Great thread and stories you got Brian, keep them going really enjoy reading them. Nice equipment and great looking work. Your story reminds me of myself only I haven't pull the plug and gone on my own yet. Started out doing residential dirt work and then subdivision and commercial and now been doing highway work for the past 10 years as a operator/foreman getting burned out and ready to go back to residential on my own. On your pool digs, is everything pretty much trimmed by hand they look awesome when done, one of the local guys around here does a lot of basements and pools, he's got a 312 with a helac swivel and a 40-48" smooth lip bucket, but our pools aren't like yours around here. Anway looks awesome keep it.
I think unless you have connections you just about have to start in residential work, but so much competition. The one thing I never did was road work, other than decel and excel lanes. I never really loved working on crews to be honest. As far as the pools, yes I have to trim my digs perfect. Well, I don't. My incredibly hard working guys do. We use heavy trim bars that will give you blisters before 9 a.m. if you're not a laborer. We use pick hoes, sharp shooters, and shovels. Everything is within an inch. It's brutal work and I have been through so many guys. The standard is just so high. I've tried white guys with tough stories, but they quit before lunch time. I get my butt kicked too. The standard has been set so high around metro Atlanta that you have to be perfect and that's just the dirt trimming. I can get real close with my machine which saves so much labor and time. On some you can get the walls perfect with the bucket, but way more hand trimming than not. Basically every square inch is worked by hand. Now you also have setting the stakes to set the forms and they have to be perfect dead laser level and squared and parallel and exact and you get the point. It's brutal work and I stay out 16 hrs. a day a lot of times. Have to order all the material and have it here constantly. It's all consuming, and between me and you I hope to build into site work and more demo work. I'm really wanting to push more demolition work. I have the experience, I just have so far to go to get there safely.
I just do it all now. I don't care what it is. I know what I need to make per day/job and do it the absolute quickest I can. I usually average four jobs a week, sometimes five. A pool should take two days to excavate to these standards, but that cuts the money in half if it takes two days. So you don't leave till it's done. Brutal when it's 95 degrees or it get's dark at 5:30. It's very stressful and the builders are always slowing you down. But you have to be nice, otherwise I'd tell them to stay at home so I can work much faster and smoother. They have to be there to deal with nervous homeowners, etc. Same with a demo. It's a lot to do in a day. I don't have an operator yet and my brother was supposed to help build this company, but he can't hang really and has let me down too much. I really need help. This year I hope to get a big mini (or midi) excavator that can work with my skid steer. Get a thumb for the midi ex. and get a grapple for the skid steer so I can do demos, digs, and grading with another crew. I can configure my dump truck and tag to haul both if needed. That's just an option and it doesn't have to happen, but it might be a good plan. Otherwise I will just bust my tail. I had my fiancé helping with all the office stuff, but I think I've run her off for good this time. It's a lot a work. So much work!!!..but I love it to death and I always wanted more responsibility, more deadlines, and more challenges when I was grading for companies.
