How much does it cost?

£60 an hour including VAT, with a two hour minimum, so the smallest job on the book is £120. Half a day of four hours is £240 and a full day of eight hours is £480. A second person, where the job needs two, is £30 an hour on top.

Why price by the hour instead of quoting for the job?

Because nobody can tell what is under a season of growth until it comes off. A fixed price for clearance is either padded to cover the worst case or gets revised on the day, and both of those cost you more than an hourly rate does. You are told roughly how long it should take, and you pay for the time it actually takes.

Do you come and look first?

Not as a rule. Photographs and a rough size are enough to estimate the hours, and a site visit adds a trip to the cost of a job that has a published rate anyway. If the access is unusual or you want someone to stand in it with you first, say so and it can be arranged.

How much does it cost?

£60 an hour including VAT, with a two hour minimum, so the smallest job on the book is £120. Half a day of four hours is £240 and a full day of eight hours is £480. A second person, where the job needs two, is £30 an hour on top.

Why price by the hour instead of quoting for the job?

Because nobody can tell what is under a season of growth until it comes off. A fixed price for clearance is either padded to cover the worst case or gets revised on the day, and both of those cost you more than an hourly rate does. You are told roughly how long it should take, and you pay for the time it actually takes.

Do you come and look first?

Not as a rule. Photographs and a rough size are enough to estimate the hours, and a site visit adds a trip to the cost of a job that has a published rate anyway. If the access is unusual or you want someone to stand in it with you first, say so and it can be arranged.

The rate

One rate, published, so you can work it out before you ring

There is no per job quote and no free site visit as standard. Clearance is priced by the hour because nobody can tell what is under a season of growth until it comes off, and a fixed price on an unknown is either padded or revised.

Book a clearance How booking works

A Devon garden cleared right back to bare soil, with a shed, an apple tree and a dry stone wall all visible again and the cut material stacked in a pile against the wall

Rate card

The rate card

Everything here includes VAT and includes travel inside the covered area. Nothing on this site quotes a figure that is not on this card.

Hourly rate: £60; £60 an hour including VAT
Minimum charge: £120; Two hour minimum, so £120 is the smallest job
Half day, four hours: £240; Half a day, four hours, is £240
Full day, eight hours: £480; A full day, eight hours, is £480
Second person: £30 an hour; A second person on the job is £30 an hour on top
Waste removal: At cost; Waste removal is charged at cost, which is whatever the tip charges for the load

A 50% deposit of the estimated time books the date, and the balance is due when the work is done.

What an hour gets you

This is the part most sites leave out. An hour on knee high grass covers a lot of ground and an hour on woody bramble on a slope covers very little, so here is the rough shape of it. These are working ranges from ordinary Devon conditions, not promises, and wet growth is slower than dry on every line of it.

What is standing	Roughly an hour	Why
Rough grass and weeds, up to knee height	150 to 250 square metres an hour	One pass, raked off. A typical small back garden sits inside the two hour minimum.
Chest high grass, docks and nettles	80 to 150 square metres an hour	Two passes, because taking a metre of standing growth off in one go wraps the head and takes longer.
Established bramble with woody stems	30 to 60 square metres an hour	Cut low with a metal blade and dragged clear as the work goes. The dragging is usually as much of it as the cutting.
Bracken	100 to 200 square metres an hour	Cuts easily, but it grows where you cannot stand square, and a slope you have to work across is slower than one you can work down.
Hedge bases and fence lines	40 to 80 metres run an hour	Measured as a length rather than an area, and slower where growth has knitted into the wire and has to be pulled off it.
Raking, loading and clearing away	Often a third of the total time	On a heavy clearance this is the hidden cost. Leaving the arisings on site is the cheapest thing you can decide.

Slower ground

What makes an hour cost more ground

Access that means carrying everything through a house or down a rear lane
A slope you have to work across rather than down
Wet growth, which is heavier, wraps the head and cuts worse
Anything hidden in it that has to be worked around by hand: glass, wire, low walls, garden lights
Growth knitted into a fence, a hedge or a stack of stored material
Nowhere near to put the arisings, so every load walks further

Worked examples

Three jobs, worked through

Estimates, not quotes. They are here so the rate means something before you send a photograph.

A small back garden in Exeter, left one summer

Around fifty square metres of knee to waist high grass with nettles in one corner, side access down an alley. Cut, raked off and the arisings bagged out to the pickup. Inside the two hour minimum, so £120.

A let property between tenants in Exmouth

Front and back, around a hundred and fifty square metres of chest high growth, bramble along both fence lines, everything to be taken away. Half a day at £240 plus the tipping charge at cost.

A paddock boundary near Cullompton

Three hundred metres of hedgebank face and the margin in front of it, bramble along a third of it, arisings left to rot down where they fall. A full day at £480, with a second person at £30 an hour worth considering to get it inside one visit.

Paying

Deposit, balance and what is not included

50% deposit to book

Half the estimated time, paid to hold the date. The balance is due when the work is finished, calculated on the time actually used rather than the estimate.

If it runs short, you pay less

The estimate is not a fixed price in either direction. Time actually used is what is invoiced, subject to the two hour minimum.

If it runs long, you decide

Where a job is clearly going to overrun you are told on site with the machine off, and you choose whether to carry on or stop at the ground already cleared.

Waste removal at cost, on top

The only thing charged outside the hourly rate. Tipping is passed on at whatever the tip charges for the load, with nothing added, and leaving the arisings on site costs nothing at all.

Questions

Questions we get asked

How much does it cost?: £60 an hour including VAT, with a two hour minimum, so the smallest job on the book is £120. Half a day of four hours is £240 and a full day of eight hours is £480. A second person, where the job needs two, is £30 an hour on top.
Why price by the hour instead of quoting for the job?: Because nobody can tell what is under a season of growth until it comes off. A fixed price for clearance is either padded to cover the worst case or gets revised on the day, and both of those cost you more than an hourly rate does. You are told roughly how long it should take, and you pay for the time it actually takes.
Do you come and look first?: Not as a rule. Photographs and a rough size are enough to estimate the hours, and a site visit adds a trip to the cost of a job that has a published rate anyway. If the access is unusual or you want someone to stand in it with you first, say so and it can be arranged.

See the hourly rate

Work out roughly what yours will cost, then send a photograph

£60 an hour including VAT, two hour minimum at £120, half a day £240, full day £480. Send a postcode, a rough size and two or three photographs and you will get an estimate in hours back.

Book a clearance Call 07366 321657 info@hemburycontracting.co.uk