Anyone Hydro seed? Show your tanks

[tcalb2]

Heres a picture of my 300 gal. tank I purchased at the beginning of the year for 2,000. Its paid for its self and them some. Added bonus to be able to leave my hardscape jobs hydro seeded when I'm done.

[Majland]

not yet but weve been talking to a bunch of construction co. about it. i want to have all my work lined up that way i know i can jump right in and have a ton of work for one.

[tcalb2]

Yea, thats really important. I was doing work for a septic company so I knew I would have aleast enough jobs to cover the cost of this unit.

[-EGLC-]

How do you like it? How much better are the results compared to dry seeding? I'm looking at buying one. Nothing fancy just something I can either tow or load into the back of a 2500. I think only three guys buy me offer hydro seeding, most just offer dry seed or sod. So I'm sure there would be a nice niche here.

How much are you getting? I've heard its in between the price of seed & sod, is this true?

Got a great deal on that btw!

[tcalb2]

Well to be honest I thought it would be alot less work then it is. I mean to shoot a full tank takes like 30-45 minutes on site. But what I didn't understand is you have to secure a location to get water from. A lot of places around here have wells and you don't want to be burning any pumps out. Also you have to factor in time to clean the tank after you shoot. Your probably going to want to have a nice dry storage spot to store chemicals, bales of mulch and what not, Because you can save a lot of money buying the chemicals in bulk.

Also be careful what size tank you get, this tank is 300 gallons which is not big by any means but a decent size. dry it weighs some where around 800 lbs. Full it weighs around 3,250 lbs. So you have to have a heavy duty truck to put this thing in. This is why I had it mounted on a trailer until I bought my dump truck.

I'm getting between .10 - .18 a square foot. But I put alot of chemicals in my mixes. Some guys shoot for .6 a square foot and they got barely anything but mulch, tack and seed.

As for results. As long as the customer waters the lawn I get less then 10 day germination periods. great results.

[Majland]

hydroseeding is no where near sod. around me its anywhere from 5 to 7 cents a sq ft. thats just to spray.

[tthomass]

What chemicals? Require a pesticides lincense? I guess that also varies depenind on your state........

[tcalb2]

Yea, I work with two other hydro seeding companies and their not below .11 a square foot. They think i'm a fool for shooting for .10 a square foot.

[tcalb2]

I have a lic. because I put tupersan in the tank. I think I could get away with out one if I didn't. The DEM here is brutal. I get audited at the end of each year. They also do on site inspections, notifed and then suprise visits.

[lawnkid]

Wow that'd be great if we could get over .10 a sq. ft. for every job. There's guys aorund here doing it for $.04-.05 a sq. ft. with pretty good results. I try to get at least .08 but we've done some work for a nickel a sq. ft. I'll try and see if I can get a pic of the truck we use. The truck is not mine, it belongs to a close business friend of mine who does strictly hydroseeding but we use it when needed for free.

[tcalb2]

I've heard that for huge jobs guys getting as low as .06 a square foot, but that was almost two years ago. Since then I haven't heard any under .09 a sqaure foot. Things will change probably because more and more companies are buying tanks. I've found that as long as my turn around time and qaulity is good i can keep my contractors.

[cgland]

If I have a large job around here I can get the seeding as low as .0475-.05/sq. ft.

Chris

[tcalb2]

Yea I guess it depends on the market your in.

[Majland]

even at 5 cents there is still plenty of profit in that

[kootoomootoo]

I rent an 800 gallon machine for $200 now and then. Local co will rockhound AND hydroseed for 7c / sq ft.

[IMPACT]

I don't have any pics, but we have a 300 gallon and a 500 gallon. We do primarily high end residential and commercial / erosion stabilization work. If I can be of assistance with hydroseeding questions, please feel free to ask.

[Meanix]

Chris,
I have looked a few times for hydro but could not find anyone. Im near your area can you give his name?

[cgland]

We use either Spayd's landscaping in Fleetwood or Christmas Pines in Leesport.

[Meanix]

Thanks Chris,
Has anyone thought of mixing smaller batches for smaller jobs. Say in a plastic 55 drum. You could use a sump pump to spray. Just a thought. When I have patches to do at my house I mix seed, compost, and water in a 5 bucket and let it sit for a couple days and spread it out its kind of messy but it grows fast.

[cgland]

The problem w/ the drum idea is lack of aggitation. The mulch/seed/fert/tack slurry needs to be mixed up real well to give an even, consistant end product. Plus i doubt that a sump pump would handle the mix very well. trash pump..maybe.

[SCgreenscapes]

I just rent a Finn from United Rentals when i need one for about $150/day. That part is cheap, but the 400 gallon tank doesn't go far at all if you are doing a whole yard. i think the last yard i did was right at an acre and it took 4 loads of water which was about 12 mins. down the road. Needless to say i offer it only to large tracks now b/c i know i can sub it out. But they won't touch anything under 4 acres so i don't have much calling for it. I just assume do sod for the differnce in labor.

[IMPACT]

When we are doing a residential where we don't have a pond or hydrant to fill from, we set up 2-3 350 gallon nurse tanks. We run water from a garden hose to the tanks(sometimes get the neighbor to throw a line in a tank in exchange for shooting some bare spots) and transfer over with a 3" water pump in about 45 seconds. We also go to the site with the first load on the truck and a second tank of water ready to transfer. The trick to being efficient is to have a readily available water source.

[JZap]

We stay away from it altogether. Seed or sod for us. Like you said it takes longer to clean than it's worth unless you're doing it on a regular basis. Even if we rent a machine if it's not throughly cleaned when you return it, there's a couple hundred dollar fee. We use a roll-out product for hills and swales when seeding.

[AintNoFun]

heres a pic of our bowie, we just upgraded from a finn..

[cgland]

Nice rigs...........Pinky Tuscadero! LOL! J/K What do you like about the Bowie thats better than the Finn?

[AintNoFun]

companies a certified woman owned business so apart from being noticable with the pink it plays into the woman business aspect as well, lol... i love my bowie its got a big cat motor, the pump is great, got a bale grinder which probably saves 10 to 15 mins a tank, got a built in flush tank to flush out the lines and pump, saves another 45 at the end of the day.. just an all around great machine, and i have great dealer supprot...



Nice rigs...........Pinky Tuscadero! LOL! J/K What do you like about the Bowie thats better than the Finn?

[SCgreenscapes]

Sorry, i am having a hard time swallowing the pink trucks. I feel like that prison crew from out west is showing up to spray my yard.

[AintNoFun]

well luckily we dont do residential, only state/muni/county jobs.. we do work from delaware to nyc and we get calls no matter where we are at... just a crazy form of branding! will you ever forget the trucks?



Sorry, i am having a hard time swallowing the pink trucks. I feel like that prison crew from out west is showing up to spray my yard.

[IMPACT]

Do you go by Paydaze at the IAHP forum?

[AintNoFun]

Do you go by Paydaze at the IAHP forum?

yes sir that is me..

[JZap]

What percentage of your company is hardscapes? roughly

[AintNoFun]

What percentage of your company is hardscapes? roughly


my company - zero percent, dont exhile me from the forums now, lol

we are probably like 65 % seeding/erosion control 35% planting/landscaping

[JZap]

Just wondering, I don't know many company with that much invested in Hydro-seeding in the hardscape world. Most companies that do hydro-seeding have specific crews for just that: grading/hydro.

[AintNoFun]

yea thats all we do, were just getting into topsoiling now on the smaller jobs our gcs dont want to bother with. we do like 90% govt work probably 10% commercial. not much hardscaping on the jobs we are on and when there is is a major wall or a huge streetscape so usually the gcs do it all inhouse, they sure as hell have the equip.



Just wondering, I don't know many company with that much invested in Hydro-seeding in the hardscape world. Most companies that do hydro-seeding have specific crews for just that: grading/hydro.

[IMPACT]

my company - zero percent, dont exhile me from the forums now, lol

we are probably like 65 % seeding/erosion control 35% planting/landscaping

We are more like 55% S & EC, 35% landscaping/maint., and 10% hardscapes. Most of our larger work gets subbed to a local hardscaping company. I also sub all our tree work to an arborist I have known for over 20 year. In return, we get all the lawn / landscape referrals from the hardscape guy and do 90% of the stump covering / seeding for our tree guys.

[AintNoFun]

maintenance used to be a huge part of our business. we had 5 crews running around at one point doing commercial/resi maintenance and the market kept getting worse and worse around here. towards the end we were barely making the money we used to make. my property managers used to joke with me saying their landscaping prices every year dropped and dropped.. too much headaches for the little amout of money to be made around here any more.. im pretty sure there were solo guys out there making more money than i was. 06 we went down to like 200 of our premo accounts, 07 just finished out our commercial jobs and a big school district, this year 08 im officialy out. im much happier now doing this stuff.. i have 4 or 5 guys, simple small operation and thats it, back to making money!