Charged per hr or ton?

[Mad For Muck]

Interested to hear other peoples views on this:

If you had a heap of say chicken muck or compost that wanted spreading, would you expect to be charged by the hour like fym spreading or by the ton? if spreading wasnt included in the supply price

I know alot of people charge for spreading compost & chicken muck by the ton but personally in my experience it seems to work out cheaper for the customer if spreading is done by the hour compared to by the ton.

(Sorry mods if this is in the worng section, didnt really know where to put it)

 

[Steevo]

I like paying by the tonne because I know what it's going to cost me. What day rate is a spreader worth? A lot depends on whether the heap is in the field, or whether it has to be carted from a concrete pad.

 

[JNG]

I charge by the hour, its the fairest, I spread for one fella who is on here who heaps the muck strategically around the fields to speed up the spreader and lessens the commute time from heap to working. I think he is happy, Any comments KILDARE???

 

[Brisel]

I pay by the hour for FYM spreading. I think that's fairest especially where ther is a long haul involved.

Where the contractor is also supplying the product - compost & sewage cake delivered by lorries & heaped up - I pay by the tonne.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

How do you know the weight, get it wrong you could end up in court

 

[sleepy]

To work out a cost per ton surely the contractor is just going to estimate how long it is going to take him to spread the pile depending on where it's going, he knows what he wants per hour, and then add 20% on in case he guessed wrong (and then divide it up to get a per ton rate).

The cost per ton would be different for each field to an extent would it not?

How do you know how many tons there are anyway?

 

[warksfarmer]

A big muck spreader on a single day hire will cost £150. A contractor costs me £18.50/hr for man and 220hp tractor and it will use 20l/hr diesel which at 70p adds up to £168 for a full 12 hours of actual tractor work. Add on an hour for the contractor with his lunch break etc so he does 13 hours at work gives a total cost of £558.50/day.

Average of 500t spread = £1.11/t.

Then you need to put a loader in the field for him to load himself so thats adds to it.

Therefore paying £1.40/t loaded and spread as a complete service makes more sense when they turn up with 5 spreaders.

 

[Brisel]

How do you know the weight, get it wrong you could end up in court

Since both compost & sewage cake are PAS110 level products, I have weighbridge tickets for both. When I do a bit of pushing up, I make a note of the number of lorries, registrations etc. Simples.

 

[Steevo]

How do you know how many tons there are anyway?

Spreader with weigh cells.

 

[warksfarmer]

Since both compost & sewage cake are PAS110 level products, I have weighbridge tickets for both. When I do a bit of pushing up, I make a note of the number of lorries, registrations etc. Simples.

As an example we have moved 765 tonnes (over a weighbridge) to a tip point for a block of land. When we came to spread it approx 2 months later using a spreader with a weigh cell we only spread 725 tonnes as it lost 40 tonnes of moisture just by moving it. It was very wet to begin with to be fair but needless to say every time you move compost it looses weight.

 

[Brisel]

And every time it gets rained on it gets wetter. Why the worry about how accurate weights are? Muck & its nutrients is hardly precision science, just the issue of fairness in charging out for the spreading.

 

[warksfarmer]

And every time it gets rained on it gets wetter. Why the worry about how accurate weights are? Muck & its nutrients is hardly precision science, just the issue of fairness in charging out for the spreading.

Yes but generally when people are tipping in field piles its spring / early summer so you dont get the rain volumes - well bar 2012 that is.

And I disagree it is precision science when the only other fert you buy is Nitrogen. It needs to go on with an accurate spread pattern and at the require rate per ha. I wont ever apply it out the back of a vertical beater spreader as they are just not accurate in any way at all. To be accurate you need weigh cells and a spread pattern of 12m which you can get with horizontal beaters, a rear hood and then spinning discs.

 

[Brisel]

My sewage/compost spreader gang use vertical beaters at 12m widths with extra paddles on the bottom of the beaters. Very uneven & stripey. 6m would be better.

It doesn't help that the spreaders are driven by agency drivers with little clue of how to spread evenly. Perhaps we do need rocket scientists to drive the spreaders!

With better spreaders & more professional drivers I agree that it could be precise. I argue that the reality is somewhat different when you use contractors.

 

[Mad For Muck]

As steevo said you'd tell the weight by using Weigh Cells fitted on the spreaders. I was ignoring FYM as most of this is spread on an hourly rate, it was more Chicken Muck & Compost etc that seems to be done on a per ton basis.

My point was, if you're paying £2/t for spreading (depending on what area your in) and you had roughly 500t of material to be spread that would mean you'd be roughly looking at £1000

Whereas on an hourly rate, that £1000 could get you 2x 15t spreaders & tractors + a loader for 10 hours (again price area dependant) which could, depending on spread rate and haul distance, work through 500t in easily less than 10 hours - making it work out cheaper compared to paying per ton. And thats before you even start getting into things like if the spreaders have auto rate control etc. Which would also help reduce overall spreading time by not having to sit at a set speed to maintain the desired application rate, again making it cheaper.

Obviously it makes sense paying per ton if you've bought the material from the contractor who is also going to spread it as Brisel pointed out. But to me, it seems more fair for both customer & contractor going on an hourly rate rather than per ton? or have I completely lost the plot

 

[Steevo]

What's the hourly rate on a tractor and spreader? I'm guessing £40 an hr or so, doubled up is £80/hr....ten hours is £800. Loader on top, probably not far off the same money. But....could be less, could be more.