Bucket truck...yes or no

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bth0mas20

Senior Member
Location
Maryland
Im in the market for a bucket truck. Ive found one for a good deal that has been totally looked over by professionals and any problems have been taken care off....ready to work.

My question:
Do you think their is a good market for an electrician with a bucket truck? Im thinking I can get some shopping center contracts. What other ways can I get work for a bucket truck?

Is this worth it?
This bucket truck will have be 35ft to the top of the bucket.
 
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quogueelectric

Senior Member
Location
new york
Take meticulous care of the truck and It will payback in droves. My suggestion is to get a carchip installed in it to track use by employees with a simple laptop for a couple of hunred bucks you can track the last 300 hours of use on the truck. Hard acceleration hard braking total time and distance in real time and you can program what of about 30 sensors you also want to track input to the cpu. Priceless. Fire anyone who abuses it.
 

ultramegabob

Senior Member
Location
Indiana
personally, I wouldnt buy a bucket truck unless it was going to be my main focus for work, for the amount of service calls that I need a bucket truck, I can rent a pull behind or a scissor lift and have it deliverd. bucket trucks are expensive to own and maintain, so it would need to earn its keep.
 
bth0mas20 said:
Do you think their is a good market for an electrician with a bucket truck?
We aren't the ones to make that call about what is happening in YOUR market.
Im thinking I can get some shopping center contracts. Who is doing that work now? Local guy or one of the BIG lighting service outfits? Think you can compete?
What other ways can I get work for a bucket truck? Wide open commercial shell rough in?


If you can spare the money to have it idle until you have the contracts to keep it busy... Good luck.
 

satcom

Senior Member
We had a good 50 or more local EC's buy bucket trucks, there happiest day, is when they buy it, the next happy day is when they get rid of it, and all it's upkeep expenses, talking to the guys that bought and then got rid of them, they all say, they thought the shopping centers would have plenty of lighting work, only to find that most of the centers have national companies do their maint work, ant they will hire local guys if they are willing to work for next to nothing. If you can secure some good accounts with signed agreements for long term work, then I would say go for it, get the work first then lease or buy the truck.
 
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satcom

Senior Member
tonyou812 said:
I think someone has one and said that in most cases you need to have it on the road at least 9 working days a month. that doesnt sound to bad.

The national companies keep their trucks busy pretty much a 24/7 schedule, unless you have a contract, that will cover the additional burden, it will end up an anchor, rather then a profit center.
 

jrannis

Senior Member
bth0mas20 said:
Im in the market for a bucket truck. Ive found one for a good deal that has been totally looked over by professionals and any problems have been taken care off....ready to work.

My question:
Do you think their is a good market for an electrician with a bucket truck? Im thinking I can get some shopping center contracts. What other ways can I get work for a bucket truck?

Is this worth it?
This bucket truck will have be 35ft to the top of the bucket.

Sounds like you want to give it a try. We all have. Go for it. Dont work cheap!
 

Buck Parrish

Senior Member
Location
NC & IN
I can not imagine what insurance would cost on this truck.
Just an opinion but I would bet the pull behind rental lift would be cheaper.
And totally tax deductable.
 

tonyou812

Senior Member
Location
North New Jersey
satcom said:
The national companies keep their trucks busy pretty much a 24/7 schedule, unless you have a contract, that will cover the additional burden, it will end up an anchor, rather then a profit center.
I agree there are several EC contractors around me that have have them sitting in the parking lot rarely seem on road. The only bucket trucks you really see on the road are POCO,Verizon and Comcast.

They must seem enticing if you land the sweet job for a month or so like changing all the bulbs and balast at an airport rental car parking garage and then you dont use it for a year...that happened to my last boss
 
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tyha

Senior Member
Location
central nc
we paid 18,000 for ours and another 1400 or so in maint and add-ons and we dont worry about the big acounts we just use it for when we need to hang pole lights. we have had a few stores call us about changing lamps and ballast but that is by no means our core business for the truck and we do just fine and am happy we got it.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
I have three. A short telescopic, a tall articulating boom, and a digger-derrick. I only have them because they're handy. From a business standpoint, it really makes no sense for me to own any of them. I just had a repair on the one (spring shackle bushings, sway bar bushings, front tires) that cost me more than that truck made so far this year.
 

Buck Parrish

Senior Member
Location
NC & IN
bth0mas20 said:
I did buy a trencher and it paid for itself in a couple month.....alot of detached garages and piers.




Don't forget you asked our opinion.

I have used those larger rental lifts to put up pole lights, too.
If you do decide to get it. May be you can put a picture of it in your yellow page ad, or a pole light.

Good Luck
 

C3PO

Senior Member
Location
Tennessee
I say go for it. I have a friend who has a tree service company and a lot of times I use his bucket truck more than he does. They are very handy. If I didn't have acces to his truck I would get one myself.
 

mdshunk

Senior Member
Location
Right here.
tonyou812 said:
What size bucket truck is the most usable to the EC? Or is a man lift more valuable?
What do you plan to do with it, exactly? You can take the advertised working height and divide it nearly in half for a more practical measurement. For instance, an F-350 with a telescopic boom is normally 30 feet to the floor of the bucket, BUT to use it at 30 feet you need to park right under something you need to reach at 30 feet and have the stick pretty much straight up. For parking lot light service, you'd normally want to use something more like a 55 footer to work over top of parked cars, etc. If you're going to use it in town for service changes and work on plastic signs, you really need an articulating boom to work around existing overhead lines and trees without busting stuff up.

If you ask me, the ideal truck for an electrician will be 55 feet, articulating boom, compact outriggers, and a jib.
 

JES2727

Senior Member
Location
NJ
I just bought a bucket truck over the winter. It's a 30', telescopic. It costs me about 1200 bucks per year to insure. I've had it out maybe six times since I've owned it. Definately not earning it's keep at this point.
 
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