New member Texas timber ax Cat 256c All About Mowing

allaboutmowing · Feb 19, 2008

I came across this site and love all the great info on mulchers. I am in the commercial tractor mowing business in North Texas and had many request for land clearing, last sept. I took the plunge and bought a Cat 256c xps and a used Timber ax , wow the business has been great, I've been tractor mowing with Kubota tractors for many years. But I'm new to the skid steer mulching, I am getting my website built as I type, and have paid for yellowpages.com ads, Can any of you guys give me any other pointers on how to reach developers in a mostly urban area D/FW?

QwikDraw · Feb 19, 2008

Welcome to TBN.

I've always just stopped in and introduced myself, I think that is the best way to be noticed. I also send out flyers or hand them out as needed.

Good luck!

DirtyWorks · Feb 19, 2008

Welcome Aboard!

the more mulchers sharing knowledge the better. Work can be found in almost any market if you look in the right places, unfortunately you must look in a lot of wrong places first. Good Luck. I do not advertise in the YP at all. getting your work along with your name (sign) in a really busy intersection has been all that I have needed. Let us know what works for you.
PS Price accordingly- many a mulcher has gone under being the low bidder!

Gamma · Feb 19, 2008

Have any of you ever gotten any work by having your truck and trailer (with brush mulching equipment on it) at a gas station while filling up in the mornings?

Here in my area of St. Louis, contractors of all types seem to congragate at all the Quick Trips in the mornings for their fuel, donuts, coffee, sodas, ice and cigarettes; and I've been wondering if any of them use that time to network with each other and get work from it. I would imagine that if you pulled in to fuel up with say your ASV RC-100 & Fecon head on your trailer, that all kinds of guys would be wanting to check it out and talk to you about the Fecon head and what it's used for. You should be able to make some good contacts I would think and potentially get some work out of it.

allaboutmowing · Feb 19, 2008

Thank you guys, this looks like a great way to share ideas with other people doing the same type work. Gamma, I often do get work from my local fuel stop where many times people do ask about services. I do commercial mowing for many of the home builders in the metro area, I just find it so fun to run the mulcher. Quikdraw and Dirtyworks it looks like you have been doing this for a while, I have priced my mulching at $125 per hour seems like thats about all the market will pay here. I am amazed at how efficient the machine is, my first big job was 10 acres of Mesquite trees thick I bid 5 to 8 days they wanted a firm price so I made it $6000 and completed the job in 3 days. Good for me $300 per hour, is more than I ever make mowing. Look forward to learning and sharing.

One question I also bought a high flow stump grinder, how are you charging for stump grinding, going rate here seems to be $3 per inch?

Terra Firma Scott · Feb 20, 2008

Yes, Welcome to the site !This site has been my number one information highway involving mulching...We all share ideas and information which in some cases might just not be available by reading a book and or watching someone run these machines...Seat time and many different situations are the learning curve to this type biz...some expensive lessons too...but if we can inform each other we might be able to help each other out..All these guys here are curteous and knowledgable so ask away.......I love to run my mulcher too...

Tony Puckett · Feb 20, 2008

Although I don't have as much work as I want, I have had some success getting work from a daily ad in the service directory of the local newspaper.

The bulk of my work has come from forestry owners and managers who I mow their planted pines for straw harvest.

I had a 15 acre job from the local university in a 100 year old stand of pines, in a nature preserve, that they wanted to clear without burning. I got that one by stoping by and talking to their landscape/grounds people.

TP

Landwise · Feb 21, 2008

I may be in a little different market than most of you guys, and I may have a little different situation. The only advertising I do is signs on the side of the truck, four roadside signs and business cards. Almost all of my work comes from word of mouth. I am actually scared to do much advertising, because I am worried that we can not handle the increase in business.

That being said, part of the reason is that my ASV's have been so troublesome. All of us (Myself and 4 other employees) are firefighters. 4 of us work alternating 24 hour shifts, and the other is full time for my company. We do a lot of survey work, and a lot of our developement work comes from these surveyors.

That is the reason that I posted asking about Sub-Meter GPS. I think I know what I am going to end up with, but I wanted to see if anyone else was using anyhting different.

Hopefully, with us changing to supertracks, we wont have the dependability issues we have had on the past, and I will start doing a little more advertising.

Terra Firma Scott · Feb 22, 2008

Oooh, I like the supertrack...How many SK's r u getting? I saw one a few weeks ago with a Denis Cimaf head on it...Was on a rollback going somewhere...do you plan on keeping with loftness or moving in another direction with new head too?

As far as GPS-I ran into a guy using one in his mulcher but coulnt tell you which one it was..I asked him about why he has it and he said cause he kinda got LOST once on a large job and was hard to find his way back.He also like you was getting more developer work than residential clearing..I could see the use for it on large jobs...

oops-just saw the change in your signature....