Already Thinking About Snow

[Cashin H&P]

for a two lane road you are looking at between 6 passes depending on the size of your plow. Start ion the middle and windrow the snow to the edge of the road on the first 4 passes your last 2 will end up being after the snow event where your pushing the snow banks back. you will need to do that right from the start so you dont eventuly close the road in.

[dpld]

Lawn care business tips

Originally Posted by blenno Do you really think that 17 driveways in a row are waste of time. Not even 2 hours of snow blowing for $340 bucks. it would be a waste of time if you have to carry a commercial snow plowing policy with slip and fall protection. you can not look at it as if you are starting out and it being more money then you would make by staying home. especially if it is a commercial job. you not only got the property owner to contend with you have all the people that live there as well as those who visit and everyone today is looking for a easy buck in a slip and fall lawsuit. i know you want to get things rolling and are starting out but unless it is 100% profitable it's a waste of time and if the guy raves about you to his buddies and gets you more work it will be because you are too cheap. you should be charging 100 to 150 per hour minimum plus extra for ice control. what if your truck goes down right in the middle of a storm? what will be your plan? do you have friends that have a plow truck? will they work that cheap and fit you in if they are pressed in getting their own work done? what happens if your truck breaks and you get slammed with a 2,500 dollar repair bill? are you gonna have help to do it or are you gonna do it alone? do you have the resources to cover costs until you get paid? these are all things you need to consider when bidding snow removal and it may seem overboard but welcome to the world of business and the devil is in the details.

[willshome]

Originally Posted by blenno

No salt or sand.

are all 17 homes signing off on they are to do the salting them self?

[blenno]

Thanks for all the advice. You all brought up details that I will have to discuss with the property manager. Also things to consider in order to protect my business.

[yourscape]

Originally Posted by blenno

Also both roads dead end in a circle because the the development is not done yet. I believe there is plenty of room for snow storage. I was thinking $ 200 a pass. Keep in mind this is a growing development. That has a possible plan for 50 condo. This in the future would be Lawn, Landscaping,and Snow removal. So right now I want to make sure that my rates are competitive to keep him happy for the future.

Be careful when you are undercutting your price for possible future accounts, there is not garentee. Yes you might have the accounts but you will never be able to get your price up to market rates, unless you want to work for free on half of them. Undercutting only hurts the market including you! Dont sell yourself short.

[stevef1201]

Personally I do snow removal FREE- here in west central florida

[CHEESE2009]

Originally Posted by stevef1201

Personally I do snow removal FREE- here in west central florida

[TiedemanLLC]

I think you have the right idea, you just need to cover all of your bases. Such as the salting, where are you going to put the snow, what about hauling the snow away, you should have something in the contract if the height goes so high. For example, $20 for each driveway up to 8 inches. Higher than 8 inches it's still $20 per driveway, but $75 per hour on top of it or even jump up the driveway rate to $25 anything over 8 inches.

There are actually some driveways that we charge $17 per plow, sure they only take a couple mins, but it's because we also have 10 more down that street, 8 the next street over, and about another 8 on the following street. We can knock out 26 houses in about 2 1/2 hrs, and gross approximately $600. Sure it's not a lot of money, but at least we don't have to travel all over the place and the routes are tight.

I am a firm believer with plowing it's on route density, and different billing structures. For example, we have pre-payment, per service, and flat monthly rates. This way we are covered three different ways if we have light or heavy snow year.

Our route density is so tight too that normally we have one guy in the plow truck plowing, while another guy walks from client to client clearing off their walkways with a shovel.