What To Charge?

Croatan_Kid

Croatan_Kid

How's your hammer hangin'?
Joined
Nov 4, 2007
Location
New Bern
A guy at work wants me to do some work for him. I've got an excavator and he wants me to dig a rather sizeable ditch. However, I really don't know what to charge. Should I shoot for a set price or should I do it for an hourly rate? If hourly, what should I charge per hour?

FWIW, he said they need a 10 ft deep, 10 ft wide, 300 ft long ditch. The sides will slope so it doesn't fall in, so it will wind up being wider than 10 ft at the top. The dirt will be left on site for filling in low areas and what not. I have a 3 ft ditching bucket and a 2 ft toothed, digging bucket.


What do yall think?
 
Figure out how long it would take to do a 300’ ditch 1 bucket width and depth, then figure how many times it would take to dig the ditch of whatever size is needed.

In your area, that’s probably a type c soil, b at best. Depending on ground water, it’s gojng to be a pain to excavate and to slope to make safe. Type B allows a 1:1 slope or benching but type C doesn’t allow for benching, so you must slope it to at least 1.5:1. So, a 10’ deep ditch in type C soil requires a minimum overall width of 40’ (15’ wide slope on each side of the ditch plus 10’ wide ditch) to be safe.


That’s a hell of a lot of material for a mini to excavate. Sloped at 1.5:1, it’s about 2777 CY.

That’s so much material, you would need a dump truck to place material into assuming your excavator is smaller than a 329. You likely won’t have the reach to place the material far enough away from the excavation without having to handle it twice. Place it too close to the edge of the excavation and it can put added load on the ground and cause sloughing of the excavation even if it’s sloped properly.
 
A friend of mine has a 328 Bob cat excavator and he get $60 and hour for his machine. If its a job that requires a helper,laying pipe,ect he adjusts from there.
 
rockcity said:
Figure out how long it would take to do a 300’ ditch 1 bucket width and depth, then figure how many times it would take to dig the ditch of whatever size is needed.

In your area, that’s probably a type c soil, b at best. Depending on ground water, it’s gojng to be a pain to excavate and to slope to make safe. Type B allows a 1:1 slope or benching but type C doesn’t allow for benching, so you must slope it to at least 1.5:1. So, a 10’ deep ditch in type C soil requires a minimum overall width of 40’ (15’ wide slope on each side of the ditch plus 10’ wide ditch) to be safe.


That’s a hell of a lot of material.

That’s so much material, you would need a dump truck to place material into assuming your excavator is smaller than a 329. You likely won’t have the reach to place the material far enough away from the excavation without having to handle it twice. Place it too close to the edge of the excavation and it can put added load on the ground and cause sloughing of the excavation even if it’s sloped properly.
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^He means Cat 329, not Bobcat 329 ;)

Personally, I would see that as a project for a dozer and a couple of skidsteers to shuttle dirt. If I had to do it with one machine, it would be a big trackloader. That's many metric shit tons of dirt.
 
If you had a 336, with a good sized bucket, it wouldn’t get you anymore than 1.5CY capacity for anything under 5’ wide. Your going to need a big bucket with some serious power to move the volume.

That’s going to take some time to excavate regardless of what equipment you use.

The dozer can be used to finish grade.
 
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rockcity said:
If you had a 336, with a good sized bucket, it wouldn’t get you anymore than 1.5CY capacity for anything under 5’ wide.

That’s going to take some time to excavate regardless of what equipment you use.
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I think it's an E45, but I'm too lazy to look up the thread.

Regardless, assuming your time is not a factor, the biggest issue will be sloping, which will lead to a wider ditch, which will lead to a massive volume of dirt, which will lead to a transportation/placement issue. Since it's pretty easy/repetitive digging, you could get away cheaper, in the neighborhood of $70-80/hr I guess. I prefer to quote stuff by the job, and for something that big, I would just pass unless the dirt can be spilled out along the sides, which seems like it would defeat the purpose of the ditch. Are they sure they want 10ft deep?
 
I've got a Bobcat 337, if it matters. IIRC, the reach is 18 ft.

It'll be in Swansboro, not entirely sure what the ground is like....if I had to guess, there's probably some sand in there somewhere. I haven't laid eyes on it yet, so there could be a different way to do it. This was just what he asked about, so I'm just going with it.

If I dug a 10 ft hole at my house...well...that'd just be a pond. It would be full of water before I could get done.
 
Croatan_Kid said:
I've got a Bobcat 337, if it matters. IIRC, the reach is 18 ft.

It'll be in Swansboro, not entirely sure what the ground is like....if I had to guess, there's probably some sand in there somewhere. I haven't laid eyes on it yet, so there could be a different way to do it. This was just what he asked about, so I'm just going with it.

If I dug a 10 ft hole at my house...well...that'd just be a pond. It would be full of water before I could get done.
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If it’s in swansboro, it’s likely type C and I’d be willing to bet will fill up with water real quick.
 
I figured if it was 10 ft across at the top that would be plenty. I can't imagine how much water they think moves through that place...
 
The best grader in town is $800 a day for 2 men running 2 pieces of equipment. Plus material. I.e. gravel etc (for reference)

You can charge by the hour. Or by the day. But you have to cover enough cost to maintain equipment and/or cover a catastrophic failure on site. You may price it at $5000 but break $10,000 in parts

BTW, the grader I told you about wont price a job bigger than cutting out a house foundation. He does time/material. OR he prices it so high you get a second opinion
 
I'd like to do it so I can:

-Have something to do
-Get some use out of my equipment
-Make some money
-Help out a friend

My initial thought was that it would be too damn big for me to accomplish. Who knows, maybe I was right.


Oh...they do have a skid steer that they could move the dirt with, thankfully.
 
How long does it take you to fill up a dump truck?

Multiply that time by 175 and that will be how long it takes to do this job, not counting grading or placing spoils, etc.
 
rockcity said:
How long does it take you to fill up a dump truck?

Multiply that time by 175 and that will be how long it takes to do this job, not counting grading or placing spoils, etc.
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This is both an exaggeration and a calculated fact!
 
Sounds like a big job, but if your willing to give it a go, you probably better off paid by hour, with the understanding you may adjust the cost at the finish. Cost could go either way, depending on how the job goes. What would you or he do, if you run into Rock? Water, sewer, gas, electrical, unknown buried material? Just some thoughts, & Surprises I've Seen!
 
rodney eppes said:
. What would you or he do, if you run into Rock? Water, sewer, gas, electrical, unknown buried material? Just some thoughts, & Surprises I've Seen!
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Or some nosey neighbor calls DENR on you
 
He will be better off hiring someone with a larger excavator that can do the work faster. Your machine is way too small for a ditch that size. Now if you don't care about the money and are just doing it for fun, $20/hr. Because he could pay someone with a larger machine to do the same job in 1/4 the time it will take you. Honestly, if he pays you $20/hr I am not so sure he still couldn't get it done cheaper by someone else.

Your bucket although it might be 3' wide won't hold near the amount of dirt a larger excavator will hold. A 30k lb excavator (which is small when it comes to excavators) would probably hold 4x what your bucket will hold.
 
You need a lot more machine I have a kx040 at work no way would I attempt that, get you a bigger machine and knock it out in a day
 
Perhaps a mass burial site? Underground bunker? The mole people? Who knows? I really don't think they thought it out very much either. If they want a retention pond, I could definitely go about it a little differently....same if they just want to route water somewhere else.
 
That's a massive ditch and not really feasible. 10' wide and 10' deep is a trench. You have to slope the sides. Where's all the excess soil going? Is it going to be seeded, rip rapped? That size of a ditch is something more like you would use out west...or is it going to be a moat? lol
I would charge $100 an hour. Thats a lot of wear and tear on your machine.
 
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