[P-Train]

My wife’s company often contracts state projects and has a chance to get a mowing contract of 170 acres for a state run mental facility for $60,000. Mowing schedule is every other week from April until October, give or take a couple of weeks. Each mowing would take two-three days to complete I believe.

Two mowers are kept on site so employees simply drive to the site and begin. Drive time is only five minutes. I think the mowers each cut 12’ or something at one time. The company will have to pay what’s left on the mowers which may be $5k each. Also they’ll need to buy a couple of push mowers for special areas. Four employees each at around $8 per hour would be the crew. A couple of which already mow a few rest areas so training is not much of an issue.

Gas here is $2 per gallon.

The terrain is wide open for the most part.

No trimming or blowing involved.

Is this a fair deal considering the buyout of the mowers and probably $400 worth of new mowers?


Thanks.

[Bill Schwab]

That's about $300,000 worth of mowing if done weekly, every other week is going to slow the machines down, so cut it in half at $150,000 then ad another 10% loss of production and you should be getting $165,000.

Then factor in that wing mowers are a very high maintenance machine, moreso than any other you own, and plan on 14 gallons of fuel a day per mower being eaten.

Figure you have 2 $30,000.00 a year employees on those mowers 3 days a week. I'm betting it will be more like a 5 day week. The job sounds very low P-train.

[GLAN]

I am guessing that April - October every 2 weeks is 12 cuttings

That comes to $5,000 per.......You can figure the rest based on your expenes and so on.

But here is what I am thinking. Rather than 4 guys.....Dedicate 2 guys only and be on site every week.........splitting the work.

You can pay them each a 40 hour week, and pretty much forget about them

[cutntrim]

Without getting into numbers like Bill, I'd say it sounds LOW...and I don't like the part about assuming a buyout of those mowers, especially if you have zero use for them elsewhere. Sounds like one of those "too many eggs in one basket" type of contracts.

Also, I remember the opening scene of the movie Halloween and the thought of patients wandering around the property when you're off alone on 170a freaks me out man!

[Lawngodfather]

Gonna cost you about $40k in labor, plus taxes etc... PLus all other expences.

Not worth the time for $60k.

That's right at $170k job for $60k.....That's why it's available, contractor is out of biz

[PSUscaper]

what are the production times for a 12 ft wide mower? How many acres an hour can be completed?

Mathmatically, a 12 ft wide mower has to do 17 passes @ 213 ft each pass to do 1 acre......that would equate to travelling a distance of 3621 feet in total, or driving .68 miles per acre, which at 3 mph, would mean 13 minutes to do each acre....which would mean 170 acres at 3 miles per hour with a 12 foot wide mower should take 36.8 hours with one mower......

What does this mean??? Beats me, but I just love running numbers like these!

this sounds like a Brickman style job.........there may not be much profit in it, but you get a few 100 of them, and you start making money!

[Lawngodfather]

I now know who to contact to find that stuff out.....