Profile For Woody D.

Hi Woody. As far as the LLC. that will help with the liability problem if you decide to hire out. Not to mentions protections from friends, remember business is business. I would also look at insurance million/million or more just for c.y.a.. It's not to expensive, and just because you can't see what's in the ground, locators fail/ghost sometimes. Good luck to you. Keith

Thanks, Keith... appreciate that advice. I remember the first time I ran an excavator, digging a french drain near my house... cut the water line. Of course it was a Sunday, had to interrupt the city water guy's football watching. The "uh-oh" wasn't too expensive, fortunately.

I would say to call insurance companies and see what they say about insurance. Generally speaking insuring a CDL required vehicle to someone with no experience is incredibly expensive.

Yep, already working on that... and you're right, insurance will be expensive. This whole thing I'm doing is expensive, but it's all going to cost less than hiring someone else to do all the dirt work on my property.

Regardless of all that, the posted questions remain... would it be advisable to use an inexpensive private CDL school for training, and would it be wise to obtain a LLC business license?

Hi, I'm a recently retired homeowner / builder, I just bought an excavator and dump truck to develop my own property. I don't intend to become a professional truck driver or go into the construction business, but I will need to obtain a CDL to drive my truck. I'll also mention I live in Juneau, Alaska... I'm looking at CDL training programs, both online resources and schools. There is CDL training available right here in Juneau, but it's expensive.

Given my limited interest and needs, I'm thinking about using an inexpensive private CDL school to obtain the hands on training (after obtaining my CLP, using online studies). As I don't intend to pursue a commercial driving career, I don't see company-sponsored training as an option. Any advice from Those Who Know Better, would this be the right move for me?

Going beyond the CDL training, we all know what will happen... friends and acquaintances will eventually ask me to bring my equipment to help them out with their projects. Another aspect of this venture has occurred to me... whether I should get a LLC business license? If I eventually want to accept small jobs, hauling and dumping stuff, maybe even doing some excavation work, I would certainly want to be compensated for time and use of my equipment, and also limit my liability. Is this something I need to be considering ahead of time, or can I just focus on my own stuff for now and worry about it later?

Thanks for any advice, Woody