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What I do now is that when it's covered in ice and snow the place I want to be is in the house with a nice cup of tea and watching a film or something.
I work far too hard from March to mid december to want to be out in the snow working.
I'm sure there is money to be made but Ive no idea how I would price it, so something along the lines of £30 per hour plus allowance for kit and grit. It would have to pay well to get me out in it!
Good luck with it.
Be careful where you go with this Mitchel and don't spend too much money yet - you could open up a can of worms. You probably have more snow where you are, but down here in Essex, we have had none so far this winter, so any equipment would have lain idle.
The problem with carrying out commercial snow clearing is that EVERYONE wants it done by opening up time, say 7 - 7.30am and you would probably still be on your first call. What about continuous snow, would you leave where you are and move on, or stay on your first site and turn your phone off?
I work very closely with our biggest client, who employ around 800 and we have set up a 'Snow Clearing Force' with them. We get in(4 of us) at 6am and work with maybe 3 of the security team. At 8am around 6 more staff members would join in if needed. We have investigated the use of a small plough, but always come up with the same problem - possible damage to VERY expensive granite kerbs, hidden speed humps and where do you put the snow?! We bought a van mounted salt spreader, which was quite honestly pretty useless, as damp salt would form a cavity in the hopper and stop working! We found it quicker and more efficient by hand! This system has worked OK in the past as we only get light to moderate snow.....but if we got ***S N O W***, snow, everyone is agreed that half of the staff wouldn't get in anyway! For this, we charge basic labour plus out of hours rate.
We are usually away by 9 - 10am and then we zip round our older private customers and clear their drives and paths - all part of the service and it keeps them happy!
Sorry if all that is a bit negative, but we have been there, but as I have said, there may be more call in your area. Don't forget, you would need to upgrade your insurance.
I've also got the correct insurances
Right now up in sunny Scotland I run a summer garden maintenance business with a mix of commercial and domestic clients. We were running a defender with a 1575 snowed on the back and if required we put a custom built cuthbertson plough on the front. Bridging, wet salt, electrical problems and motor failures was the reasoning behind purchasing a brand new defender with a built 1.2 ton salt spreader and plough that goes on the front. Kit is expensive and the reason that customers want you to do it is because it costs too much to gear up for, maintaining and repairs are expensive and staffing is not cheap either. Don't go in cheap as you will get caught out!!
I have been doing this for a while now and it's not easy
I texted you :( haha
is the 1575 a good piece of kit been offered one for £800 it done two seasons ?
well pricing is biggest thing im struggling with trying to work out how much salt i would down a sqm to work out costings..
I would like to offer this service to Local Nursing Homes, Pubs and Small Local Buisnesses and Maybe even Domesctic Customers
actually its an 1875 sorry so will see how it goes.
what do you do if you clear a site and grit but it carrys on snowing do you stay on that site? or move around the sites?
Also is it possible to over grit?
That will give you an idea of salt.
I quote per hour on snow pushing and gritting is per visit / drop plus salt used
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