Last week, I finally formed and insured my business entity: Leo Bulldozing, L.L.C. and am now actively seeking light dozer work in Central Texas. By the end of the year I plan to leave my 'day job' to do this full time. Bid my first formal job yesterday and already have an informal backlog of work where folks have said they have work for the machine when I do get up and going. More as the saga progresses...
best of luck.... tryin to do that here in Jersey it would be quicker to buy a bullet and rent a gun
Why?
Good luck to you, scrapers have always been my bread & butter. I could not survive on a dozer only operation in my area.
Bigpete Goodluck hope it goes well for you,if there is only half the work on there as here (downunder) you will do OK,CHEERS
What type of equipment did you buy to get started?
Cause thats gonna be the only things you'll need once the bank is empty ointhead
I have a Komatsu D20P-6 with a 6-way blade. Small enough to pull it on my 20' float with my F-250.
Thank Gawd Texas is different than New Jersey. Plenty of work down here.
Welcome to HEF bigpete.
What part of central Texas are you close to?
Good Luck!
We'll be operating in the Rockdale/Cameron/Caldwell area but the actual HQ is near Milano, TX.
Welcome to HEF bigpete! :drinkup
Good for you! Just remember, people are stingy when it comes time to pay their bills. So prelim, prelim, prelim! If they have a problem with it, they probably weren't planning on paying you in a timely manner. The object of the game is to make money. Know what your operating cost is including your own wages then mark it up. If you cant make a profit and set money aside, why bother even unloading your machine? Break downs will happen no matter what. You need to save if you you want to survive! Also, you need to be like an octopuss...keep as many feet in as many doors as you can. Best of luck to you.... And never be afraid to ask for help or advice...
Thanks ROP! I hear what you're saying about the money.
RLeo, What is the going rate for your size machine? Down south of you the rate is about $80.00-$90.00/Hr for a 20k-30k size machine. I do not know how you can pay for the machine, fuel, maintenance and turn a decent profit! Am I missing something here?
Yes, the rest of the story is that the machine was paid for in cash (no debt service), I'm renting the haul truck from my father on a per/mile basis (however, I cover all the commercial insurance on the vehicles and the business liability) and I already owned the trailer (it's my big hay trailer). I also have accesss to some really cheap, but good, health insurance through my Bride's retirment plan. I already do all my own maintenance on every other piece of machinery I own, and this dozer won't be any different. So, technically, you could say that the operation is subsidized. OTOH, I gave Dad a couple of acres at the farm so they could put up a little house and get away from the Texas coast. I did all the prep and utilities for his place and have built all the porches and stairs for his house so there's some sweat equity I've invested too. The details: It's a 9000# machine and from what I can tell, the rate here for a small dozer is anywhere from $50-$75hr. I charge $65/hr with a 4 hr minimum but, that's an old number (last summer), and I'll probably have to go up soon because of fuel. There are a couple of outfits doing dozer work here but all they have are huge machines and their fees are high because of the cost of transporation. My bread and butter will be the 2-3 day job that the big guys can't or won't do. I'm sure not worried taking any food off their table because, in the beginning when I called them about doing some work for me, it took over 4 weeks to return my call and another 6 to give me a bid. Sounds like they're busy enough to me.
It sounds like you may be on to something filling a void.You do not have to worry about a CDL. I wish you the best of luck . By the way how did you decide on the d20?
That's what I'm thinking is that the big operators can't/don't want those jobs that take 1/2 day...however, with fuel prices doing what they're doing, I may have to rethink the hourly rate or come up with a reasonable fee structure for covering the cost of getting the machine to the job that treats both my customer and me fairly. FWIW, the initial selection of a D20 was based on this: 1) Had to be an affordable machine for me (<$18,000) 2) Must be able to be transported with the existing pick-up/trailer rig that I have (<11000lbs) 3) High parts availability (no Chinese or Indian stuff) 4) Simplicity (no shuttle shift) I did some web research and determined that Komatsu had the best parts support for small gray-market dozers and, that the -5 was harder to get parts for than the later -6 and -7s. Mistubishis are supposed to be impossible to find parts for, and there weren't any JDs in my price range that weren't totally clapped out. Cats were too expensive and heavy. I chose a direct drive but now, understand that the shuttle shift tranny is just as reliable and more productive. If I did it again, I'd buy a shuttle shift but my D20 will still get most everything done just fine.
The new leaf I'm curious how things are going down there with your new business. Are you booked for a while or are you at the house? Is your dozer limiting you to the point that you wish you had gone another route or is it just fine?
bigpete Yeah i too am curious to know how the plan is unfolding?. How the machine is standing up to it? How much work you have turned up? And what sort of money per hour you have desided you need to stay solvent in that neck of the woods? Lets hear from you Mate. cheers:drinkup
Today was my last day at my old 8-5 desk job...I'm in it deep now. Basically, I started a little classified advertising at the beginning of December and got six or seven calls in about 10 days time. Of those calls, four turned into appointments to actually go to the sites and bid work. Of those four, three have turned into a total of 7-8 days of booked work and I'll start on them beginning the 26th. However, one of those four jobs is something I'm not sure I want to get into and really isn't dozer work...it's drainage problems where a manufactured house site was poorly preped and located. That job has lawsuit written all over it...I'll probably advise the client that I cannot do the work she needs with the machinery I have. On the other hand, one of the jobs I booked has materialized into a really good lead with a regional manufactured housing outfit. I'll explore that to see if we can work together to provide them with some contract site prep service. I haven't advertised since the beginning of December because I don't think that enough people will be looking for dozer work over the holidays to justify the ads. I'll ramp my ads back up after the first of the year. One of my additional advertising methods is to place nail-up signs with my phone number near the jobs I do. I also plan to stop off at every title house, real estate office, feed store, lumber yard and car parts hut near a job and drop off my business cards. are you at the house? ...hehe, one of the reasons I quit the 8-5 was that I also have personal project I'm working on (finishing a cabin at my farm so that I can sell our house in town this spring) so, until I can get that structure habitable, I really don't have the time to work the machine too much. I haven't come across anything it can't do... like I said earlier, if I knew what I know now, I'd have bought a D21 but, I'm nowhere near getting everything out of this machine yet. I have a lot to learn. Hope this helps.
I'm billing out at $65/hr with a 4hr minmum. That number is a SWAG based on surveys on machine rates done by various state ag extension offices and it may change after I get some hours in and a little more experience. Also, I don't charge a delivery/transportation fee (it's the minimum hours) but that too may change once I get some time in and can see what my variable costs are going to be. Meanwhile, I have a really good handle on the number of hours the iron needs to bill each month to make it's nut and I watch the hours and expenses like a hawk to analyze what it takes to make this all work. I can't tell a whole lot about machine reliability yet...in working the machine around my farm, it's seems to be capable and always does what's asked of it. I did split a hose from the wet clutch to the oil cooler that stopped me for a day while I figured it out and repaired the problem. The hose was OEM and, I suspect, failed because of age. No doubt, the other lines will need to be replaced soon and I'll start doing that systematically, after the first of the year. I have purchased a spare fan belt and a set of radiator hoses to have on the truck in case I skewer a hose with a tree limb or something. The sprockets were replaced at some point in the not too distant past and all the rollers appear to work OK. But the machine is about a 60%-70% on the pins so, I know pins/rails are in my future but when I get there, I may sell it and buy a newer D21.
Yeah, interested here too, R. For a while now I've thought about a business in the small dozer arena......something bigger than your D-20 but smaller than the proverbial D-5/6 than so many operators run. TD-7/8....JD 450/550.....D-3/4.....D-37....etc.....that one could move with a 1-ton and gooseneck yet still do some work with. Not a tank-building dirt mover but a good utility rig that could be used on semi-urban jobs, mesquite clearing, roadbuilding, etc. and charging somewhere in the same neighborhood as you are doing. Good luck!
Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums JoeinTX! :drinkup
Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums JoeinTX! Thanks, but a welcome is not all that necessary. I've been haunting this joint for quite a while perusing the posts and drooling over pics. "Playboy" is nice but they just don't have the sweet pics of beautiful yellow iron that people "like us" all love... My joy is dozers and trackloaders....but all of them are all-right in my book. Happy dozering, everyone.....
Isn't Playboy read "just" for the articles? Welcome to HEF :drinkup
Day two of job one. Like the title says, day two of job one. I'm clearing 3+ acres of mesquite too thick to be able to walk through...fortunately, dozer has no problem with it and today feel like I got my stride, clearing about 9/10 of an acre in right at 6.5 hours. I think I'm pretty productive but have nothing to gauge my work against...and, every time I climb on, I learn something new. I have discovered some things that I'm going to change on the iron... the throttle needs some sort of guard to keep branches from hitting it the brush cab definitely needs side guards and sweeps before I do another clearing job And, I can't say enough good about that little dozer...it barely uses any fuel; a little over 1/2 gallon per hour. I'll post pics soon.
First of all, Leo congrats. on your new endevor. Thats what made our country is people willing to take a chance and work hard to make it. The story of the "Little Red Hen" isnt told much any more. You work hard and take the risk, and every one else wants it. Dont aim to hi-jack your thread, or bore you with a long story. But I started out just like you. I had owned and run a auto-truck repair shop for over 30 years and was approching the age where I was going to start getting my socalist security and wanting to still stay busy and have fun too. About seven years ago I waws bulding my own house and developing another property. I needed some dozer work done, from time to time, just small jobs, a hour or two, more than I wanted to do with my tractor and scraper blade. I had three dilfferent dozers out to do small jobs. I fully understand the cost of doing business and I know that you have to have a minumin to do a job. But to charge for four hours and not give you a good 2 hours or I could do move the same amount with my tractor in 4 hours. And half the time they were working on their dozer trying to keep the tracks on (one guy could make left turns only) or keeping it running. I decided to purchase a small dozer. I was dumber than a bale of hay but still knew what I wanted and some how to go about it. First I learned that the 2 or 3 big dozer makers had not made a small (10,000lbs) since about 1985. Meaning most were old or wore out. I wanted to stay with the "tinker toy" dozers because I could use my 1 ton dump to pull it and my existing trailer, without going to CDL, more insurance, and bigger eqipt to move it. I ran onto a little Massey Ferguson 200B (1985) that I noticed had been sitting in a field for about 2 years. I tracked the owner down, he said the wireing had caught on fire from mice in it. I made him a offer, he took it. I got the dozer to the shop, rewired it and started doing the small dozer jobs I got it for. One day I had it in the shop painting it, and a customer came in who was in the septic business for me to work on his truck and recognized the dozer and said his dad had purchased it new, owned it for a few years and sold it. We got to talking and he asked me if I would be intersted in doing some dozer work, after hours and on Sat. (I was still running the repair shop) He said I could close up after he did a septic instillation and he could move his crew and back hoe on to another silte. All he had at time was a back hoe and that is not very efficent in closing up and smoothing out a leach field. We agreed on a price and things progressed smoothly. I made money and he save alot by being more efficent with his crew. Wasnt too long and I would pick up other jobs from the home owners, and others would call me to come over and do a small job tha other dozer operators would not do. There were alot of operators with JD and Case 450 but just didnt want the small jobs. I learned that if it is painted "yellow" you get out the "green" when you needed parts. It even seemed like the yellow paint cost more than the blue, green, or orange. I found that parts for the ** were non existant. It was made in Italy. I had it painted up and looking really good, some farmer made me a real good offer on it. I sold it and bought a little Case 350. It was a pretty low hour machine but still a old dozer (1983) I also had to do a little work on it and give it a good paint job. (I like my equipt, looking good and dependable and ready to go to a job) I used the Case for awhile but it wasnt the dozer the ** was. I was made a real good offer offer on it by a kid who just got out of high school and wanted to do some dozer work on his farm. I sold it and made a good profit. I never liked the JD 350's. I run onto a little Allice Challmers HD4 (1962) that was in really good shape. (Been kept inside) It needed a complete undercarrilage. ( I found a complete set of tracks, rollers, and front idlers for $3000.) After getting it going I had a nice little dozer. I think Allice had the best of the "tinker toy dozers". I really liked it but it was a 1962 and only parts available were used. ( I never really needed any thing I could not locate) Things progressed pretty good with my work and I closed my shop and retilred from the repair business and kept doing small dozer jobs and working for the septic contractor. He came to me and asked if I would be intersted in getting more involved and more work. (I had also bought a skid steer) and asked if I would be intersted in using it to help him. I said yes. He was getting fustrated with help, insurance, taxes, and general employee complaning. So he let them go and just him and I did the work and he would use a "gofer kid" to help. I made some good money and he made alot of money by eliminating the help. This went on for a coupls of years then he was offered a good sum for his company, by a larger company who had all the eqipt and full crew. This left me back to doing jobs on my own. I kept my little dozer pretty busy. In the winter months, I bought a cab and chasis, and found a old "field jenny tank" and made up a septic pumper and got my license. I just wanted to stay busy, pay my taxes on my property and make a few dollars. I didnt want to expand. I enjoyed the dozer work. Last year I thought about updating my dozer and there just wasnt any thing newer. The Case 350 or JD 350 are no longer made and Allice went south a long time ago. All that was left was the little Komatsu 20 series a the Mitsubishi Bd. I looked for over a year, most were wore out, or rusted pretty bad, and I couldnt see sellling a good old dozer in A-1 shape for something newer, wore out or rusted. I finally found a 1998 Mitsubishi BD2J with only 700 hours on it. It looked to be in good shape and not rusted. I had looked at a few Komatsu's and talked to used dealers who sold both. They felt the Mitsubishi was a better dozer, but parts very hard to come by and no one to work on theml. Where the Komatsu, you could get parts for them at least. I stilll purchased the Mitsubishi. It steers like a dream compared to the other dozers, and at my age, 6 or 8 hours is a killer on a dozer. (I still dont think it is the dozer the Allis was) Rollover Pete give you some good advice, "keept the doors open with octpus tenicals, equiptment will need repair." I think there is a nitch in the job market for the fellow with the really small dozer. I know you cannot do what the guys do with the larger dozers or as much work in a days time. But there are alot of small jobs they wont touch. Last year I had some one call me from over 100 miles away to come and give a estimate. I went and looked at the job and told him " cant you fine some one local." I had seen severs 450';s sitting around. He said no one wants to work. I told him I would have to charge for travel time. He said just do the job, you are the only one who came out to look at it. I made some good money. (By the way I ran on the high scool kid I sold the little Case 350 not long ago. He did the same thing and said he had the money saved up to buy a almost new JD 450 as his business had out grew the Case 350. So be positive in your work, give a honest days work for a honest days pay and good luck.
John, Thanks for the great story and words of encouragement. You have done exactly what I'm hoping to achieve. My business philosophy is pretty simple: Always do what you say you're going to do. And, give people more than what they're paying for. I honestly believe that that by following those two guiding principles, success has to follow.
Here's a little fenceline clearing job I did today: http://berryhillfarm.us/Dozer/Mitschke_Before-AfterLR.jpg And another little clearing job yesterday: http://berryhillfarm.us/Dozer/Schwab_Before-After.jpg
Yes you can do quite a bit with thease little dozers, if you just take your time. They certianly more fuel efficent than a larger one. Eaiser to load up and haul also.
That looks good:drinkup :drinkup
People seem amazed by what I can get done with that little jigger. And, I can be on the ground and working 10-15 minutes after I arrive at the job. Loading takes a little longer...15-20 minutes.
It's now apparent that, while the dozer can do it, the brush cab built by the prior owner isn't up to the task of clearing heavy brush. The left side screen looks like I've been in combat, taking RPG fire in Bagdhad. Additionally, I'll have to build some side screens for the engine enclosure because while backing up the other day, I managed to ram a good sized branch into the backside of the fan and clipped off about 30% of the back edge of the fan blades. I still can't believe people are paying me to do this stuff.
R Leo, You are doing almost the same thing I am wanting to do. Alot of business around here for that kind of small work. I have a day job that pays quite well but I've always wanted to do something on the side. Last year I had about 50 acres of timber clear cut on my farm. I bought a Cat D3 to do the clean-up work after all the timber was out. I'm not quite done yet with the clean-up just yet, but it got me to thinking about keeping the dozer and doing some work in my off time. I work a 12hour shift, so I'm at my real job three days one week and four the next so that gives me all kinds of time to have a side business. My brother-in-law owns his own trucking company so transportation of the dozer is not a problem. Just thinking about it right now but it might turn into something more.
Terry, welcome to HEF. Good luck with your enterprise. What seriese Cat do you have? And how do you like it?
I probably couldn't have done this a few years ago because I had to have a regular income to get kids through college, etc.. but, nowadays I can afford to have an erratic revenue stream and just sit back and have fun. There have been the unfun days too...like when I was moving the iron about three weeks ago: I looked into the mirror and say nothing but white smoke/dust behind the trailer. I stopped and discovered that the right rear trailer wheel now only held the beads of the tire that had once been there. The fun had only just begun because it was about then when I found that the trailer spare I'd been carrying had the correct bolt pattern but the hub cutout wasn't the right size. I will not go into what I had to do on a Sunday evening just to get home...but, at least it wasn't raining. BTW, I untracked the little jigger yesterday. I was excavating around a huge post oak, unavoidably doing it side slope too, getting ready to push it over when I heard an unusual noise. She'd walked the right track off of the idler and it was up against the blade frame. I just reversed the motion and it went right back on. Whew..close call.
I probably couldn't have done this a few years ago because I had to have a regular income to get kids through college, etc.. but, nowadays I can afford to have an erratic revenue stream and just sit back and have fun. There have been the unfun days too...like when I was moving the iron about three weeks ago: I looked into the mirror and say nothing but white smoke/dust behind the trailer. I stopped and discovered that the right rear trailer wheel now only held the beads of the tire that had once been there. The fun had only just begun because it was about then when I found that the trailer spare I'd been carrying had the correct bolt pattern but the hub cutout wasn't the right size. I will not go into what I had to do on a Sunday evening just to get home...but, at least it wasn't raining. BTW, I untracked the little jigger yesterday. I was excavating around a huge post oak, unavoidably doing it side slope too, getting ready to push it over when I heard an unusual noise. She'd walked the right track off of the idler and it was up against the blade frame. I just reversed the motion and it went right back on. Whew..close call.
Legdoc, It's a Cat D3B. So far it has done everything that I've needed it to. I've operated a Case dozer and a few Komatsu dozers in the past and so far I like the Cat just as well. R Leo, I plan on keeping the regular job regardless, but since I have so much time off I figured I could do these small 1-3 day jobs in my spare time. I was also thinking about putting a classified ad in a local paper or two this spring for light dozer work. Any suggestions? Wording, size of ad, etc.?
The only advertising that I've done is to post in the Craigslist under "farm/ranch - for sale" ...I placed ads in the three Craigslist sites that are closest to where I want to work.o I regularly go in and update the ads so they are close the top. Since I started the ad campaign in December, the Criagslist ads have generated two or three jobs and maybe 6-7 inquiries. I also have had screen printed signs made to nail up on telephone poles or fence posts. They are the same size as a real estate sign and only have the words: "Light Dozer Work" and my 800 number. I haven't had an opportunity to put any up yet. The other thing I want to do is go to all the towns in my service area and drop off business cards at every real estate office, title company, feed store, hardware store and auto parts house.
R Leo, Thanks for the info. It will be helpful when the time comes. Good luck!
how has it been going since the last time
Pretty good. I've got as much work as I can do right now (having to attend to some health issues with my family the last few weeks) but need to ramp it up sometime in the next few weeks. I currently have 2 jobs backlogged, another one scheduled for this Friday and another to go bid next week. Life is good. R
Leo, How did that grease problem turn out?
iron The iron has been sitting on the trailer for about 2-weeks while I took care of my Dad and stepmother...so nothing has been done to the fittings. I've got a job scheduled for Friday and I'll pull the rig into the shop when I'm done with that one and dig into this thing...when it's on the trailer, I can get to the problem pins and zerks pretty easily. Plus, if I have to support the blade frame, I can set a bottle jack in place on a level surface (the trailer deck) and support it.