Finally got a loader

I always wanted a powertrac back in my swinger days, was going to fly out and check em out in the late 90's
think I ran across the cheap Thomas's, and never bought one
Hear good things about them from owners - helluva affordable forwarder - and price - the Euro machines can't touch it

I have at least 3 BMGs mounted on powertrac plates - If you hung it on the end of your boom it would add 100#s
I made a boom with a big tong like that way back for my swinger -
compared to my old Bucket grapple then it picked up another 500lbs - loved that!

no pictures from the old days

Good purchase EMR!!
 
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  • #54
Good to know that you have BMG 's on PT mounting plates. I could totally see getting one in the future. I'll make sure to contact you when the time comes. My sister lives in Minneapolis and picking up a grapple would give me a good excuse to visit her as well.

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EMR there is no better guy to deal with than Dave, period. Ive known him from the expo circuit for years and EVERY deal I made with him he went above and beyond.
 
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  • #56
For sure. I'm well aware of his reputation and would love to work with him on a purchase some day soon.

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  • #61
I've got a question about pricing jobs when using your loader..... Do you increase your bid rates or just keep it the same? We used it on a Time and Materials job and probably finished the job in half the time that we would have done it without the loader. This particular job was for a good customer of ours and I will just charge our normal rate, but moving forward I think we should change more when we use the loader. Off the top of my head I'm thinking increasing our rate by $20 per crew hour and possibly charging some kind of fee just to get the loader there. Thoughts or advice?

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  • #63
I based the price off of our stump grinding rates. The loader cost about half as much as our grinder but hopefully we'll use it more. It should pay for itself pretty quickly.

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Your bids should stay the same, your equipment doesn't change the market value of the work that is bidded.

Your hourly rate should go up, how much depends on your opinion of how to handle quantify your hourly rate. I would think $20/hr would be a low number from my perspective, unless you're talking about changing that portal to portal and then I would think it was a minimum, assuming a given number of hours per day.


Our hourly rate depends on the crew and the equipment involved. It ranges from a minimum of $75/hr for a single laborer doing menial tasks (It's probably been pushing 2 years since we billed for that) to over $1200/hr doing emergency work.
 
T&M can hurt you when you've just purchased a new machine. When you're still a bit unsure of it capabilities, it's hard to come up with an hourly rate. A job is worth what it's worth whether you do it all by hand or you bring in the big iron. That machine can make you money but if you don't raise rates it'll cost you money.


What Carl just stated pretty much
 
I'm guessing at $20/ hour, that's bumping up your rates by 10-13% ($150...170/ $200...220).

Doing things manually, your charging $50+/ hour for a basic laborer, right? This will probably do 2 people worth at times, and could be 3-4. Never getting cold, hungry, or tired. It will do exactly what you tell it to do, everytime!


Raise your price if you are providing services otherwise impossibly, such as decking logs/ handling millable lengths for a hobby miller.
Similarly...
A crane on a big removal offers zero impact/ low impact. This is not so likely with conventional methods. This is easier for you AND added value to the customer. Charge for the impact reduction.



Consider loading/transport time and risk, plus tow vehicle expense and additional need driver. Ramps would put that in your chip bed, allowing you to haul your grinder, loader, and chipper with the two of you (unless your grinder and loader will fit together on your trailer).


So what are you naming it?
 
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  • #67
Great info guys. Lots to chew on and I definitely appreciate it.

We're still trying to figure out the logistics of the whole thing. Today I came up with the idea of getting another 550 with a roll off setup to haul our grinder, loader and pull the dump trailer. As cool as that would be, it isn't going to happen.

We were also talking about naming it today. Not sure what the name will be. Don't want to force it. Nate is actually taking a liking to it, even though I had to force him into the purchase ;-)
So I was thinking about naming it after him or in his honor.

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I charge $70 hour for my guys and charge the same for my wheel loader as it does the work of 4 guys easily. Nobody has ever complained.
 
Carl is broadly right imo. A $2000 job remains the same price you just do it in a day rather than 2 days.

Then the next day you do two jobs that would have taken you a day each and so on.

Doesn't always work as sweetly and neatly as that but you'll soon see the financial benefits.

Prices can even go down. For instance there's a tree removal job up for grabs and the competition are quoting $1900 for a couple of days work, you $1600, rattle it out in a day, and you're still quids in.
 
Carl is broadly right imo. A $2000 job remains the same price you just do it in a day rather than 2 days.

Then the next day you do two jobs that would have taken you a day each and so on.

Doesn't always work as sweetly and neatly as that but you'll soon see the financial benefits.

Prices can even go down. For instance there's a tree removal job up for grabs and the competition are quoting $1900 for a couple of days work, you $1600, rattle it out in a day, and you're still quids in.

well said, simply don't worry about the rate, unless its T & M
 
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  • #74
Update..... we've been using our loader a couple times a week and it has been great! Today we removed 3 Lombardi Poplars in half the time we quoted and I literally never broke a sweat. We are going through the learning curve right now but we really believe this was a good purchase for us. I welded a receiver for a hitch onto the regular bucket. I have moved trailers with it already and we have a make shift lifting boom that we hooked a log tongs onto. That has worked pretty well for adding height to the lifting and we have been able to pick up some pretty big wood with it too.
 
Update..... we've been using our loader a couple times a week and it has been great! Today we removed 3 Lombardi Poplars in half the time we quoted and I literally never broke a sweat. We are going through the learning curve right now but we really believe this was a good purchase for us. I welded a receiver for a hitch onto the regular bucket. I have moved trailers with it already and we have a make shift lifting boom that we hooked a log tongs onto. That has worked pretty well for adding height to the lifting and we have been able to pick up some pretty big wood with it too.

I thought there was a picture earlier?
 
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