Since I have been in the business of providing concrete pumping services in a lot of cities in this country, the true cost of providing this service has never been charged to the customer in most parts of the country, due to competition.

Most pumpers that entered the business based their cost on what the market was charging, less 20% because they knew they could do it for less because they were going to do a better job and pump more jobs.

Since 1983, we have been preaching to the industry you must pump for a profit because I have seen times concrete pumps were not worth the price of scrap iron.

At that time the "Nightmare Pump Company" outline was developed to promote through the ACPA to give to our members. It was to show owners of pumps the true cost of pumping cement with a return on their investment.

Now as an industry we must charge for our services or else Bankruptcy, Out of Business, or what?

Do you, as an owner or your managers prepare yearly and monthly costs figures to know where you are and if you are charging your customers enough money to cover your true costs? Probably not. If not then how as an industry can we ever charge enough? Think about it.

Attached is such an outline Please review and let's compare. In doing so, this will prepare us for the cost seminar in Dallas.

It is a shame that we must charge 30% less than our cost in order to do business in the market place.

Example - 5 years ago there were est. 295 pumps located in the state of Colorado. Today most of those pumps are gone, re-poed or etc. and about 90% owners either went bankrupt, broke, or went out of business.

Thank you.

Richard O'Brien

Excellent article - too bad NOBODY listens. I charge $140/ hr + $2.40/yard + $140/hr travel + $15 prime with a 4 hr minimum. Figuring a 100 yard slab, I would make more charging tad less hourly and more yardage. I have a $750 minimum so I'm covered there. I'm in north TX - I know for a fact that there are very few that charge as much as me in this area and it is probably not going to change any time soon....

Yes Mr O it is a shame the price for a pump now is not really much differant than it was in the late 70's. And yes their are companies that stick to their prices only to have another pumper come in and under bid to make a payment or for cash flow.Do the crane people have the same problem??