you're that swamped with work I can probably throw the 36" dirt bucket on this bad machine and head up to help out.







You do some really cool work though, I do enjoy looking at the pictures and hearing about the projects. Here in IL most farm drainage is either grass waterways that are mowed and don't really have a "ditch" to them per say or it runs off into small creeks that cut across the landscape. If an excavator is working in a field around here it's usually taking out old fence lines, taking down trees growing in the old fence lines or growing along steep ditches. It's pretty rare to see an excavator actually digging out the ditch.

 

[kshansen]

Mark13,

I could sure use that old Case as is to clean up the brush around the yard