Mowing Cemetaries

NasConst_land

Anyone ever mowed cemetaries before.. Seems like an awful lot of hassle with all the trimming. We got asked to mow a few of them this year.. not to sure if I want to. Seems like alot of stuff could go wrong there.. hit headstones, miss trimming, so many things to turn around.. Not to mention you cant mow it on days where they have a funeral.. so u have to schedule around that. If anyone has had any experience with this I'd be interested to see how it went. Let me know

Always Greener

Yes we have 2 of them and it is A LOT OF TRIMMING.. One cemetery is on 4 acres and about 2 million head stones (seams like it) the cemetery is very old some headstones from early 1800 hundreds. Your equipment will take a beating and lots of trimmer line. The other on is on 1 acre and that one is not too bad but lots of trimming. You have to make sure the cemeteries are well maintained all the time especially during the holidays. Then if there is a burial going on it has to look good for that day. Lots to do so bid it correctly

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A+Carpenter

I would never bother with them. Grab you some horses and tell them dig in.

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Always Greener

I wish I could do that....you have to be on call with them all the time.. but the money is good..

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Quote

We have done a couple cemetaries. Bottom line is your time and effort. Here are a few questions to ask yourself.

What is your hourly rate?
How long do you think it would take to do the job?
Do you need any other equipment to do the job that you dont already have?
Can you build in an aggrivation fee? ( this one is important cause cemetaries suck, your guys will hate you for it.)
Find out if they allow minor round up spraying around stones (this will help you protect the stones from your machines, and you from some trimming and wear and tear)

The most important thing is to know if you want the job. There is nothing worse for both sides than the point where the contractor realizes he didnt want the job. Quality goes down and neither side is happy. So make sure you price it to keep YOU happy.

Always Greener

If you use chemicals make sure you are licensed.

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NasConst_land

Ya anyone that uses chemicals for us has their applicators licensed, and they will allow no chemicals to be used. We priced them higher then our normal time usually we get like $90 for a 3 man crew hour, and we got this one up at $115 for a crew hour so if we get it we will definently make some money and we will give each of the 3 guys that mow it that week a bonus.. thinking like $50 bucks ontop of what they make for the day everytime they mow it. It would be a long day of mowing, like 10 hours. So maybe that will excourage the guys to want to do it or atleast not hate it. I doubt we get it, we shall find out this wensday though.

Always Greener

Good luck... If you don't get it just think some poor sucker is doing it for a lot cheaper and they will hate it after the first mowing.

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NasConst_land

Well, we heard back about our bid to mow 3 cemetaries, and 2 city buildings. Only 2 companies bid on it, us and another very very large company in the area. We have 2 crews and they have 12 just to give you an idea of size. Lets just say we were ... alot lower. Makes me feel good but also makes me wonder.. are we doing stuff to cheap. I guess we are getting what we need an hour to cover our costs and overhead and make the amount of profit we want so we are doing alright. But the other company was 64 grand over our bid for a year total. Ya thats right thats not a mistake.. 64 grand.

They havent awarded the contract yet because they may not contract it out, still might maintain the places themselves. I would have to believe being a small township.. with us being 64 grand less then the other company if they do give it out, we would probably get it. But who knows ive seen some funny things in the past. I expect to hear back this week about it.

Always Greener

I hope you did your math on this one.. 64 grand is nuts but they know what ther are doing if they are that big of a company.. Good luck and keep us updated..

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