# Paying Day Help?



## justallan (Jul 27, 2015)

What do you guys pay your day help.
I'm thinking of hiring a young man to help with firewood this year and am trying to figure what's going to be fair and both of us make some money. This kid is plenty eager and able to work.
Minimun wage here is $8.05 an hour, but there are no jobs for the kids. I want to pay him by the cord to give him a chance to make us both more money, but what is fair? Firewood goes for $140.00 a cord here.
Any input is welcome.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Nature Man (Jul 28, 2015)

How old is the kid you are thinking about hiring? Hard to pay much more than $10/hour and still make a reasonable profit, however, giving incentives to work harder (and thus paying more for more productivity) might be worth considering. Does the kid need firewood himself? Is the kid into woodworking? Might be able to also trade work for firewood or hardwood, if either is the case. Chuck


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## ClintW (Jul 28, 2015)

How fast can you split a cord of wood? I assume the trees are cut into rounds already? Another idea may be to also offer a increased return concept. Say for example after 10 cords, increase the amount per cord by a small sum. This way he not only works faster but he'll shoot for that cord mark to make more. Kinda like overtime. 
Just a thought. Don't forget to factor your chainsaw time in processing the trees. Gas being the big expense, behind your time.


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## justallan (Jul 28, 2015)

He's 16 and wants to work. I think he's mainly looking for money, but I'd give him any dried slabs or wood that I have for any projects he has in school. At $10 an hour I'm figuring that's $30-$40 a cord start to finish. I can live with that and it would make him some decent money also.

Reactions: Agree 2


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## justallan (Jul 28, 2015)

ClintW said:


> How fast can you split a cord of wood? I assume the trees are cut into rounds already? Another idea may be to also offer a increased return concept. Say for example after 10 cords, increase the amount per cord by a small sum. This way he not only works faster but he'll shoot for that cord mark to make more. Kinda like overtime.
> Just a thought. Don't forget to factor your chainsaw time in processing the trees. Gas being the big expense, behind your time.



He'd be helping start to finish. We had a fire here a couple years ago that scortched the pines bad enough to kill them, but not hurt the logs any. I'd be falling and bucking branches for safety reasons and he'd be either loading logs or sawing rounds and loading them, then at the house he'd be splitting and piling the wood. Just splitting, I can split a cord in just over an hour, but that's by far the easy part of the whole mess. I do know that on a Sunday I can fall, buck up and split 2 cords by myself pretty easy.
I do like the idea of giving more per cord after so many to give him a little more drive.


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## manbuckwal (Jul 28, 2015)

Its good of ya to help the youngster out Allan . You might pay him by the cord for cutting rounds, hauling and splitting and by the hour for other stuff like equipment maintenance etc. Will the wood have to be stacked into cords so you know what your production is ? 

Back in the day I was paid $50 a day to help split and stack two semis of firewood a day .


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## Schroedc (Jul 28, 2015)

Around here for most of the day labor jobs we hire kids in the area for the going rate is 10.00 an hour cash and if they work hard I don't have an issue throwing him some bonus cash at the end of the day. I've used teenagers for help loading stuff on the sawmill and stacking cut lumber and one of my friends that harvests wildflower seed uses them to pick all the time.


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## ClintW (Jul 28, 2015)

Yes I would agree. When ever I helped neigherbors with farm chores or stacking hay, it was usually $10/hr. It's good money for a teen. And if we did particularly good they would give us a little extra. But in your case you would maybe be better to give incentive to work hard by paying by the cord. I think $40 like you said ain't bad. Heck even cut rounds during the day and leave it up to him to split on his own time. That would give him more push to commit more time and when he's bored he can go split wood. If you trust him to work on his own. I know personally it was a good way to get in shape for sports in school.

Reactions: Agree 1


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## justallan (Jul 28, 2015)

manbuckwal said:


> Its good of ya to help the youngster out Allan . You might pay him by the cord for cutting rounds, hauling and splitting and by the hour for other stuff like equipment maintenance etc. Will the wood have to be stacked into cords so you know what your production is ?
> 
> Back in the day I was paid $50 a day to help split and stack two semis of firewood a day .



Back in the '80s we'd cut oak to 12", split it about the size of your fist, haul it to Frisco for the rich folks to use for decoration. We never even had a plan as to how to sell it and just figured we'd go park somewhere with a for sale sign painted on the racks. You couldn't even get parked before folks were trying to flag you down to buy it. The funny part was that even though we made buckets of money, we were to scared to stick around "The Big City" to spend any of it.

My plan is to have it split and stacked in the barn to start and if we run out of room it can get put in piles and I'll tarp it.

Reactions: Like 1 | Funny 1


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## NYWoodturner (Jul 30, 2015)

Work ethic in todays youth is nothing like it was when we were that age. An opportunity like this is a chance for him to be started out on the right path. If you pay him for production he will quickly understand that hard work pays better. If you pay him hourly his production pays the same at half speed or full speed. You'll find him speeding up when your around and slowing down when you leave. I think Clint is spot on. You will get more work out him, he will earn more money and most importantly get a life long lesson in wok ethic.

Reactions: Agree 4


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