[Stonehenge]

What do you guys do in this case?


We had 60 degree temps for several days - things were warming up, blades of grass were starting to show a little green....

Competitors brought their trucks back to their yards, removed the plows and readied them for the construction season.

Tonight they are calling for 6" of snow, and it looks like that forecast will be accurate.

What do they do? Throw the plows back on, salter in back, and head out?

[diginahole]

I think getting ice melting materials would pose a bigger challenge at this time than getting the trucks ready again. Plows and salters can be mounted in a matter of minutes. Judging by the condition of roads and parking lots around here, there aint much salt to be had in these parts.

I spoke with a buddy of mine a week ago who said he had 60 tons of salt that he would sooner not have to store over the summer. Turns out he got his wish, and still ran way short. I know as of last night he didn't know if he would be able to get any more.

It was also obvious many contractors simply didn't go out for this storm, or maybe just not yet. This is probably a wise decision though, you could really open yourself up to some slip and fall suits by plowing off the snow and leaving a big skating rink.

The city of Toronto farms out about 50% of their snow removal. I heard that the contracts ended at the end of March, so they are doing most of the clean-up for this storm themselves, with the help of only a few contractors who are set up for snow still. They expect it to take several days.

[Stonehenge]

Cleaning off the snow to expose a rink would be what would be done here, too.

Having a termination of the contract by a certain date sounds like a good idea, and I wouldn't want to be in the spot of those guys, having to answer "whaddaya mean the contract is up and you aren't going to come out and plow?"

[Lanelle]

How do you deal with this late storm and the shortage of salt and chemicals?

[JAA]

You scramble.... we ARE in the service business.

Move the equipment back to the sites, pull down them plows and hook 'em back up, mount the spreaders up again, turn the salt piles to break up the crusts.....

Ya do what ya got's to do.....

Biggest challenge is to get it plowed up before it melts....

[Stonehenge]

It's interesting - one of my largest landscape competitors has plowing contracts where the trucks are left on the sites. When it gets warm they bring the trucks back and remove the plows. After the recent big storm, I noticed that their trucks never moved.

Implies to me that they had an end date on their plow contracts and then didn't service those people when this storm hit. Not great service, IMO.

When this type of plowing happens, is it normally charged at a rate above the usual rate (if it falls outside your normal contract period)?

[Nebraska]

Originally posted by JAA


Biggest challenge is to get it plowed up before it melts.... [/b]

I laugh cause I'm not the only one that thinks that way.....You can literallly watch the money go down the storm sewer drain!