Cen-tex Crane Service

Cen-Tex's website doesn't list its prices, forcing a call to them to get pricing. The pricing they quoted me was $130/hr. with a 3-hour minimum. The time is calculated roundtrip from their site. (i.e., The clock starts ticking when they leave their site, and ends when they get back to their site. They're located in far South Austin, about 14 miles from the City Center. I think it took them about 30 minutes each way to get to/from me, 15 miles away.) Other places I called also charge for round-trip time, but they were even farther away (like Leander). I can't list their prices for reference, because when I called them I was getting quotes for a Reach Forklift; only later did I realize that I really needed a crane, and when Cen-Tex gave me a seemingly good price for that, I just went with Cen-Tex because I doubted I'd get a better price elsewhere. I did talk to Equipment Depot, who said they'd get back to me with a price, but they never did, even after I called them once to remind them that I was still waiting. Anyway, Mike from Cen-Tex came out (unannounced) the day before our appointment to do a site check to make sure there wouldn't be any problems. That was a good thing, because he found one: our plan for extracting the hot tub from its staging area two doors down wouldn't work, so after he left I moved the tub to a more accessible location. Had he not tipped us off about that problem beforehand, we would have been looking at paying for another hour or two of time when he brought the crane in order to fix the problem then. Our appointment for the crane was to start between 10 and 10:30am, but Mike called at 9:30 and said that he got tied up and wouldn't be able to make it that day, so we rescheduled for the next day. Mike came the next day on time and gingerly negotiated his crane truck through the narrow driveway with overhanging trees, into our middle yard, then spent a few minutes repositioning the truck. He brought straps with him; we strapped each of the four loads and he hoisted them (one at a time) carefully onto the deck, with my wife and I up there to guide them into place and to remove the straps. The whole job took about 2 hours, plus the 1 hour of travel time making 3, so I paid for three hours, which was the minimum charge anyway. Out of curiosity, I asked how much the crane cost. He said it would be $310k new but he got it used for $150k. That being the case, the rate seems very reasonable. While the experience wasn't perfect, I don't have any complaints, and I'm sure you could do a lot worse, both price- and service-wise.