bucket truck or lift rental

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One of my new accounts has 6 commercial properties. One building has parking lot luminaires and soffit luminaires that I won't be able to access from an ext. ladder. I don't own a bucket truck or a lift and I won't anytime soon. I plan on renting/towing a lift to service these fixtures when needed. This customer has good, long term service work possibilities for me. I'm looking to price this competitively. I'm in the Hudson Valley New York area. Do I just charge my usual T+M fees with the addition of the rental fees? I know that wouldn't be overcharging. I don't want to "undercharge" either. Any input/experiences/guidance would be appreciated.

thanks in advance,
 
These are banks, so they can get fined if not properly illuminated. I have a contract to do a quarterly inspection of each property and submit a report for a set price. I'm not in contract to do the repairs, but have been doing all of their service/repairs for about 8 months now. It's a local banking institution and they like to use local tradesmen. They're previous electrician retired. When they called him, he reffered me. He never had to service any of the lamps in question. That building is only 5 years old and so far no problems, but it won't be long now, I'm sure. At all the other building everything is extension ladder accessible.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
Just quarterly? Man, that seems a long time when things start going out. Why not monthly?

So you get paid to drive by, take note of what lamps are out, and let the bank know? I'd say get a maintenance contract. Make it a no-brainer for them..... "Your lights will be working."

I have accounts set up like this. I drive by every month, find the lights that are out, and return on a Sunday to do the work. (Actually, I drive by them almost every other day ;))

I charge a set fee just for the drive-bys, then a per-item price for each light that's out.
 

renosteinke

Senior Member
Location
NE Arkansas
When all you have is a hammer, all your problems look like nails.

What I mean is that once you have the means to reach high places, all manner of uses seem to come up. Let's look at ways to do 'high work.'

You can let someone else do it. For example, this is the sort of thing sign companies do all the time.

Some guys make do with scaffolding, but I consider that far more trouble than its' worth.

"Owning" the means for high work isn't really much of an option, unless you specialise in a particular sort of work. There are just too many limitations on what you can do with each sort of equipment. Let's look at some of the different ways:

Platform lifts like the 'little Genie' can work, but can easily become unstable. Their 'big brother,' the scissors lift, can't handle much deviation from a perfectly level surface, and are limited in their soft-ground abilities. While you can tow the smaller ones, you also need a trailer. Apart from the rental cost of the trailer, getting the lift back on the trailer can be a challenge. Still, doing your own hauling can help you get the most out of the rental.

Towable booms are great, but have quite a footprint. I usually line up several jobs and work a LONG day whenever I have to rent a towable boom, just to spread the expense around.

Self-propelled booms are nice, but you can't tow them with anything less than a 2-ton truck. You're now in CDL territory.

If you're working indoors, you might want to invest in a basket for working from a forklift. The expense is minimal, and the convenience great. Customer provides the forklift, and maybe the driver too.


For your particular application, it looks like a towable boom is the best bet. I'd try to line up other jobs - gas station lighting is a good source, as are apartment complex / shopping center parking lots lights - and schedule them together.

As for rental sources .... sure, HD is a good place, but the 'real' rental houses will work with a regular customer, and take some of the sting out of the rates.
 
When their old electrician retired, about 2 years went by and they got a letter from the NYS Banking Authority (or somesuch banking something) telling them they would be fined at location "A" due to under illumination. I went there to take some footcandle readings and found 16 of 20+ outdoor luminaires inoperable. I serviced these and proceded to get the OK to survey the 5 other branches. I found numerous problems at the other branches and performed the services needed. It's a 60 mile round trip to survey these 6 banks in a night. Now that they are up and running I'm fairly confident that a survey every 3 months will be sufficient. Do you have any suggestions as far as the lift rental/ billing? How does your "service contract" read? Does it end up being T+M ? I seem to have built a great repore with these folks. They've called me for several small new installations at 2 branches over the last few months also. Thanks again.
 
For your particular application, it looks like a towable boom is the best bet. I'd try to line up other jobs - gas station lighting is a good source, as are apartment complex / shopping center parking lots lights - and schedule them together.

As for rental sources .... sure, HD is a good place, but the 'real' rental houses will work with a regular customer, and take some of the sting out of the rates.[/QUOTE]

Actually my plan is to rent it from the local Home Depot, (this will upset some), but It's less than $200 a day with the tax and insurance. All I gotta do is back the van up to it and away we go.
 

480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
Is a 3-month cycle acceptable to the powers that be, or is it simply a business choice on your part?

I would find out whoever mandates the banks' illumination level and drop a dime their way. Maybe 3 months is acceptable to them. If so, you're on target. But if you're not, you may end up with egg on your face.
 
part of the equation is that it makes no business sense to the bank for them to pay me more than a fine would cost them.
They wouldn't get an immediate fine anyway, first they get a warning letter. Yes, they're looking to avoid warning letters, but especially fines.

I do drive by 2 or 3 of these banks at night fairly often and I don't close my eyes when I do. the Banking Authority does random surveys. when the bank originally called me noone had been doing their upkeep for about 2 years and they got warning letters on 2 banks. The bank and I came to the quarterly inspections agreement together. They are not going to "throw eggs" if they wind up getting a letter. We both figure a warning letter would be a rare occurance at this point.

Several of the banks are rented buildings (one in a strip mall, for example) and I only can service the banks added security lights, not the landlords, but part of my survey report is letting the bank know they need to call the landlords about inoperable lights. (Now I need to look into getting the work from these landlords:)).
 
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
We do not have contracts for any specific location. All our work is TM so any equipment rental is just added to billing. We have the bigger boom lifts delivered and it would make sense to perform all maintenace for each location at the same time. Keep track of the operation hours and replace lamps that come close to EOL when you are there.
 

G._S._Ohm

Senior Member
Location
DC area
I plan on renting/towing a lift to service these fixtures when needed.

This customer has good, long term service work possibilities for me.

I'm looking to price this competitively.
. . .overcharging. . ."undercharge"

What would you charge for one time only?

For repeat business you don't want to undercharge over the long run so how much to charge to draw the customer in and then gradually ramp up to a reasonable rate?

Ramping up at 14% per year may not be unreasonable.

If you charge the one time only fee how likely is it the customer will go elsewhere?

How high can your initial fee before the customer decides it's 50-50 that he go elsewhere?

Fleshing out the various possibilities will clarify the best strategy.

This is a good decision theory problem.

Don't let this link put you off.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_tree
 
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renosteinke

Senior Member
Location
NE Arkansas
Don't try to do the customers' thinking for them!

Business decision? Have you ever noticed that banks are in nice looking buildings and have nice, prosperous interiors? They want to present themselves well - and good lighting is only part of the picture.

Price shaving? Are you running a business or a charity? Charge them more, and justify it with your service and your results. After all, if you plan to do this during the 'off hours,' you'll have to fill your truck with all manner of parts 'just in case.'

Don't forget to charge for the required harness, either. Or traffic cones, if you need to set-up in the street.
 

cadpoint

Senior Member
Location
Durham, NC
Business wise shouldn’t your go tap the old retired electrician to understand this banks procedures?

This might also be a case where your could set up some history for preventive maintenance. Granted you don’t know what the lamp(s) life is at now but you soon will over the curse of a year or even sooner.

You could make some databases on the individual banks. You’ll need to document what your pulling in the short term just to order the lamps, the lamps have an expected life span seems its straight forward. You could make a simple sketch and use google sketch to clean it up.

Approaching the bank about their engineered drawing might be a bit occur ward but they have all of them, and it will list the total lighting as spec’d the day it was built. This alone will eliminate wrong color(s) and wattages etc.

If you firm up a relationship with the bank, you could consider mentioning that it’d be to the banks advantage to let you have some access to the engineering/record keeper/facilities people through official channels, (of course, if you've made some stetchs as your rolling through it will not be required...)They’re have all electrical plans and reflected ceiling plans and spec's. I'd really be interested in the ballast if required and both interior and exterior lamps types.
 

hurk27

Senior Member
I do allot of apartment buildings and condos, that I landed through a property mangment corp, pay is great and up front when I need it, I have a small bucket truck that will reach 35' which will reach most lights. here is a photo done off of Goggle Earth that I took and marked the location of each light and what lamps they take, the onsite manager has a copy and marks which lights are out then will e-mail me it, save allot of guess work when going out to the site, and you have what you need the first time.

Tempe Lake.jpg
 
I do allot of apartment buildings and condos, that I landed through a property mangment corp, pay is great and up front when I need it, I have a small bucket truck that will reach 35' which will reach most lights. here is a photo done off of Goggle Earth that I took and marked the location of each light and what lamps they take, the onsite manager has a copy and marks which lights are out then will e-mail me it, save allot of guess work when going out to the site, and you have what you need the first time.

View attachment 5354

Very cool. I did a similar thing, only I drew my own maps and no one at the banks is going to give me any info. I do my quarterly survey and just mark which lights are out. I get to show up with all the right wattages and types of lamps.
 

iwire

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Massachusetts
hurk27 said:
here is a photo done off of Goggle Earth that I took and marked the location of each light and what lamps they take,


Google Earth is a great tool. I am bidding some gutter de-icing and was able to use the measuring tool in Google earth to measure all the gutter lengths. Close enough for an estimate anyway. With street view you can look at the building before going there.

With Google Earth I have even been able to look at a building two states away to see where the electrical room was (I knew what the electrical room roof top fans look like at these buildings) so I could estimate footage.

One of our vendors sent us a Google Earth shot os a site with the photometric data of their proposed site lighting improvements superimposed on it.
 

hurk27

Senior Member
Very cool. I did a similar thing, only I drew my own maps and no one at the banks is going to give me any info. I do my quarterly survey and just mark which lights are out. I get to show up with all the right wattages and types of lamps.

Me and Goggle Earth have become good friends, I have two trenchers also and I use the measuring tool in Goggle Earth to measure long trenches for bidding, also the measuring tool will plot compass direction which I use when I need to aim a SCDA antenna or even a TV antenna, when the receiving site is out of view, just use an electronic compass.
A couple years ago I did a water supply system for potable water for a national park camp ground, the well was over a mile from the reservoir tanks, and I hit the amount of conduit and trench length right on the money with the measuring tool in GE, the nice thing is GE is a free down load, and will accept the USB garmin GPS inputs to plot out your path in GE.
 
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480sparky

Senior Member
Location
Iowegia
One hint I can offer: Purchase the stick-on 'mailbox' letters at the hardware store and label each light.

This way, when you do your site visit, you can write down "Lights 37, 42 and 55 out."

When you return with the lift / truck, you know exactly which lights to work on.
 
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
We have customers that can describe where fields are at but have no idea what an address would be. Finding "just north of where the POCO substation used to be" is relatively easy from several thousand feet up. Makes a difference when searching a several square mile area.
 
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