My story, I bought the skid loader in Oct of 2013 for more of my personal use. Some tasks I do are firewood, moving car parts, general house/farm maintenance and building my garage. I have very little experience actually using a skid loader for dirt work other than driving them around to pull/push and lift cars. I paid cash for the machine and planned to do an occasional job to help pay for maintenance and parts of the machine. I have a smooth bucket, tooth bucket, an auger and in the process of making a root bucket. In the future I have my eyes on purchasing or building pallet forks, 4 n 1 bucket and/ or a grapple.
I just did my first paying skid loader job the other day. I had to fill/smooth 3 20ton dump truck loads of 2”clean and 3 of fill/washout. The guy wanted an area built up on the side of his house to park his RV and start/eventually use the area for a pole barn. He needed 2+ foot fill at the end of the parking space to make it level. I have very little skid loader material moving experience. Most of my seat time has been moving/lifting car parts. I told the gentleman $75 an hour and told him I estimated a couple hours. He told me he could rent a skid loader for $200 and that’s what he would pay me. At this point I almost didn’t do the job because I already felt like I was being lowballed, but I did want to use the skid loader for small side jobs. I also needed the experience to bid future jobs. So I told him I would do the job. He is less than 10 miles from me so I wasn’t going to have too much fuel or time in transportation. When I showed up to the job, I talked to the customer to get his expected outcome of the project. I started without a clue of what I got myself into. I wanted to work as efficiently and fast as possible, as the two hour time window didn’t leave for much room for profit. I was wildly driving up and down the piles and a couple of times I got myself into some but puckering angles, thinking I was going to flip or roll over. After about 20 minutes, I decided that I better slow down and think it through. I half throttled the machine and started moving 1 bucket at time smoothing as I drove back to the pile. With this thought process I felt like I was getting more done in a controlled manner than moving the “whole pile at once” method I started with. After an hour and half I had it figured out and was just moving the material to grade. I stopped a few times to get out and check to make sure I wasn’t too high or getting out of specs. I finished up at 2 ½ hours. I thought it looked good and got a complemented from the homeowner and was paid $200. As I was loading up, he asked if he could give out my phone number to his friends that had similar jobs needing done and I told him yes. I am not quitting my day job and do not have a note that needs to be paid every month for the unit.
Now for the questions : Is Excavating the correct term to use on a business card? I was using an 84” smooth bucket with what I believe is a wear plate/cutting edge welded to the bottom of the bucket. The plate is welded to the bottom front of the bucket and has 5 holes across the front, for bolting teeth maybe. After the project was done, I was wondering If I should bolt on a smooth edge to save the “face” of the bucket from getting beat up. I know the wear/cutting edge that is welded on will wear from back dragging and will need to be replaced eventually, but I if I put a bolt on cutting edge on top and saved the face it would last longer. I bought the bucket used- new condition and want to take care of it. I also thought about buying a removable tooth bar, but I have a 72” tooth bucket and have my eyes on a larger tooth bucket.
As far as advertising I was just going to have business cards made and hand them out as needed. Which is more of an accepted term Skid loader skid steer or bobcat . I want a $200 minimum for every job that is within about half hour of me and a $400 minimum for longer drives than that. Is this fair? Is charging by the hole on my auger fair? I planned to at least do this until I recoup some of the initial expense of the auger then I could offer it as a service to help get future jobs. I am working on a F450 dump truck to haul small loads. Do I want to charge by the mile of a flat fee on top of the rock charge? The flat fee would have to be enough to cover fuel, insurance, maintenance and my time to be profitable.
I just did my first paying skid loader job the other day. I had to fill/smooth 3 20ton dump truck loads of 2”clean and 3 of fill/washout. The guy wanted an area built up on the side of his house to park his RV and start/eventually use the area for a pole barn. He needed 2+ foot fill at the end of the parking space to make it level. I have very little skid loader material moving experience. Most of my seat time has been moving/lifting car parts. I told the gentleman $75 an hour and told him I estimated a couple hours. He told me he could rent a skid loader for $200 and that’s what he would pay me. At this point I almost didn’t do the job because I already felt like I was being lowballed, but I did want to use the skid loader for small side jobs. I also needed the experience to bid future jobs. So I told him I would do the job. He is less than 10 miles from me so I wasn’t going to have too much fuel or time in transportation. When I showed up to the job, I talked to the customer to get his expected outcome of the project. I started without a clue of what I got myself into. I wanted to work as efficiently and fast as possible, as the two hour time window didn’t leave for much room for profit. I was wildly driving up and down the piles and a couple of times I got myself into some but puckering angles, thinking I was going to flip or roll over. After about 20 minutes, I decided that I better slow down and think it through. I half throttled the machine and started moving 1 bucket at time smoothing as I drove back to the pile. With this thought process I felt like I was getting more done in a controlled manner than moving the “whole pile at once” method I started with. After an hour and half I had it figured out and was just moving the material to grade. I stopped a few times to get out and check to make sure I wasn’t too high or getting out of specs. I finished up at 2 ½ hours. I thought it looked good and got a complemented from the homeowner and was paid $200. As I was loading up, he asked if he could give out my phone number to his friends that had similar jobs needing done and I told him yes. I am not quitting my day job and do not have a note that needs to be paid every month for the unit.
Now for the questions : Is Excavating the correct term to use on a business card? I was using an 84” smooth bucket with what I believe is a wear plate/cutting edge welded to the bottom of the bucket. The plate is welded to the bottom front of the bucket and has 5 holes across the front, for bolting teeth maybe. After the project was done, I was wondering If I should bolt on a smooth edge to save the “face” of the bucket from getting beat up. I know the wear/cutting edge that is welded on will wear from back dragging and will need to be replaced eventually, but I if I put a bolt on cutting edge on top and saved the face it would last longer. I bought the bucket used- new condition and want to take care of it. I also thought about buying a removable tooth bar, but I have a 72” tooth bucket and have my eyes on a larger tooth bucket.
As far as advertising I was just going to have business cards made and hand them out as needed. Which is more of an accepted term Skid loader skid steer or bobcat . I want a $200 minimum for every job that is within about half hour of me and a $400 minimum for longer drives than that. Is this fair? Is charging by the hole on my auger fair? I planned to at least do this until I recoup some of the initial expense of the auger then I could offer it as a service to help get future jobs. I am working on a F450 dump truck to haul small loads. Do I want to charge by the mile of a flat fee on top of the rock charge? The flat fee would have to be enough to cover fuel, insurance, maintenance and my time to be profitable.
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