Forget The Ford F-350

BobsLandscaping

I'd still do the mowing/maintenance with a pick up truck and a trailer. This would be for installs of landscaping.

I pulled out the invoice for a job I did 2 months ago.

I transported:

1 pond liner 20'x30'
12 yards of river rock
96 flats of plant material
4 pumps
22 tons of limestone boulders
64 yards of mulch
18 ornamental trees
1 rented mini-ex
1 rented skidsteer
1,000 sq. ft of landscape fabric
7 tons of Belgard pavers
200 linear feet of paver edging
100 feet of pipe
12 yards Scotts top soil mix

Plus about 3 truckloads of tools, equipment, and miscellany. This was on one job. It took me 4 days to stage the material on the jobsite with my F-150, 3 to install the water feature and 2 to do the pavers. The sand and gravel for the pavers I was able to get delivered. If I had a larger truck I could have staged the material in 1 day. That would have gained me 3 days this season.

That's the crux, I'm getting bigger and bigger jobs because of my reputation, but I don't have the equipment to do it efficiently.

Schmidt & Co

Its a 450. Here is another one. I'll try the link again, but just in case, it's a NEW 2007 Chevy c5500 dump....
$49,866.00





http://http://www.commercialtrucktra...c5500-93931540

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XanadooLTD

This is what i was thinking of getting to pull my 16' dump trailer. 375k. Is it worth it?

XanadooLTD

whoops

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Schmidt & Co

Do they make ladder racks for it?

Mike Finley

That's what buying a trailer and using calculated deliveries are for in a business like yours.

They are force multipliers, that allow a business to scale when needed and conserve cashflow against capital expendetures until those expendetures are not painful.

BobsLandscaping

What kind of car is that?

I guess the real question is efficiency. I waste a lot of time using my F-150, but do I waste $60K worth of time?

Honestly, I don't know. I made it this far with old junk trucks. I see other contractors running new trucks, large trucks. Do they do any better? It's a royal PITA to move heavy landscape material w/ a pick up truck, but with the price of a new truck, or even a used one, how much is it really worth?

XanadooLTD

Bentley SUV. You need to get a new truck so that it wont break down. You need to go 3/4 or 1 ton single rear wheel. You need to buy a 14k dump trailer and you will save huge and be efficient. Kodiaks, etc are to big.

BobsLandscaping

I get a lot of my material from small specialty suppliers that don't have trucks. Little mom and pop nurseries, not big chain stores.

A lot of the really specialized stuff gets shipped to me, I store it until I'm ready to start the job, then I move it from my shop to the jobsite. Things like 2,000 sq. ft. of moss for example. That's a lot of boxes of moss.

John Deere Landscapes delivers material once a week. If I'm not on that job the day the material gets delivered to this area it gets sent to my house. Then I have to move it from there to the job.

The only company I regularly do business with that has trucks for delivery is Moscow Building Supply.

Maybe I'm too specialized, my market is the unique. I bring in material from all over the country/world. Stuff you're not going to find at the local landscape supplier.

Mike Finley

Like I said :

Buy a used diesel long bed 1 ton, buy a huge ass dump trailer and a small flat trailer.

End of story, the rest of this is all mental masturbation. If you're into all this for that, then whatever, carry on. If you're looking for real solutions they aren't that hard. Always remember no matter what you aren't inventing the wheel here, what you are doing has been done many times already. You are doing landscape/hardscape, not trying to figure out how to get to Pluto.

XanadooLTD

You are wise Mike!

XanadooLTD

Good name by the way. I'm a Mike also.

BobsLandscaping

So back to the F-350. I can get an XL w/ V-10, 4x4, crew cab, long bed, srw, auto, for around $30,000. It'll tow 12,500lbs. A DRW will cost around $32,000 and tow 15,000lbs. Diesel will push closer to $36K and will only tow 1,000 more pounds srw or drw. So I don't see the need for a diesel in a 1 ton.

Sounds ok to me. At least I'll have capacity and A/C.

I can get a nice dump trailer 16K GVW for $17,000. Has a Honda engine on to power the hydraulics as opposed to the weak electric.

Greg Di

I get into a similar situation with logistics frequently. I own a dump trailer and it's tough to coordinate debris removal, concrete pallet pickups, gravel dumps, etc... with multiple jobs running.

So...when need be, I just pay $60 for delivery of gravel instead of saving $60 by picking it up myself and having it take up 2+ hours of my life moving trailers around.

You should look at the BIG picture. Find dealers that deliver for free and have the means to put material right where you need it. I know who has a Moffet and who doesn't and call who I need depending on the job.

Honestly, you could easily do what you need to do with an F450 dually and a 14k dump trailer. That bigger truck will not make you more money. It's just a tool. Save the money use it to make MORE money. Imagine what $10k would do if you spent it on advertising.

I no longer buy anything that does not positively MAKE me money.

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WarnerConstInc.

Bob, I think the 350 with a dump trailer would be the way to go.

Then you can still drive that truck when you are not working. I would laugh at you if you drove that big azz truck everywhere you went.

I would still get a crew cab no matter what, the extra room is well worth it.

BobsLandscaping

Logistics is a bitch. It's the most stressful part of what I do, honestly. Placing the orders, timing the deliveries to my house, scheduling the job, getting the material to the job, and not having anything die before it gets there.

The hardest thing to transport is flats. They're big, light, and you can't stack them. Basically whatever floor space I have in my truck is what I can use. I can get about 12 flats in the back of my truck. That's it. I regularly have jobs where I need to move over 100 flats of plant material. They don't ride well on trailers because the suspension on a trailer gives a rougher ride. They become unpotted. Big PITA.

Mike Finley

Find out how those more successful then you are doing it and copy them. Don't copy anybody who is a moron. Seems like a simple rule but most of us don't follow it.

Again, don't try to re-invent the wheel all the time.

Being a Copy cat was a bad thing when you were in 1st grade, in business it's a short cut to success.

Think outside the box - I have no idea all the details of flats, but I know trailers are dirt cheap. If it made sense to me I'd buy one trailer dedicate it with a rack system just for flats if it solved a problem for me. You said these are the hardest thing. Solve your hardest problems first and the rest will come easier.

Trailers are way cheaper to buy and maintain then trucks. Necessity is the mother of invention.

fr8train

Bob, is there any way of making/buying some sort of rack system for the truck to let you have multiple layers of flats?

BobsLandscaping

The problem with flats is that different species of plants are at different heights. I've been looking for years but have not yet found a rack that is adjustable, durable enough for highway use, readily adaptable to a trailer, and offers wind protection for the plants.

There's a reason nurseries don't transport flats in bulk after the plants have already started to grow. It's a logistical nightmare. The flats of plants you see at the big chain nurseries (like HD and Lowes) are shipped in the winter before the plants start to grow. Then they're put on the display shelving in a portable greenhouse and allowed to grow during the winter.

The problem is compounded by distance. I buy the plants from my nursery in Moscow, then I take them to Deary (as an example from earlier this year) which is a round trip of 60 miles. Well when you have 100 flats to move I just shot a whole day and 2 tanks of gas moving material.

I have seen a landscaper during the annual Boise conference who had an air ride, enclosed trailer that he used to transport flats. His truck had air brakes, mine doesn't. I have not yet been able to adapt his idea on a smaller scale.

piercekiltoff

I bought a $760k drill rig on an internatinoal in 2007. I'll never, ever buy another international truck. We had problems with the clutch being out of adjustment, the day we got it, and International told us to 'bring it to the lot, we'll take a look at in a few days'.....I mentioned it was a $760k rig that had a few holes to drill, and they better get their asses to the site and look at it....then I mentioned that to their boss, then our factory rep with the rig manufacturer mentioned it up the chain for two days until he got to the VP of marketing on safari in Africa. At that point, Cummins was flying computer techs from Indiana (I believe) over night, on a Sunday to get the problems fixed with the engine....

Needless to say, the thing was a lemon, and lasted 6 weeks in our fleet before heading back....But, the point is this - I wouldn't touch an International. Caveat #1 - Cummin's did a hell of a job, #2 I love old Internationals.

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