[strickdad]

Originally posted by Stonehenge
Well you've certainly come to the right place to learn about hardscapes - you won't find a collection of more accomplished hardscapers anywhere. Period.

Since maintenance is your strength, I would ask that as you gain knowledge about hardscaping from the site, you return some knowledge in the form of posts in this forum. Doing so will only make the whole site stronger and more valuable to everyone that visits, which in turn will come back to help you, as the site will continue to grow as a resource.

STONE HENGE YOU GOT A DEAL

[greenman]

HI ,guys. I browse this site from time to time, and I must say it is far more maticulate (cant think of the word I need, but y'all know what I mean) than the "other" sites. This site is really into hardscaping and business. I do not really do much hardscaping, but this site is an inspiration. Its full of knowledge and "pioneers" of this industry. 'Seasoned veterans', if you will. Hamons invited me to get involved in the turf side of things over here and I am honored to be a part of this site..........oh, and Glan, good to see you here. I wont mention it on the other site.C'yall.

[scl]

Gman, welcome aboard. Hamons, you have made your point and done it well. Welcome to you also. Bring along the good guys and the good stuff and we'll all be better for it.
Seasoned veterans eh? Makes me feel a little long in the tooth. But I remember way back in the old days of landscaping when I (trails off into wistful babble)...

[Green4Me]

Ok turf guys... time to put some meat into this discussion. Heck with recruiting, the smart poeple are already at GTX or are filling out the registration forms..

I want to grow the maintenance side of my business. I am intrigued by Lanelle's comments that a 2 person crew should be able to produce $ 120,000 a year in revenues. That is a nice round number for me. I think that would be a good base for a landscape company. So as I am out working this week I am thinking about billable hours and such and I wonder how much down time is acceptable for overhead. Percentage wise.

How much time is involved in travel, prep, mower and equipment maintenance. Out of 4000 billable hours per year how much is overhead.

Also what does this crew and equipment look like. I envision, 2 people, a pickup, large trailer, a ZTR, a walkbehind, and a couple trim mowers with doubles on blowers, trimmers, hand tools.

Also if a good laborer makes $ 10 per hour what should his leadman make?
This leads to how much this crew will cost me to produce $ 120,000 per year.

The ball is in your court.

[shawn]

$10.00 per hour is not so hot if you ask to I pay my part-time help $12.00 per hour to help me when I need help. There is a lawn care company not to far them me that start new poeple at $13.00 per hour this is in northwest iowa and the winter they have off. But as for lawn mowing you will have to get equipment right. Equipment if you buy new will be around $75000.00 dollars I have checked into it. When I first started this site I asked how do I get my name out and a lot of you answered it in very good answers . But I can't get anyone to work for anything less than $13.00 per hour.That s mowing and windsheild time. So I think that the foreman should get around $15.00 per hour and the other poeple should get around $12.00 per hour. That is what I think.

[timturf]

well hamons, i joined, your mistake

[Hamons]

I am real glad to see that my efforts have apid off -- turf section picking upa little.

Now -- everyone who has recently joined -- ask 3 more people that would be god additions to this site.

[Green4Me]

Now here is a timely question, listening to the news this morning and hearing that crude oil may spike to over $105 per barrel, one can only imagine what that will do to fuel prices.
This is especially important to turf guys who operate on contracts with fixed pricing.

So the question is what percentage impact would $4.00 per gallon impact have on company profits.

And then how do we plan for that now?

[GroundKprs]

Green, it's so simple if you have a handle on costs. Fuel in 2003 was 9.87% of my total costs. Using a round figure of 10%, if fuel price increases by 50%, my total costs increase 5%. So for 2004, even though CPI increase was around 2.6%, my prices went up 5% anticipating a 50% fuel increase. Since it didn't hit that, I have a cushion this year, and don't have to increase drastically this year.

I larger biz will have to calculate in more detail, considering fixed and variable expenses. But you gotta have an accurate history of expenses to start.