New business venture

[Jmiller26b]

My dad owns a small construction company and we live on a farm so I have ran tractors some and have only ran a skid steer and mini excavator one time. I did construction with him growing up and through college but after working in an office cubicle without seeing the outside for hours at a time I can tell it is time for a change.

I am wanting to purchase a tracked skid steer (compact track loader maybe a John Deere 333G or Cat 299D3) with a mulcher and trencher attachment as well. My thinking is that I could start up this business while still working my job and slowly transition full time as I acquired jobs. Working late nights and Saturday and Sundays to get established. I would do just about anything I could with the skid steer and hopefully could move into larger dozers and excavators as time went on. Trying to get some rough ideas before going all in and want to give a strong proposal to the bank.

1. Asking the impossible here... how much on average (% estimation) in gross income do you expect to put towards maintenance and repairs throughout the year?
2. Do you do most of the repairs yourself or hire someone?
3. Do you own your own semi and lowboy for transporting your dozer and excavator or do you hire it out?
4. I would imagine it's like anything else these days as in they are all pretty good... but is there any brands that have areputation for being reliable and not having a lot of down time? (Another impossible question I know)
5. What can I expect to pay for insurance on a piece of equipment, as in does it normally cost like 3 times as much as your pickup would?... something like that for a roughidea.
6. How are heavy equipment jobs billed to the customer? Hourly or by the job? If hourly do anyone have an idea what the hourly rate for a skid steer, dozer and excavator would be in Missouri?
7. Eventually I would like to have a 100hp skid steer, 175-200hp excavator and around a 200hp dozer. Could I make this a relatively efficient setup for a multipurpose business...forestry clearing, pond making, terrace building, lot grading, culvertfixing...and the list goes on.
8. Depending on how the machine was treated I know... but how many hours on a machines like these is alot? Like 100k miles on a car roughly equal to 4000 hours on a machine?
9. Is the cold or slightly frozen ground hard on these machines in the winter months? Or do guys just keep on running?
10. The skid steers that I am looking at are about 12k pounds so I am getting a fairly large gooseneck but would really like to pull with my 2500HD duramax instead of moving to a 1 ton. Do you think I should make the switch for these larger skid steers?
11. What is the fuel burn rate on these 100+ hp skid steers? 3-4 GPH or so wide open?

 

[NepeanGC]

I'd suggest reading some of the other posts about this exact topic. There's been several lately.

Around here skidsteer work is saturated market. Everyone and their cousin has one.
I wouldn't want to compete with the pros while trying to make a machine payment only being able to work 2 days a week.

Given the questions you're asking, you'd be way better off working for someone else and learning from them before jumping in. This is a very capital intensive game, and mistakes can cost big money.

As to your questions...

1. Whatever it takes to keep it running. Every application is different, every machine is different.
2. We hire out whenever we can afford the time. If it's a rush, I'm the mechanic
3. We self haul for flexibility. Costs a lot for that luxury though. Truck, trailer, insurance, cdl, etc.
4. They all suck. Or they're all good. Buy support, not a specific brand. Buy from whoever you feel will provide the best service and access to parts. CAT definitely is known for that. Deere, Bobcat, Kubota are also pretty safe around here.
5. Call an insurance broker. No one here can answer that for you.
6. Pick up a construction estimating book, and delve in the the business side before you buy a machine. Running a successful business has way more to it than running the machine. Operating is about 10% of the work in my experience.
7. Don't try to do it all. It's generally not profitable. Find a niche, and exploit the heck out of it.
8. Depends on what you're doing. Dozers doing saltwater beach work don't even last 10k hours...and they cost over half a million bucks.
9. Yes and yes.
10. check DOT regs. may require CDL.
11. A lot. Fuel is the least of your concern.

 

[Welder Dave]

What type of construction does your dad do? Can you work with/for him? I think you're getting too far ahead of yourself. Almost impossible to do what you want part time other than as a hobby. Customers want you to come when they need you not when it's convenient for you. If you're doing everything yourself it's a real balancing act trying to do the jobs you have, answer the phone, go to estimate other potential jobs, do your maintenance and repairs, pay your bills, etc., etc. Trying to do all this while also holding down a full time job would be very difficult. You're also inexperienced and there is a learning curve to get proficient especially if you want to do mulching. It can be very dangerous and requires a lot of maintainence on equipment. Do some market research to see if there is a niche market you can tap into. You're talking about spending over 100K on equipment.

 

[DMiller]

If you get a Larger Skid Steer with attachments you will not be doing yourself any favors sticking to lighter tow vehicle, bite the bullet, buy the RIGHT Equipment and get the correct license to run it.

 

[CM1995]

I am going to close this thread as it's the same topic in another thread.

Please reference this thread for future comments.

https://www.heavyequipmentforums.com/threads/new-business-venture.86276/