Mother Teressa would cuss

@true-corner

I'm glad I did not get it but the frustration is with
the fact that someone is doing it for peanuts.
I reckon someone is doing it for $0.40 a foot which is
absolutely Pitiful and explains why so many surveyors
have old wore out equipment,  ragged out trucks,
crap offices, underpaid employees, no benefits,
no retirement,  etc.

I have been harping a lot lately about those subjects.

Posted by: @mathteacher

why is the cost per hour for tree marking so much more than the cost per hour for surveying?

Tree surveys are a pain. One company I worked for bid a tree survey by looking at an aerial photograph, which didn't show how dense the trees really were. You get clients who want the trees located for use in landscaping and for removal. For use in landscaping you want to be a little more precise with your locations.

@field-dog

I think this refers to painting trees to mark the boundary...we set lath on line as we traverse (adjust them to line later as necessary) then eyeball which trees to mark.

@dave-karoly

Exactly, blaze and paint the trees.

Posted by: @field-dog

Tree surveys are a pain....

They can be time consuming but if they are painful, you are doing them wrong.

Seriously, shoot the trees reflectorless and flag them as you go. This is one where it is useful to have a helper.?ÿ A manager who blows an estimate? - that's on them.

@just-a-surveyor

I've been in my own business for about 20 years and this is what I was told about 20 years ago about a fellow who owned his own survey company (who btw complained about low ballers).  Calculate your expenses, add what salary you want to make and figure how many billable hours you can realistically contract in a year.  40 hour week times 52 will total about 2000 hrs. but you probably won't be able to bill out 2000 hrs.  1000 or 1500 hrs is more like it.  So calculate your hourly wage based on these figures.  When a proposal comes along calculate your time to do the job by your hourly rate and leave it at that.  I've been doing that for 20 years and I've been able to pay my bills.  You want more?  Hire more people to increase your billable hours.  It's really a simple formula.

@norman-oklahoma

I understand. The pain I mentioned comes from situations like management telling us to locate all trees six inches and above, then after we've begun locating, change it to four inches.

@field-dog

Poor management will turn any endeavor into a pain in the .... rear. That doesn't make tree surveys, in general, particularly anything. I love any excuse to spend a day in the woods.

You got me curious enough to run the numbers as a S.W.A.G / R.S.E.

@half-bubble

I do believe you're missing the forest for the trees because there was a lot of research time as well as travel built into the cost and lets not forget the resetting of monuments, side ties, and going back through and blazing and painting the trees and transporting many gallons of paint into the woods. And of course drafting. Just getting to the job is approx a 1 hour drive and then getting to remote portions would have been a significant 4 wheeler ride with a lot of hiking. We estimated about 6 hours of actual work time a day based on a 8 hour day and that was quite ambitious.

Lincoln freed the slaves and I would not touch it for a penny less than my price unless there was a change in scope. Especially the 1923 acre one because that is some rough country covered up in rattle snakes and steep terrain.

If you can do a 1700 acre survey for $9100 everyone here should sub their work to you.

Posted by: @just-a-surveyor

because that is some rough country covered up in rattle snakes and steep terrain.

I've worked in Half-Bubble's neck of the woods and there is no rougher country anywhere. Original evidence is widely rotted away and/or logged off. No rattlesnakes, but the occasional grizzly bear.?ÿ IMHO he could justify doubling his estimate, but not quadrupling.?ÿ

@just-a-surveyor

I'm yankin' your chain just a little. I appreciate you putting your proposal thinking here to agitate some business discussion, and I'm trying to reverse engineer all the proposals, yours and the lowballers. True, I left out the office - research - drafting hours. Multiply by 1.67 and we're at your second lowest proposed price. Double it as Norman suggests and it would represent a one-to-one field to office ratio. Realistically my field to office ratio is more like 1 hour of field to 2.7 hours office, because I'm slow at drafting and do "too much" research. In some ways I'm still in student mode and tend to write off all the office stuff as "the homework" and just another part of the vow of poverty I seem to have taken when I left Big Tech IT to be a surveyor. That and the goal of not having an office, doing everything in the field, and having field-to-finish draw the map in seconds, so the field time includes much of the office time.

Part of my lower estimate is the ever present technology adoption issue in surveying: passing on the technology-enabled savings to the customer rather than keeping the profit. Another part of the race to the bottom, yet it affects what customers are willing to pay, what the market will bear, and so to "stay competitive" we upgrade. My pricing considers that I know various tricks for combining GPS and total station on a geodetic datum so that I can traverse under the canopy easily. Ten years ago it was fast and now it's slow compared to a Javad. If you rented a Javad for that job you could pretty much crush it without brushing anything and make enough to pay for the unit and then some. One Javad and some paint.

Curious what your field vs office time ratio is, and how many feet on average you can traverse in an hour on regular and "difficult" ground.

@half-bubble

So, what I am going to do is dissect some of your comments.

I appreciate you putting your proposal thinking here to agitate some business discussion, and I'm trying to reverse engineer all the proposals, yours and the lowballers.

It was not a proposal but rather a worksheet prepared for this forum, it has a number of things left off that I felt where not germane to the conversation but in hindsight maybe I should have just posted the whole darned thing here.

Realistically my field to office ratio is more like 1 hour of field to 2.7 hours office, because I'm slow at drafting

Holy cow that is slow. Are you getting lost in the weeds and focusing on the insignificant at the expense of the important?

and do "too much" research.

I’m liable to get lashed to a pole and flogged as a heretic but that is a treatable disease. Scope your jobs better and limit the research. It is easy to go off the deep end on research and spend many unbillable hours searching for things that are not there. If a full title search is needed have the client pull title on the property or you can build that into your costs and sub it to a title researcher.

In some ways I'm still in student mode and tend to write off all the office stuff as "the homework" and just another part of the vow of poverty I seem to have taken when I left Big Tech IT to be a surveyor.

I never took a vow of poverty, but I know of many who did, and they are still broke idiots who will never be able to retire and will die broken men in the woods with a machete in their hands. I am a blend of agnostic and deist and would suggest in total seriousness if you do not swear off this vow of poverty you will die a broke and penniless surveyor laughed and ridiculed for being a low baller.

That and the goal of not having an office, doing everything in the field, and having field-to-finish draw the map in seconds, so the field time includes much of the office time.

Can’t do it, trying to go without an office is not possible and you should abandon the quest. I can appreciate what your attempting, but it is just not practical.

Part of my lower estimate is the ever-present technology adoption issue in surveying: passing on the technology-enabled savings to the customer rather than keeping the profit.

Ok, at the risk of being deemed a jackass, you are a fool if that is your business philosophy. Who would invest in a lot of expensive equipment that allows us to do a job faster and then discount it for the customer? Look, I’m all about working smarter NOT harder but damn when I have $65k in equipment I am darned sure not gonna cut someone a break because I don’t have to traverse 5000 feet. The equipment that allows me to forego traversing cost a boatload of money and I am going to charge for it. If you feel like being charitable give to a local church or boy scout troop, heck help with their merit badges but do not discount your work because word will get around, guaranteed.

Another part of the race to the bottom, yet it affects what customers are willing to pay, what the market will bear, and so to "stay competitive" we upgrade.

We are not a charity so when you upgrade, you incur costs that must be passed on to the client otherwise you will become what this complaint is about.

My pricing considers that I know various tricks for combining GPS and total station on a geodetic datum so that I can traverse under the canopy easily. Ten years ago it was fast and now it's slow compared to a Javad.

It is not tricks, do not think of it as tricks, it is skill and knowledge that you have gained through years of hard work and effort and that is a marketable skillset to have. Your learned knowledge of how to do things faster and smarter is your niche and should not discount price it. Do not let profit guilt get its claws in you. Do not start feeling guilty of making a profit. It seems we have been conditioned to think that anything more that “X” is unseemly or sinful and I am the exact opposite. There is not one shred of profit guilt in me and never will be and that is due primarily to so many around me being cheaper than street walking hookers.

If you rented a Javad for that job you could pretty much crush it without brushing anything and make enough to pay for the unit and then some. One Javad and some paint.

A friend of mine has a Javad and he likes it and says it is quite capable.

Curious what your field vs office time ratio is, and how many feet on average you can traverse in an hour on regular and "difficult" ground.

I will be glad to discuss this and can send you a something that will help. If interested PM me your phone number and email. Serious, I will help if I can. My bite is much worse than my bark. ???ý ???ý  I would enjoy the conversation and sharing of knowledge.

@just-a-surveyor

Yep, Charge for the value of the job, not the time it takes. Unless it takes a long time then add some extra to the price for the extra time.

I work at a company and the owner (not me) sets the hourly rates. I know how long it would have taken the top party chief I ever worked with to do whatever job, then I double the hours to get to realistic, multiply times the rates, and poof...estimate. (real simple, yeah...long as nothing unknown pops up, and the calc is simple and on and on and on).

So a guy buying a million dollar property calls up and wants to know how much (that isnt a very big lot around here). $5000. He has a heart attack. Then he calls me back and tells me I am 2-3 times more than all the others, can I do better. No, I cannot, I do not set the rates, that is for the owner to do. He ends up going with us because we can get it done in his time frame. $5000 on a million dollar property, and no, that wasn't an ALTA. I told him it would probably be another $1000 or so for that.

Next call, a guy asks me what it takes to do a short plat so that I can compare apples to apples when I get quotes (he never has done a short plat). I tell him, there is no such thing as apples to apples. Everyone does more or less and different. It usually ends up costing the same no matter where you go, but that is hard to explain. I said, "There is no apples to apples, there is everyone else and there is us. We are different."?ÿ Thing is, every surveyor could say the same.

?ÿ