Business Idea...

[thebobcatkid86]

As I sit here reading this forum, contemplating my future I put together business scenarios with regard to equipment. This is one I’ve been thinking about for a little while. A small scale grinding/clearing company.
Now, Id just like an honest opinion if there’s a market where a setup like this would be a viable proposition or if it would be too small to be efficient on most clearing jobs.

Either a Morbark 950 or a Vermeer HG200
A Bobcat S300 with a grapple and a Fecon
A 5 ton mini with grapple
A dump trailer
One or two, one-ton pickups

 

[HeyUvaVT]

www.clearviews4u.com working well for us...but its a big amount of $$$ to consider yourself small scale

 

[thebobcatkid86]

Thats vey cool. I just mean small scale by comparison to say, these guys with a tracked grinder and a 200 size excavator to feed it.
And yes I know its alot of money.

I was just thinking about two jobs that I ran across while working for friends of my dad. Both have modest country estates and are looking for a service like yours. I wanted to rent an HG 200 and the local Vermeer dealer will... for $1900 a week. Thats more than either of these guys want to spend for the whole project. Each of these that I speak of would be about 1-2 acres.

 

[greywynd]

... for $1900 a week. Thats more than either of these guys want to spend for the whole project. Each of these that I speak of would be about 1-2 acres.

If someone has an 'estate' and wants to have land cleared for less than $1900 an acre.....I would tell them to look elsewhere. Floating in an ex, a chipper, and say a skid, will cost half of that to start, and the machines haven't touched the ground yet!

This is where the tracked skids and mulching heads are appropriate, gets rid of everything but the bigger trees, which are often wanted to be kept anyway, or can be removed after with a chainsaw.

 

[HeyUvaVT]

we charge roughly $1200 an acre to do what we do...we have an RC100 with a loftness head and a Tak TB175 exc....we are looking into bigger equipment to do more of a "traditional" clearing job (i.e larger trees and prepping for a home site) we are not the cheapest guys in town but we try and be fair