Day at work with Genadek Landscaping, Mowing, Hardscaping and Excavating

you're going with me today it's what July 30th or something like that 2015 we've got um a softscaping project going on we've got the maintenance crew uh taken off and then we've got two really big hardscaping projects that we got to go check up on it's been raining like [Music] crazy we're going to go catch up with those guys they're just doing some residential Lawns today you know I'm going to be quite honest with you guys I never understood these videos um you know most of the videos that I try to produce hit on a topic hit on a problem and give you a number of solutions that you may not have been able to come up with on your own but so far in all the videos I've done I've done two of them where I just take you with me during my day so you can see what it's like and maybe you guys in the comments can help me understand what the appeal to these videos are where you're just riding along with me one of my thoughts let me know how if I'm even coming close to being correct on this was that I try to put you guys in my shoes so maybe you're doing lawn maintenance maybe you're doing something different but you want to get into bigger projects you want to get into a different line of work you want to know what that's like and maybe these videos help you if that's it let me know know because I'll make more of these videos I want you guys I love you guys man you guys the the feedback you give me the energy it keeps me going and I'm going to do whatever I can to help you guys out so if that's something that's beneficial just let me know talk to me tell me um if it's something else if there's some other appeal to these videos where we go through and I show you different projects and what a day a typical day consists of let me know Keith cast just texted me while I was videotaping it that's a good guy I know you guys know him it's a couple of the guys that I really respect on YouTube Keith KK Keith calass um geek the freak that guy is the man man that guy is the the real deal what what a heart that guy has just flipping blows me away how genuine he is Brian Shane same thing Johnny Mo these guys guys they're to me absolutely amazing absolutely incredible and I okay so we're at a a job site right now we're with Jay and the problem Jay's having is he has you see that Pine Tree in the back this big one these were all pine trees underneath here and you can look these pine trees were removed a while ago how long ago were they removed Jay 3 years ago 3 years ago and this lawn still is dead and and what happens is the pine trees actually alter the pH of the soil underneath and so you can't just grass seed it you can't just sod over the top of this because that's that react because that pH is going to react with the soil and it's going to eventually kill the grass it's going to weaken it and so in a situation like this what we've got to do the best thing that we can do is come in and just scrape this down and get rid of this soil we dig it out we haul it away and then we bring in pulverized screen chemically tested uh the the top soil that I bring in has actually been tested for arsenic in Minneapolis Minnesota we have a lot of older homes they have paint peeling paint and people are scraping and removing those yards that contaminates the soil and that is a soil we do not want to bring in anywhere so I make sure that it's certified and tested before that happens um and so that's what we're going to do we're going to scrape this down we're going to bring in a load of pulverized screen black dirt we're going to do this job for for 2,000 bucks we're going to get be in we're going to be out we're going to get this taken care of so my friend here can actually have a yard again instead of this BR Brown patch that he stared at for three years what we got to do to do that is we got to locate utilities because we're along a Boulevard there's a high probability that there's going to be a cable line running parallel to this now we can see the overhead power lines coming in there's going to be a gas line that that's probably running in the street and then 90 deing teeing off and going into each house the water lines are going to be 8 ft deep we're not worried about that what we are worried about in a situation like this is phone and cable if we hit those usually it's a $100 bill or something to get them fixed it's usually not that big of a deal but it's but it's just a simple phone call to do a utility locate it protects you guys the contractors it protects us protects the the the homeowners involved so we got to make sure we get that done so I'm actually going to run back to my office right now and get that utility locate done right away so that we have this on the book so we can come in here and get this scraped up and prepped and ready for him so he can have a green grass that last job we just looked at that wasn't planned at all I've actually got a number of other jobs and I just parked on the side of the street this TR was routing where I've got ah head to next and uh he walked out and um he knows what I do for a living and that's where that came from so now we have that job to do which I'm going to probably try to do tomorrow or the next day it's an easy job it's just a $2,000 um I haul one load of soil out dig it out with a skid loader that I happened to have in the back of my yard right now and um bring in a load of pulverized screen black dirt spread it and grade it and boom then he can seed it or saw it and if he wants to saw it then I'll have uh one of the softscape guys come in and take care of that for him so now I've got to locate utilities right now I got to get uh get that all figured out cuz I can't dig anything without it locating utilities okay I'm looking at a lawn for our maintenance company um we probably get this yard for 40 to me I'm I'm looking at this front yard as and the backyard is a $45 cut out here it should take about 45 minutes so I'm basically I'm looking at how long is it going to take us to cut this thing and we want to get a dollar a minute so here comes the plateless Wonder s flipping months you still have DJ Scot what do we got sad in the back hey um will you give these to Alex that's Cassidy on the mower and she just mowed too far but this is the first time we've ever seen this property how careful she's going the line is here I think think the line is here I mean I don't think it matters much but in this case I'd probably just bring it over a little bit more you can kind of see a little bit of a difference what height are you mowing at what what height are you mowing at I'm just testing her two and a half 1 2 3 4 you're mowing at three oh is that good that's good Jake's got the trimmer going and I'm standing around with my finger up my butt I came out to mow but then my phone rang we've got a big project in Prior Lake uh almost $13,000 demo job and the customers started to call me and wanted questions and they grabbed all the equipment so I'm off to the next two sites so let's check this out see how they do blowing everything to the inside perfect nice and careful not turning too hardcore on the lawn very cautious she's learning Jake's got his safety glasses on next sight look at her picking up sticks wish she did that at my house so I'm at one of our lawn mowing sites I'm just doing a quality checkup the guys that left well guys my daughter and the father of my grandson uh just last and if you would have seen this lawn before they this lawn had gone to seed about 2 months before we had shown up the grass was so high in here it had to be mowed three four times weeds covered every square inch of this property and we're slowly trying to tame it back we're not doing it all at once because we don't want to come in and spend 10 extra hours on it but mow it and trim it and then go a little further the next time and a little further the next time and just try to hey she's she's retired she's on a limited income she really doesn't have any money to spare so we can't come in and do it all at once because we'd have to charge her extra for it but I think they're doing a great job this looks phenomenal in comparison to how it looked before so this job is a great example when you properly format your proposals how you Safeguard yourself now in this case initially I came in and I gave this customer an estimate uh for 10 hours work at 600 $50 and what that basically meant was that the cleanup of this entire property was $650 or 10 hours okay if I got the job done in 7 six five whatever I get to keep the balance it was still $650 if I hit the wall at 10 hours I was done and I was going to only charge them $650 and then I could give them options if they wanted more work done now in this case in this very specific case we came in here and we cleared this yard but we literally spent 14.35 hours and I wasn't going to say anything to the customer I gave them 4.35 hours and I do that on occasion you don't always win on lump suum bits okay but I also knew that we were going to be doing the mulching on this site and it was 2 yards of mulch and I was charging them 1150 $50 and I wasn't going to risk that for 4.35 extra hours I was going to eat the 4.35 extra hours on the cleanup but after we got the mulch installed the customer requested more services and that's when I told them that we had already gone over their budget by 4.35 hours and there would be no charge for that time but any additional services on top of that would be charged at $65 an hour and now we're back back and now we have some touchup a punch list and this is a house that's going for sale we have punch list items and a punch list basically means little things not big things we we missed a couple trees initially that should have been cleaned up that was on my list for Alex to do initially in this backyard we have to cut dead head all the hostas we have to REM remove a few more trees and so on the first go around Alex I brought you back here and we walked through a whole list of things that had to be done and then I left I left you on your own and then I came back and I graded you on a scale from a to F didn't I yes what grade did I give you a d okay say that louder so they know a d so the service that he actually performed in my eyes was a d it wasn't up to my level so we ended up coming back and that's just so you know Alex that's where the extra 4.35 hours came in that I lost on that job because we had to make sure everything was right we had to come back the next day do a special trip and make sure that we hit all those details that I told you to do the first time that you kind of forgot and here's another one that you've kind of Forgotten a couple times but you have an a for your attitude you have an a for your willingness to learn and to try and grow and that's why I'm we're still here working that's why you're getting a second chance and what this second chance means is that I have now sent you a list this punch list and I'm going to to grade you again okay but I'm not going to stand out here I'm not going to babysit you I'm not going to point you got to do this you got to do that you got to do this you're on your own you're an adult you can handle this stuff but I do have to come back and check on you because the customer checks on me okay so the same thing that the customer does to me where they critique what I do I critique what you do so now it's on to you to figure out is this worthy of this house I want you to look at this house and understand that it's a $2 million home they're trying to sell it and they can't do that when there's little things wrong here little things wrong there it has to look pristine okay it has to look perfect and I want you to use your judgment to create that now we have that punch list we know what has to be done I want you to finish that and if you see anything else I want you to use your judgment I want you to use your your cabesa I almost said cesa you know where my mind's at but I want you to to bring it up to that level that you think you're satisfied with it the mowing crew is coming in when they come in whatever you've got done will load up on the truck and let them haul away whatever is not done yet then we'll have to come back and and haul away at the end of the day today or tomorrow first thing in the morning depends on how long it takes you okay so you're on your own on this one are you ready for it I'm coming back to critique you he uh long story short I'm at my competitions site uh JS Stewart Excavating uh we were harvesting the soil for them out of their site and Hauling it over to our site we were working in cooperation with our competition so I don't technically consider him competition I consider him uh somebody that does what I do and we're just helping each other out but their loader is gone and we need soil so now I'm on the phone I'm calling him there I have another one of uh another dirt work contractor Works in this neighborhood in Idina um I'm calling him I'm going to all these different sites scrambling to find dirt because I'm in this neighborhood and I don't want a truck for miles down the road if I don't have to so I got a truck I got a skid loader I got an excavator working in the area and now I'm doing the Mad Dash because I got three guys on the clock and uh they're waiting for me to figure out where the soil's coming from JS Stewart must have needed their excavator on a different site so they pulled it so now I'm either going to see if I can load it myself bring my own loader over or what I can do to see if I can get the rest of this soil I just ran over to the school and they said they'll load us up with their payloader you went over to Benton Avid oh the school they got dirt huge file oh and they're going to load it does this guy rock look at look it munie does this guy rock or what going on he's the bom so he just got a pull in there a TW just got to pull in there and they'll give us five six loads you we've got a sight how long are you going to have dirt here Steve quite a while man okay we got a site in Eden Prairie we need about 100 yards a week for the next 3 4 weeks are you cool with that yeah take all right perfect we'll do that never met him before in my life that's what happens there's our competition technically I want you guys to work with your competition I want you guys shake hands say hello and see what you can work out cu stuff like this saves us thousands of dollars every year and that dirt monkey site I've mentioned in a few times video I've had three calls on that today from guys wanting to bring dirt into my other site asking cuz they got dirt on just like these guys have extra dirt they don't have a home for it and they're like hey can we bring it your way yep you sure can now in this case this works out because we're literally our job site is on the other side of this hill the same Hill fact I can walk over to our job site and you'll actually that's the same playground that we look at that playground there is what we look at okay getting out of here is going to be a be cat with a load on he's going to have to get pushed out so what he's doing right now will wreck the truck okay we're going to go for to give him a push don't be FR give him a push give him a push give him a push come on ain't going to hurt nothing here you go load sideways slow we're going to track up we're going to have to have I'm going to have to run back and forth on this parking lot to cleanest tires make those connections guys and girls do it all the time like I was telling you dirt monkey I got three phone calls just today on it they want to get rid of all of this dirt and I got a home for most of it so now you may not have that in your area here's a scoop if you guys decide you want to give dirt monkey a try you email me and if you're the person in your area if you're in St Louis and you're the first person in St Louis you want to get it going you know how I got it going in my area I literally took two days and I went through the phone book and I called every Excavating contractor in the Twin Cities area and told him about dirt monkey and that was it nothing more at all if you're the first person to do that in your area I'll set it up so you got a lifetime free you don't have to pay for it ever you you're willing to sit down and you're willing to go for a couple days and get it set up in your area it's yours for good that is one big back ho look at that I love it look at the size of this hole they're making my buddy Mike Frost with Nova Frost this is what he does look at that down there all the way down they shove it out so what you see is you see a shelf and a shelf and a shelf and a shelf that way if anything collapses they're safe looks good I've done that I did did that for the uh Minnesota Zoo we built the African hoofed animal exhibit for him we're here at Elizabeth and Evans house in Idina and just a side note we started on this project when peanut there was literally about was was he about that big you you were a b he was a bump in her stomach I remember the very first time so that's how far we've come a lot of planning and this is a stage where we talked and discussed you actually had a designer come in and do a design for you guys and it's so hard to Envision it when it's you don't when you don't have the blank slate and I love coming in when we've got the blank slate and what we're going to do is we have a few challenges on this site we have a big drop off over here underneath this deck you can't see it right now cuz it's under a pile of rubble that's coming out but what we're going to do is we're going to build a patio for them in this area we're going to remove this concrete we're going to build the patio there and then we're going to have just dirt just soil even though it step off and even though ideally we should have the paper patio extend to that area down the road we are going to be removing these retaining walls and we don't want to jeopardize the patio at that point so what we're doing is although it would be great to do it now we're planning for the future two three years down the road instead of building a patio and ripping it out we're going to let that be grass they're going to get a feel for how the site lays out it gives them time it gives them a functional yard it lets them be be creative and then we don't have to remove what we installed down the road so we're going to have probably about 300 Square ft is what we're guessing maybe 400 ft we're charging $20 a square foot it could go up it could go down it depends on the amount of cuts and the size of the project itself but tonight Elizabeth and Evan are going to lay out their own patio then then they're going to mock the furniture up so I'm going to have them use a garden hose lay that out they're going to set their Furniture up where they see it and Evan's going to measure it length times width he's going to call or text me and he's going to know how much it's going to cost from that point so that's how we're going to do this project are we good with that good with that sounds like we got a plan we're at a site in Eden Prairie it's about a $100,000 Boulder retaining wall project the unfortunate truth is this house behind me is sliding down into to a lake and we've got to build these engineered Boulder retaining walls to stop it all we got Y in my good man sir looks like he's getting some refreshments how's things going out here Yen good it's starting to take shape is it how you doing okay for 50y old man you bust butt that's for sure yeah I do okay yeah he's a good guy yin's a good guy I like him I like all the guys on my team I'm lucky really lucky guy I'll be honest with you I had a bunch of good guys I enjoy them all hasn't always been that way sometimes they drive me nuts Y and you haven't driven me nuts yet have you what day is it what day is it oh this project this project drives me nuts not for me I don't actually…