What would you use?

[bwa]

I am going to bid on 200 acres of mowing. The plant manager wants me to keep the acres kept like a golf course. Some buildings are on the premises but im not sure how much area they take up. I was wondering what type of euipment you guys would recommend on this job ztr's grooming mowers or what? Im sure someone cuts this amount at one job and if, what do you use?

[bwa]

Also how much would you charge if 150 acres need to be kept mowed?

[FreeRadical 45]

First question, are you the only one that will be mowing? I hope not unless you plan on spending the rest of your life on this one job!! Price, here in Indiana we get $35.00 to $60.00 an acre for residential depending on what neighborhood we are in. Indianapolis gets $45.00 to $80.00 and acre. Of a bigger concern to me on a job this size is how many mowers will you need to use in order to get it done timely. Figure that out and then you can figure your cost for a job this size. Is it a industrial complex that has several buildings on it? How much trimming? How much edging if any? Lots of unanswered variables.

[MortNuke]

I'd have to pass on it.

Mort

[dancom]

Well I don't think you can charge 40+ dollars an acre that would be 6,000.00 a cut or about 204,000.00 per year, that would be nice but I don’t think you would get the job. If you cut at top speed you will cut about 3.5 acres per hour per mower 150 acres would take about 43 hours for one mower. Not counting trimming. I would figure out how much trimming you need and add that to the total hours. If you think you have another 15 hours of trimming than I would add that to the 43 and make it 58 hours total. I would multiply the man-hours of 58 times your hourly rate of let’s say 40.00 and charge 2320.00 per cut. Or about 83,520.00 per year I am assuming you have around 36 cuts there. 40.00 per hour is just an arbitrary number you can use what ever your hourly rate is. I would not go to much less than that though. If you hire two people, I would definitely use two zero turns, to help and pay them 12.00 per hour your payroll will be 480.00 per week or 17,200 per year. Well you can do the math and see what you will have left over for equipment, gas, Taxes maintenance etc. and yourself

[BCSteel]

For 150 acres, I'd look into a wide area mower and a multiple year contract to pay for it.

[lawnrangeralaska]

I would get a big tractor with 9 foot or bigger reels to pull behind it!! or the fastest ztr out like a Hustler Super Z with the biggest deck an then buy like 4 of those!!

[Phil Nilsson]

What you use depends on how those acres "break down" into biggest size you can put on X acres of the total. Just because it's 200 acres doesn't mean you can get "big mowers" in there. Break the 200 acres down into parts ... match the best size mower to each mower size category. This will tell you how long each size mower will be on the job and whether any particular size mower can be "justisfied" from a cost and price standpoint.

If you found out that yes, you could fit a mower like this ...

http://www.jacobsen.com/product.asp?MID=1&FID=1&PID=3

... on the property but only for a small fraction of the total acres this will have a big impact on cost and bid price as well as length of contract.

[MGO]

Don't forget to figure in your COSTS....i.e. fuel, equipment depreciation, maint, etc.......

[xp356]

If it was me I would probably hire at least a two man crew and just let that be the only thing they do. Something that big probably would like to keep the beds maintained and the plants replaced if they die. Keep that in mind.

Around here I see the same 3 guys taking care of my full time job complex. They are doing it all week long. Every once in a while even more show up to do some landscape maintence, or sprinkler work or whatever.

I can't help you with the bid though, I have no idea.

[mh1314]

Take a trip by your local golf course and see what they're using for fairway mowers. You might even consider tractors and turf tires with pull behind finish mowers. With this setup and backups, you can move equipment around in the event of a breakdown.
As far as bidding it might be benefical to work out your hourly costs with employees and selected equipment and bid based on the hourly rate. On a job this big your net should still be a good amount.

[djmower]

You may want to consider leasing equip. 4 this job? You may want to follow reply #10.

[Scaper-S2k]

Ebay often has well cared for wing mowers setups for around $10,000 and under. They last a LONG time and can at least 10' and more.

Other big companies will use them on jobs like you describe, and will figure the bid out hourly, not just as a 'per acre' charge.

For what it's worth, I knew a guy that bid on a large place, not quite 200 acres, but close. He underbid. I warned him many times. He just wanted "to get his foot in the door". His biz failed that year.

Just watch yourself. All small areas and all areas about 10' out from curbing would be added up and quoted like any other job I did. How many acres will that be? THEN, all the leftover large areas would be figured based on hourly expected mow time versus what mower you use multiplied by your hourly rate.