What Is The Hourly Rate A Tree Removal Company Charge For Their Services?
Understanding the Hourly Rates of Tree Removal Companies: Insights from Truco Services, Inc.
When faced with the need to remove a tree from your property, it’s essential to consider the cost of hiring a professional tree removal company. Many factors influence the pricing of tree removal services, and understanding these factors can help you estimate the hourly rates of such companies. In this article, we will explore the key considerations that affect the hourly rates charged by tree removal companies, with a particular focus on Truco Services, Inc. By understanding the cost factors involved, you can make informed decisions when selecting a tree removal service provider.
Factors Influencing Hourly Rates:
Tree Size and Complexity:
The size, height, and complexity of the tree to be removed significantly impact the hourly rate. Larger trees require more time, specialized equipment, and a higher level of expertise. Truco Services, Inc. takes into account the size and complexity of the tree when determining their hourly rates, ensuring that the costs align with the level of work involved.
Location and Accessibility:
The location of the tree on your property and its accessibility can affect the hourly rate. If the tree is situated in a challenging location or requires additional precautions due to nearby power lines or structures, it may increase the time and effort required for the removal. Truco Services, Inc. considers the accessibility of the tree during their pricing process.
Additional Services:
Additional services such as stump grinding, stump removal, or debris cleanup may incur extra costs. These services require specialized equipment and additional labor, contributing to the overall hourly rate. Truco Services, Inc. offers comprehensive tree removal services, including stump grinding and removal, ensuring that their pricing incorporates all necessary tasks.
Tree Health and Condition:
The health and condition of the tree can impact the complexity of the removal process. Dead, diseased, or hazardous trees may require extra precautions or specialized techniques, which can affect the hourly rate. Truco Services, Inc. takes into account the tree’s health and condition when pricing their services, ensuring that the removal process is safe and efficient.
Insurance and Equipment:
Tree removal companies, including Truco Services, Inc., invest in insurance coverage and specialized equipment to ensure the safety of their workers and clients. The costs associated with insurance premiums and equipment maintenance contribute to the hourly rates charged by these companies. Truco Services, Inc. prioritizes safety and maintains the necessary insurance coverage and equipment to provide reliable and professional tree removal services.
Truco Services, Inc.’s Pricing Approach:
Truco Services, Inc. adopts a comprehensive approach when determining their hourly rates for tree removal services. They consider various factors, including tree size and complexity, location and accessibility, additional services required, tree health and condition, and the costs associated with insurance and equipment.
Truco Services, Inc. recognizes the importance of transparent pricing and aims to provide clients with accurate and competitive rates for their tree removal needs. By assessing the specific requirements of each project, they ensure that their hourly rates reflect the level of expertise, labor, and equipment needed to complete the job safely and efficiently.
Conclusion:
When hiring a tree removal company, understanding the factors that influence hourly rates is crucial in estimating the cost of the project. Truco Services, Inc. exemplifies a professional tree removal service provider that considers various factors such as tree size, location, additional services, tree health, and the costs associated with insurance and equipment. By providing transparent pricing and comprehensive services, they ensure that their hourly rates align with the specific needs of their clients.
When seeking tree removal services, it’s advisable to request quotes from reputable companies like Truco Services, Inc. They can assess your specific requirements, provide accurate pricing estimates, and deliver high-quality tree removal services that prioritize safety and customer satisfaction.
A feller buncher is a type of harvester used in logging. It is a motorized vehicle with an attachment that can rapidly gather and cut a tree before felling it.
Feller is a traditional name for someone who cuts down trees, and bunching is the skidding and assembly of two or more trees. A feller buncher performs both of these harvesting functions and consists of a standard heavy equipment base with a tree-grabbing device furnished with a chain-saw, circular saw or a shear—a pinching device designed to cut small trees off at the base. The machine then places the cut tree on a stack suitable for a skidder, forwarder, or yarder for transport to further processing such as delimbing, bucking, loading, or chipping.
Some wheeled feller bunchers lack an articulated arm, and must drive close to a tree to grasp it.
In cut-to-length logging a harvester performs the tasks of a feller buncher and additionally does delimbing and bucking.
Components and Felling attachment
Feller buncher is either tracked or wheeled and has self-levelling cabin and matches with different felling heads. For steep terrain, tracked feller buncher is being used because it provides high level of traction to the steep slope and also has high level of stability. For flat terrain, wheeled feller buncher is more efficient compared to tracked feller buncher. It is common that levelling cabins are matched with both wheeled and tracked feller buncher for steep terrain as it provides operator comfort and helps keeping the standard of tree felling production. The size and type of trees determine which type of felling heads being used.
Types of felling heads
Disc Saw Head – It can provide a high speed of cutting when the head is pushed against the tree. Then, the clamp arms will hold the tree when the tree is almost completed cutting. It is able to cut and gather multiple trees in the felling head. The disc saw head with good ground speed could provide high production which allows it to keep more than one skidders working continuously.
Shear Blade Head – It is placed against the tree and the clamp arms will hold the tree firmly. Then, the blade will activate and start cutting the tree. Same as disc saw head, it can hold multiple trees before they are placed on the ground.
Chain Saw Head – The floppy head provides minimal control to place the trees on the ground. It might not suit to collect the cut trees or gather the cut stems in the felling head.
Productivity
Comparing other harvesting systems such as chainsaw and harvester, feller buncher has the relatively high productivity among them. The weekly production of the feller buncher was 627 cubic meters of usable logs, while the chainsaw system and harvester system could produce 163 cubic meters and 239 cubic meters respectively. There are several factors affecting the level of productivity of the feller buncher. They include characteristics of stand, terrain conditions, operation location, and the performance of the operator. Many studies indicated that the trees size and the gradient of the slope are the major factors impacting the overall productivity. There was a research suggested that productivity has a significant positive relationship with the tree size which means the larger stem size, larger tree height or larger diameter at breast height (DBH) results in a high productivity of the feller buncher. Terrain conditions such as ground slope and terrain roughness have a significant negative relationship to the productivity of feller buncher which means the steeper of the land or rough terrain condition can bring negative effect to the productivity. One of the studies had found that feller buncher might reduce its productivity when performing operation on a very uneven surface with slopes of more than 20%. However, larger tree size does not necessarily lead to high productivity. The same study compared the operation time when performing clear-cut of the stands with two different average DBH, 24.6 cm and 34.3 cm respectively. Result showed that the productivity when operating the second stand decreased by 32.3% because the time consumption was doubled when larger stands required two-stage of cutting operation.
Cost-effectiveness
The purchase cost of a feller buncher is around $180,000 and its fuel consumption and lubricant consumption is high among other mechanical harvesting equipment. The feller buncher also has the highest hourly cost which is around $99.5 when comparing other equipment such as a harvesters and grapple skidders. Although the total cost of feller buncher is high in overall, the unit production price is the lowest which explains why feller buncher is considered the most cost-effective harvesting equipment. The average unit cost of the feller buncher is $12.1/m3 while the unit cost of the harvesters is $16.5/m3. The unit cost of the feller buncher is primary affected by the tree size and the tree volume. The unit felling cost is lower when the tree size increased. For example, tree with 5 inches at DBH has the unit cost of $70 while tree with 15 inches at DBH has the unit cost of $12. As the cost of feller buncher is high, only large tree volume can produce more profit to cover the high average cost. In terms of stump height, lower stump height can maximise the use of natural resources and prevent wood waste. Mechanical felling such as using feller buncher can prevent 30% of value loss caused by the high stumps.
Maintenance
Feller buncher requires daily maintenance before operation and some components only require periodic maintenance. It could ensure the safety of operators and all the workers around the operation. If damaged or faulty machine is operated, it could result in further damage to the machine which can be more expensive to repair.
Daily or Every 8 hours
Modern style Tigercat feller buncher. Commonly referred to as a tree cutter.
Lubrication
The felling head is considered one of the hardest part of the feller buncher and it is necessary to apply lubricant to every joint for daily maintenance. It is suggested to apply lubricant to saw head clamps, wrist attachment and driveshaft bearings during every maintenance. The use of grease should meet the extreme pressure performance standard and contains 3% of molybdenum disulphide (MoS2). MoS2 can prevent the wear takes place where the metal to metal contact exists.
Fuel
It is also important to check if there is enough fuel for the operation. Feller bunchers use diesel fuel to generate power. In most of the cases, the fuel is preferably to have cetane number greater than 50 (minimum 40). This is suitable when undergo operation for temperature below -20 °C (-4 °F) or elevations more than 1500m (5000 Ft.). The Cloud Point of the fuel is preferably at least 5 °C (9 °F) lower than the expected low temperature. It is also suggested that the sulphur content of the fuel should not be more than 0.5% as it could reduce 50% of the service interval for the engine oil and filter.
Older style felling head that uses a bar and chain to cut trees instead of the more modern saw disk.
Engine coolant
Operators have the responsibility to check the engine coolant level of the feller buncher before starting the engine. The coolant prevents cylinder linear erosion and pitting, and provides protection during extremely low temperature for up to -37 °C (-34 °F). It is recommended to use coolants for heavy-duty engines which are relatively low silicate ethylene glycol base. There are two forms of coolants: pre-diluted or concentrate. Water is required to dilute the concentrated coolant with an approximate ratio of 50:50. The use of supplemental coolant addictive might be also required in the concentrated coolant in order to provide protection against corrosion. Distilled, deionised, or demineralised water is suggested for mixing the concentrated coolant because when some water compositions mix with other substances could form a precipitate, causing damage or blockage in the engine.
Risk management approach
During maintenance, there are common working hazards related to two main areas: working environment and exhaust system. When working on the exhaust system, be aware of the hot components around the engine. Workers could wear personal protective equipment such as safety spectacles, heat-proof gloves and safety boots. When feller buncher is elevated for service or maintenance, falls from height might happen. Related injuries could be avoided by ensuring dryness of all the walking surface, wiping any oils or other liquid substances on the floor. Also, ensure the feller buncher is parked on a level and stable ground during maintenance. When getting in and out of the machinery, workers are suggested to use three point of contact with two hands holding the handrails and one foot on a step. It is also important to provide sufficient lighting for all the working sites at all time of service.
Safety
Logging is considered one of the most dangerous occupations. This is because many loggers are injured by the falling objects which are large in size and heavy. “Struck by object” is the most common injuries that reported in the logging industry due to the manual use of equipment during the logging procedures. There is evidence that using mechanized harvesting equipment could reduce the rate of “struck by” injuries. One study indicates that total injury claims could be reduced by 14.2%, while the “struck by” injuries could be reduced by 8.2%, when comparing the changes before and after the use of feller buncher. The significant decline in the number of “struck by” injuries after using the feller buncher in the logging companies supported the statement that using mechanized harvesting equipment could lessen overall injuries. The evidence also found that the rate of injuries in the logging companies without using feller bunchers had increased slightly throughout a period of time, increasing from 14.5% to 17.5%, in five years. In terms of trees fatality, areas with lower levels of mechanization in harvesting resulted in higher rate of trees fatality. For instance, in Eastern areas of the United States, research which compared the conventional and mechanized logging operations, indicated the number of injuries, when using the conventional approach, is three times greater than that of using the mechanized equipment such as a feller buncher. However, mechanized related injury could be raised accordingly, especially when performing machine maintenance or repair. These kinds of injuries could be serious and also costly.
