I thought I would share with you what happened last weekend. My brother in law has been working for over a year on a piece of property (94 acres) trying to get it ready to build a house. The clearing of trees and developing a road along with a house seat has been an extremely challenging for him and his 300 series Bobcat Excavator. Needless to say he has only completed the first 1200 feet of driveway in his quest to get to the home site another 2,600 feet away through heavy timbered area. Long story short, my wife asked if I could lend a hand at getting his property/home site ready so they could build a home this year. My wife’s family not knowing exactly what I did for a living and really not caring was surprised when I volunteered to help this past weekend. The only thing I said was “I’ll show up around 7:00 AM on Saturday and help anyway I can”. What I didn’t tell them was come Saturday morning I showed up with a PC400. The answer is yes, I may have been a little overweight but this is West Virginia, not a problem. The result; by lunch I had knocked down all the trees leading to the home site and cut the driveway well enough for my father in law to get his pickup through at 35 mph. The afternoon was spent clearing the home site, cutting the house seat and pilling up the trees for a big bonfire. I brought the PC400 home on Saturday and took back the PC75R on Sunday and dug the utility lines. By the end of the weekend he was ready for footers. I went back on Monday and dug his footers for him. I know what you’re all waiting to hear, “what did you paid”? Answer, One Subway 6” Chicken Bacon Ranch on wheat and a Diet Coke, easy on the ice. Family, gotta love it. :drinkup
It is my experience to do it for free or dont do it at all. Working for family always seems to lead to hard feeling from side or the other. My sister ( who I have a great relationship with) asked me for a price on doing some work on there driveway. I gave her a number to another local excavation co and told her it would be probably better if her husband called him for a price. IF they wanted me to do it I would have to do it for nothing. She went with the other guy.:crazy And we still have a great relationship
It's cool to watch the expression on peoples faces when you bring in the right size machine for the job and do it like it needs to be done. I've worked for friends before and have charged just the expenses of the machine(transport, fuel, operator, ect) with very little to no profit. Not a problem if you only do it once or twice a year, but then it can get expensive. As mentioned before, a favor evey now and then ain't that bad, but when someone takes advantage of the situation:badidea
I have leared not to work for friends or family inless you plan on doing it for free. I always like to help someone out if i can but that is hard to do with fuel prices. I went over to give a buddy of mine some advice on how to fix his driveway that kept washing out he had a bobcat for the weekend. well needless to say came back the next day with our d5 cat cut a swale and reclaimed most of his stone that washed away. not even a thank you or lunch just said it looks good. Ask for some help a couple of weeks later all i heard was it's my only day off. So i do the same thing give out some else name.
Thankfully all I expected was a thank you and maybe a few dollars for fuel but at least they bought me lunch.
They can't even pay you for the fuel? My old 690ELC is drinking $300 a day, how much did that 400 use?
The 400 is sitting in the yard and has yet to be fueled. Don't tell the guys, its something I always harp about, "fuel and grease the machine at the end of every shift".
when i do a project for family or friends they buy the fuel and pay the mob/demob on my equipment and buy the beer at the end of the day:drinkup those that know me, say the beer will be the biggest expense:beatsme.
Welcome to Heavy Equipment Forums WVBartMan! :drinkup