[jmrwv]

One of the toughest issues for me starting my landscape construction business is the lack of a shop to work out of. And not just a shop, but a place to dump job site spoils and wood scraps. I've basically got a truck, some equipment, and an office in my house, which is in a residential subdivision. It's tough to put all my equipment back in my basement utility room and on my carport every day, but as I consider purchasing a dump trailer, I'm realizing there will be nowhere to park it. And if I've got a wheelbarrow full of dirt or more than a handful of wood scraps at the end of the day, it's a problem.

How have some of the more established guys here dealt with these logistical issues starting out? The only things that seem feasible to me are to approach a nearby farmer and see if I can rent a small corner of a barn, or find a contractor who's not a competitor and make some arrangement to work out of their shop and use their dumpster. Anyone had success with an arrangement like this or have any other suggestions?

Thanks!
Jim

[GLAN]

There is a big home remodeler in my area that used to have a dumpster dropped at a gas station in one area of town......it was for the small jobs, a place where a repair mechanic can dump waste from warranty service calls.

It sounds like you need to rent space........I would go for yard space over barn space......you can always get a storage container for tools and on hand supplies.

[Cochran]

Definitely find a good storage space to rent--with lots of outside space, although if you can find one with a small shop too that's even better. As you grow, you will continue to accumulate materials or even be able to buy materials in bulk and once you're at that point, you don't want to have to relocate everything that you were storing somewhere else--cause at that point you'll be taking up too much of their space!

Around here, we can find fenced lots (no building) reasonably cheap for rent and even purchase.

Temporarily while you're finding a more permanent place, you may ask around to some of the folks you mentioned for equipment storage or even look at a large enclosed storage area.

[Dale Wiley]

Enclosed trailer.

[cutntrim]

Unlike many of my direct competitors, I live right in a suburb of the city on a postage stamp sized lot. Before my wife and I bought our house, we lived in a condo building, before that I still lived at home...again in the suburbs. No shop, no parking, no dumping. It's always been that way for me.

My setup such as it is:

Home Office
Seperate Mail to PO box
(3) 10'x20' and (1) 10'x10' storage garages at 24hr access rental storage unit complex in center of city for $750/mo. total
Off season storage of bed salter and plows at friend's farm 45 min. away, and at apartment customer's garage in city
Spoils dumped at aggregate supplier's site ($20/dump trailer load)
Concrete to local asphalt recycling plant ($20/load)
Other dump crap to waste transfer station in city

Would I like to live on acreage outside of town with a shop and room to roam...yep. Can I afford $500,000 to do so? Nope. You can run a landscape business and live in the city. I've done it for 15 years. You just have to look around for places to keep stuff and get rid of stuff.

[site]

We are in our eleventh year of business. We just built a shop this past winter. Before that we operated out of a 1/4 acre lot behind a commercial building. We had a shed, and an 18 wheeler trailer. No electricity, and no running water. We had a 5 yard dumpster for trash dumped every week. We saved up our loamy spoils and then gave them away in bulk to an excavator. We have a good generator, and some 300 gallon tubs for water. The overhead was really low, and we were forced to be creative in lots of different ways. I think keeping it lean has been one of the keys to our success. I'll admit it is embarassing to have run a $1 million a year company out of such a weak location, but most of our customers never knew. Jmrwv If you are creative and hungry you will find a way to make it all work

[Fine Edge]

Sorry, can't help you on this one. Our shop is in the country which has a house that is lived in by my bro, who works with me. Good thing is the acreage to dump all burnable materials and dumpster for anything else.
Our burn pile is now approx. 25' long x 15' wide and 8' tall.

It really does look like a second sun has emerged when we light one that big. The last one smoldered for over 3 weeks.

[Dale Wiley]

Originally posted by Fine Edge
Sorry, can't help you on this one. Our shop is in the country which has a house that is lived in by my bro, who works with me. Good thing is the acreage to dump all burnable materials and dumpster for anything else.
Our burn pile is now approx. 25' long x 15' wide and 8' tall.

It really does look like a second sun has emerged when we light one that big. The last one smoldered for over 3 weeks.

I can top that....ours is still smoldering after 2.5 months...we burned it, flames 30 feet in the air.. see it from the highway..the employees knew it was ours after I lit it off. It was about 40 feet long, 25 feet wide and as high as we could push it with a 75 hp tractor loader.

A buddy who is a fence builder dumps a lot of cedar on it and that helps too..

[Fine Edge]

Isn't it nice to be able to roast marshmallows from 200' away!!!!

[GLAN]

Yeah great..........burn your garbage and no wonder we have the air pollution we have........and may I remind you.......the prevailing winds blow from West to East.............so I gotta breath your junk and carry a hanky to wipe my eyes all day long.........Yeah, go ahead keep burning.


I'm headin down to Washington in the morning and park my butt and lobby to BAN burning of any kind and everything in this Country.









But I do feel strongly about this burning nonsense

[Fine Edge]

I only burn all-organic landscape debris.
When it finally filters back down to Earth, it actually helps to lightly fertilize everything from crops to grass to trees to your roof, your hair and even your cars.

Besides, I don't think I could ever burn enough debris in my lifetime to equal what comes out of the New York City area in a day.

[Dale Wiley]

Originally posted by GLAN
Yeah great..........burn your garbage and no wonder we have the air pollution we have........and may I remind you.......the prevailing winds blow from West to East.............so I gotta breath your junk and carry a hanky to wipe my eyes all day long.........Yeah, go ahead keep burning.


I'm headin down to Washington in the morning and park my butt and lobby to BAN burning of any kind and everything in this Country.









But I do feel strongly about this burning nonsense

Make sure you ride your bicycle so you don't pollute the air with any carbon monoxide emissions, and hope your arse don't get run over by a politician in a foreign luxury automobile...

[mdvaden]

I'm a size that's just right to work for a residence, but not quite big enough for commercial property.

Same similar sitiuation up north.

We moved south to an acre, where I tried something that would have worked north even on the 1/4 acre lot.

I bought a half dozen trash cans and fill them - hidden behind a tool shed, rather than heaping, or, having a large residential can. Every week or three, I make a dump run.

This would have worked up north, because I made a covered tool corral fenced beside the house, and put plants in front.

I I wanted to, I could easily have done the same for another trailer, and designed it be be thickly planted like with wisteria, or shrubs, so it would not look like a sterile carport.

One benefit of moving south - although not enough business - was that even on a larger lot, I discovered new ideas outside my original rut, that will help me later.