Now we're almost done with clearing my 2HA of pretty dense Woodland I can finally calculate what it's cost me.....
- Labour costs = 800 EU
- Fuel - 100 EU (rounded up)
- Share of capital equipment costs - 100 EU
- Total = 1000 EU
Much of the mainly pine, oak and eucalyptus Woodland was densely packed with Broom and brashy/ dead pine, and a few larger pine trees needed to come out as well because they were obscuring oaks.
I blogged about the experience here, this post is really just focusing on the economics of it!
Labour Costs
I've been working alongside a professional forester, who I've paid for two days a week for about eight weeks. All in....
- 2 days a week times 8 weeks = 16 days with 2 of us = 32 man hour days, times 4.5 hours = 136 man-hours
- 2 days times 2 times 8 weeks = 32 man hours for me on my own (slacker I know!)
- = 168 man hours to break the back of the land clearance.
- I figure there's another few full days of work left to do the final clearing and tidying so lets call it a round...
- 200 man hours.
- I've paid for about 68 hours of labour so far, this will go up to around 90 in total I think, and at 9 EU an hour on average that's 810 EU on labour costs.
- (If I factor in my own labour at the same rate that's 1800 EU to clear the land, so I've saved myself 1000 EU by working alongside him and supplementing!)
Personally I think that's pretty reasonable value - I may love using my new battery powered chainsaw but there's no way it could have handled some of the larger 20 metre pines we took out.
And there's the fact that having a professional forester working with you means he's probably worked at something like twice the rate I've been working!
Capital Costs
I couldn't have got the land clear without my strimmer (550 EU all in) or chainsaw (600 EU all in) and that includes all the safety gear.
So that's another 1050 EU in total, but I'll be using these two tools every year for many years to come - I opted for Stihl for both, a reliable brand which the pros use, and they've been awesome to use.
Given that I think I'll get ten years use out of these machines, I'm only going to count 10% of the capital value towards the costs of this initial clearance project.
Add on fuel costs
I've had to pay mistura (50-1 petrol-oil) on top and that's been about 4 EU a day, so that's another probably 50 EU once I factor in my strimmer fuel costs - some areas needed strimming first.
About another 10 EU for oil to lubricate the chainsaw - it's surprising how fast it goes through it, and that's the quality stuff!
I defo made the right decision buying a battery chainsaw - effectively no fuel costs ATM as I pay a set amount for the leccy I use to charge the batteries. Otherwise it's about 2 EU per hour of use for fuel, probably more than that.
On deciding not to chip the smaller branches I've got.
I had a guy come round last week to discuss using his 'semi-industrial' chipper to chip the 3000 (estimated) branches I could potentially chip - up to about 5 CM in diameter - he said we'd have to remove all the side branches and ends with pine needles on first, and thinking about it I decided it's not worth paying him to lug his machine to my land and chip - after I've taken the brashy side shoots off the wood I'm left with is inoffensive, not a fire risk really, and it'll rot down any way in no time.
It would probably have take about two days to chip all of it, and the cost of hiring the chipper, so I've saved myself at least another couple of hundred EU there.
He offered to sell it to me, said he got it for around 900 EU, which I kind of balked at, even half that wouldn't have been worth it for a one off.
Total cost = around 1000 EU
I'm not going to count the entire cost of the power tools in this two month period - just 10% of them, as I should get 10 years use out of them, so that's a fair estimate.
Most of the cost has been labour, which I think was a good investment, actually necessary given the time scale and the fact that I could get fined several hundred, possibly thousands of EU if the land isn't fire safe, which it now is (I hope) - or at least nearly, another 30 man-hours should see clear to that!
The only problem is I kind of factored in only 4-500 EU for the cost of clearing the land, so this has kind of blown my building budget which is something of a downer - that extra 600 EU was basically my roofing materials and probably enough for a wooden platform as a base for a bell-tent.
I guess I'll just have to dig around for some more funds! No pun intended!