Starting a dump truck business.

That's usually how it works around my neck of the woods

 

Semi belly & end dumps are only around $85/hr in Reno..and that's the bigger companies. Lot of hills & off road @ 3-4 mpg.
Good luck

 

Words of Wisdom

 

Dido here to you must be up Morth

 

belly dump side dump and hopper bottom work is what i do. dump work is rough on equipment better know how to turn a wrench if you wanna make it worth while. you don't need a mc if you are strictly intrastate.

in north dakota rates are #### this year. to many people like yourself getting out of oilfeild work and under cutting our rates left and right thinking there going to make big money.

have any more spicific questions ill try to answer.

 

I've been wondering if you've still been fighting that battle up there.

 

yup if i was a smart man id probably get out of it. but im hoping things come around. still earning a living cause i watch my expenses. hopefully get threw this year get the election out of the way maybe things will start looking better. nothing else is really looking much better...lol

and to the op. i think i might have replied partially to a different thread in my answer...lol i had read another one recently where the guy was laid off from the oil feild and wanted to buy a truck and a belly dump and i think i confused your two threads. lol

 

I've seen rates as low as $45 per hr around here for a tri-axle dump truck. Some $50 and some are lucky enough to do better.

My Uncle was in the dump truck business with 3 trucks for years and finally got tired of fighting it and sold out.

Most all dump trucks you see in TN is tandem axle with a lift axle. That's the best setup TN allows. You are allowed 74K non-interstate and 68K interstate. There is one asphalt outfit around here running 5 axle trucks grossing 80K but I don't see how in the world they bridge it.

 

Good luck to you. I've been running a tri axle for myself primarily in NJ & PA for the past 3 years. I've been in business for myself in the construction industry for about 10 years. The best quote I heard about trucking - " The 2 happiest days of your life, the day you get your truck and the day you sell it." I can relate. It definitely is a feast or famine business. Connections are everything, and if you don't have any that count, you're at the mercy of some quarry dispatcher who has favorites, and you're most likely not going to be at the top of the list. It's very difficult to stand out in a trade where the only real requirements are that you have a truck, show up, drop in the right spot, and don't get in any accidents - it can be tough to be able to effectively leverage your character. It would be kind of like getting carpentry work just because you have a hammer and saw. Anyway. It's really important to realize that the regional differences in running a dump truck can make it more or less profitable. I've never run in Ohio, so I can't attest to how they do things. Here in NJ, we can gross 80K with a triaxle, though typically rates balance out with whatever a states gross is. Don't have any illusions about getting rich. I'll give you some quick numbers. I average about $800 per day gross, some days it's been as much as $1600, the low end would be $600 per day ( or negative if something breaks). Here's a typical day for me: get up between 2:30 and 3:30 in the morning, try to be on the road between 3:30 and 4:30, go to PA to a concrete plant with a load of sand (I'm preloaded from the day before), get stone from a quarry in PA, bring it to an asphalt plant in NJ, back to the sand pit for another load to the concrete plant, another stone load to NJ, to the sand pit for my preload, fuel up, park it. It's usually about 4:30 by the time I shut the key off. Every day is pretty much a 12 hour day. Those 2 rounds add up to about 375 miles. I also have about 5 of my own customers - landscapers/excavators that I manage to filter in. I don't usually take on hourly/ rental work because I stay busy with my run, though I don't turn it down if it comes up and things are slow. Hourly rates for a triaxle around here range between $75 to $85 hour. I won't go below $75 hour, and even that's too cheap. Some costs: $1650 mo truck payment, $1000 mo insurance payment, about $3000 mo in fuel. Tires, oil/lube, registration, IFTA, maintenance, heavy use tax, tolls factor in at least $1900 mo by the time it's all done with. Plus I'm paying $1000 mo towards the loan that I had to take out to rebulid the engine in November. Add in the $500 mo to Snap On, and the $600 mo in credit card payments (which are pretty much always nearly maxed out to keep running) and we're at $8650 per month in operating expenses so far here with our little tally, and that's if nothing unforseen happens - which it most certainly will. Now for my living expenses: $1300 mo for health insurance (myself, wife, chlid), $1400 mo rent, $250 mo for our cell phones, $200 mo for cable, Internet and phone/fax - that's a total of $11,800.00 per mo. So if I'm averaging $800 per day and we figure on 20 working days per month, that's $16K gross, minus the $11,800 in expenses, leaves me with about $4200. Take out taxes and unforseen/ unscheduled maintenance, and basic living expenses like food and such, and it dwindles down to nearly nothing. I'm driving 12 hours a day 5 days a week and most weekends (at least Saturday) are spent working on the truck or going over it. My truck is a 2003 Peterbilt 357 with a C12 Cat, 8LL Trans, Chalmers suspension, half round 16' unheated steel Ox body. I paid $56K for it, and have had to put at least another $65K into it just to keep the wheels turning, not to mention the combined downtime of about 7 months in the last 3 years. I am literally chained to the truck. It's paid for by the end of the year. Dump trucks have an extremely hard life - life expectancy on components is nearly cut in half compared to a road tractor. Being able to work on your pickup or hot rod is not the same as wrenching on a dump or piece of equipment. You need the skill, tools, space, service manuals, and enough sense to know when to get or ask for help. I do about 95% of all the work myself. I've easily invested another $20K in tools just to support the truck. Your typical hobby mechanic is just not going to have things like a 1" impact lol. Unscheduled downtime and parts have cost me a fortune. Becoming a truck mechanic has been an education to say the least. In fact, the easiest thing about owning a truck is actually driving it. Everything else is a #####. Lol. Keeping up with the invoicing and never ending paperwork to stay in compliance... Once I started running it though, the only thing I could do to generate the kind of money it takes to support it, was to run it. I don't really see it as a long term thing for me, it's just not worth it - for me. I've stayed in it out of sheer determination. Trucking for yourself is one of those things that you have to either love, or for whatever reason, not be able to do or want to do anything else for a living. Like any business, you have to eat, sleep, breathe, and #### your business if you want to have any hope at all of being successful, or even staying afloat. I do think that if you have realistic expectations of what you're getting into and have a ton of cash available to float the hard times, then perhaps trucking could be a viable way to make a living. There are definitely better ways to make a profit though, but that depends on your skillset and motivations. The factors that will make or break you in running a dump truck are no doubt, based on my experience, the right truck and support system (being either a competent mechanic yourself, or having one available), good connections to run for, experience in the construction industry (which will provide a source of contacts), an abundant amount of working capital, and an understanding wife lol. Make no mistake about it though, it's not easy money by any means.