LAND CLEARING · CIVIL AND EARTHWORK · FIXED BY STEP 06

No One Pays for the Third Trip Back to the Tract

You clear the tract, return for stumps once the survey is set, return after the utility relocate, and return again for silt fence somebody else drove through.

WHY IT'S A LAND CLEARING PROBLEM

The trade that goes first is the only one that installs the site's erosion control and then watches twenty other crews treat it as a driveway for a year. Each remobilization has a real lowboy and setup cost that a per acre number never accounted for. You're the operator on record for the first disturbance, so those repairs get treated as your obligation rather than someone else's damage.

WHAT IT COSTS

The size of it

Backcharges and unbilled return trips are the two places this trade gives margin back, and neither one is visible unless your job cost structure separates each mobilization.

OVERHEAD AT $1M–$5M

15%

Derived from Sitework, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 14%.

GROSS MARGIN AT $1M–$5M

18%

Derived from Sitework, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 24%.

NET PROFIT AT $1M–$5M

Derived from Sitework, the nearest comparable trade. CFOS target 10%.

Land clearing goes on first and then keeps getting called back. Your crew clears the tract, returns for grubbing and stumps once the survey is set, comes back again after the utility relocate, and makes one more trip to repair erosion control. The first silt fence and inlet protection usually go in with your crew, and then every dirt hauler, plumber, and concrete truck behind you runs them over. SWPPP rules still require weekly inspections plus an inspection within 24 hours of any quarter inch rain, and the fence has to be functional at every one of them. The per acre price you signed contemplated one trip.

WHAT TO DO

Three moves, in order

STEP 01

Write the contract with a stated number of mobilizations included and a per trip price for every one beyond that.

STEP 02

Set up each remobilization as its own cost code on the job, so trip four absorbs its own hours, fuel, and lowboy.

STEP 03

Photograph the erosion control the day you demobilize and after each inspection, and send written damage notice the same week; that photo is what turns a repair into a change order.

THE FIX

Step 06: Project management

Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them.

CFOS-06 · CHAPTER 6

Billing and change orders that hold without chasing

What this step changes, what it depends on, and how to tell it's installed.

BENCHMARKS

Land clearing by revenue band

All 7 bands are published. The CFOS target is beside the figure up to $10M to $25M, and the 4 bands above that are labelled modeled.

ACROSS EVERY TRADE

The change orders you did and never billed

The field did the work. The paperwork never caught up. Ninety days later there is no record that proves it happened.

SAME TRADE

What else costs land clearing contractors money

LAND CLEARING · CFOS-06

October to March Is the Only Window You Get

On federally funded or permitted work, tree removal is locked into a winter window, and missing it slides a job you already bid, staffed, and financed into next year.

LAND CLEARING · CFOS-06

A Burn Ban Can Rewrite Your Disposal Cost Overnight

Your burn permit is a line in your bid that a county can pull on a Tuesday morning, leaving you with a grinder, a truck line, and tipping fees that were never priced.

LAND CLEARING · CFOS-04

You Bid Acres, the Tract Decides the Machine Hours

You walked it in November with the leaves down and got there in June to a different tract, and the difference between those two is yours to absorb.

LAND CLEARING · CFOS-02

The Mulching Head Is Your Longest Lead Item

A rotor bearing lets go, the machine is down two weeks, and the payment, the insurance, and the shop time keep billing while revenue stays at zero.

LAND CLEARING · CFOS-05

Finished in March, Retention Releases Next Winter

Two to six weeks of your work falls inside an eighteen to twenty four month build, and the retention doesn't move until the whole project closes out.

SAME MECHANISM, OTHER TRADES

The same mechanism in other trades

CIVIL

Four mobilizations, one mob line item

You clear and grub in month one, come back for wet utilities, come back again for paving subgrade at closeout, and the contract still has one mobilization line.

CONCRETE

Six Trips Back for Pads and Sidewalks, One Unit Price

You were first on the site and you're still coming back for stairs, pads, curbs, and exterior flatwork, all priced inside a per-yard number that assumed you never left.

DRYWALL

You Go Back Six Times And No Ticket Gets Signed

You hung the corridor in March and you're still sending a guy back in June, one hole at a time, on somebody else's dime.

QUESTIONS

What land clearing owners ask

Getting paid for return trips and silt fence repairs on site clearing?

You clear the tract, return for stumps once the survey is set, return after the utility relocate, and return again for silt fence somebody else drove through.

What does it cost?

Backcharges and unbilled return trips are the two places this trade gives margin back, and neither one is visible unless your job cost structure separates each mobilization.

What do I do first?

Write the contract with a stated number of mobilizations included and a per trip price for every one beyond that.

What are land clearing contractors supposed to be making?

No survey separates land clearing, so there is no figure of its own. The nearest comparable trade in the reference is Sitework, which runs 18% gross margin, 15% overhead and 3% net profit before taxes at $1M–$5M, with a CFOS target of 10% net. Those are derived figures, not land clearing's own. Read them as the neighbourhood, and read your own job costing as the answer.

Which part of the system fixes it?

The step is number 06, project management. Billing dates, change orders, and notices, written as standards that work without anyone chasing them. It comes from chapter 6 of CONTROL: The Construction Financial Operating System.

OR HAVE IT HANDLED

Everything on this page is something you can install yourself, andCONTROL is the order to do it in. If you would rather buy the finished result, SPM The Construction CFO does this work for land clearing contractors as a service. It is a separate firm, Sulphur Prairie Management, LLC, run by the same author.

What SPM The Construction CFO does, and what it costs

AUTHOR

JOSH LUEBKER

MASTER ELECTRICIAN · 150+ PROJECTS · $2.1B+ MANAGED

Wrote CONTROL, the 8 step system behind these figures. More about the author.