The company I work for has never had the lot we use plowed and it makes for a wicked time after a snow. I talked to the boss today and told him I was planning to by a plow this summer for the Bronco and wondered if they would let me do the lot. He agreed but we have not set a price yet. It all straight pushing and would probably take me about 45 min to do. Any ideas on what a good rate would be to charge them? It has been almost 15 yrs since i did any plowing and back them I would have hit them for about $75 a shot. I don't want to over price it but also don't want to go to cheap either.

 

how big of a lot is it?

 

One part is about 50' by 70'. The back lot is a long drive about 150' long then widens out to about 40' by 150'. It will all be striahgt push to the ends and one spot that has to be dragged out. It is a loading ramp about 15' long.

 

id say to give u an idea on price wise when my father in law and i push with his truck he charges between $50 and $100 for parking lots bout 175'x100' like i say the price varies on how much snow is there and if they want it salted as well. so honestly i dnt think $75 is bad price to charge. he wont plow tho if there is less than 2 ta 2.5 inches because what the plow doesnt pick up will usually turn to ice

 

That is about what I was thinking as well. Thanks for the help.

 

I charge 60 an hour here and have a couple old accounts I still charge 50 an hour for.
Go for big dollars, you may plow a lot once or twice.
Go for a reasonable amount and do a good job, you have an account forever.

When you get into big or long lots, by the hour is the only way to charge.
Shoving a deep snow a short distance goes rather well, but a long shove can take a long time to move it all that far.

At 75 dollars, you would make out well with a couple inches, but a 12" snow would kill you.

50x70=3500 square feet
40x150=6000 square feet
So 9500 square feet with 3" of snow is 2375 cubic feet of snow.
Light fluffy snow weighs about 5 pounds per cubic foot, so that would be 11,875 pounds to move.

Now lets look at what happens with a foot of heavy wet snow that is about 13 pounds per cubic foot.
Suddenly you have 9500 cubic feet of snow to move that weighs 123,500 pounds.

That 45 minute lot now takes you 7.8 hours to clear.

This weekend lots that I normally plow in 30 minute were taking 3 hours or more.
And I was working my truck a lot harder than I normally do.
On some of my longest pushes, I had more snow than I could push piled in front of the blade before I got to the end of the push.
When it sticks together and you have a big enough pile in front of the blade you can see it from the drivers seat, you have a lot of weight in front of you.

Wonder how I scheared that 3/4" pivot pin that holds the mole board on to the plow frame?
Probably had several tons of snow in front of the blade.


We get a lot of snow and have a good bit of competition with lots of plows running around.
So if you go to high, someone is more than happy to under cut your price.
But if you hang in there, for some reason the guys undercutting prices seem to go away after a year or two.

Everyone forgets to put money back for when you break something, the when it breaks that is the end of them plowing.
And I will guarantee you will break something a lot faster than you normally would wear it out.

My plow was 3500 new back in 95.
That winter I plowed one lot one time for 35 dollars.
Next winter, I almost made enough to pay for the plow, minus my operating expenses.
By the end of the third winter, I was money in the black.

This winter, I could have paid for a new plow at 95 prices already and still have enough winter left that I could have probably covered operating expenses as well this year.

Buying a plow is still a gamble though.

 

Wow Dave you have plowed a lot to bust that pin. That takes a lot. I appreciate your experience and that fact that you share with the forum just shows what kind of person you are. I appreciate that very much. I have done good this year plowing myself. However not as well as you have. I have only plowed 8 days this year. Pretty good year for Oklahoma though. I don't think we will ever have to worry about 12" of snow at one time here, let alone 24" or 36". I have read all the posts I can from you regarding snow plowing. I can see that you are truly an asset to this forum.

John

 

Our Saturday started with about 8" of very heavy wet snow, which by Sunday had turned into about 16", still rather heavy.
Monday rain, turned to heavy wet snow again that night.
By Tuesday the temps were dropping all day and we finally got some light powder, just in time for the wind to start blowing.

ALl that heavy wet snow, turned to ice with single digit temps.

Sure has been an interesting month so far with no end in sight yet.

This was President's Day in 03 after 28" in two days.


Our snow piles are bigger than that now.
Top right corner is a mountain, not a snow pile.

I always did like this picture, took it right before the one above.

 

Thanks Dave. I plan to go with the $75. It is the company I work for and we had talked about this last winter but they never got back with me on ity. Now that the lot is a mess again they wanted me to plow it and I told them that I never got an answer back on it so I didn't buy the plow lol. Now it is a go and I will find one this summer. We don't get much snow here (about 8-14" a year) but when it does snow our lot gets pertty bad as it is now they can't even get the stakebed or the flatbed out of there parking places lol. I offered to hook up to them and pull them out but the boss say he will wait for the snow to melt down some. I think I will also do some driveway jobs here local ($10-$15) if I cab get them. I aint looking to make alot of money, my ex would find a way to get most of it for support if she can lol.

 

I've been wanting to get a plow, but there are so many pick-ups with plows I doubt i'd ever get any work.

 

Read Gores book, there is no need to waist your money.lol

 

Nice one Star...

 

Well with my luck buying a plow would mean no snow and as much as I hate that white stuff it would be well worth the cost lol.

 

I'd like to get a plow too, don't know if I would get much business though. A guy I know has the monopoly in one of the small towns around here. And I know another guy that does places in several towns around and runs 7-10 plow trucks.
One thing that could be a major issue is that it takes 40 acres to turn my F250 around, it's horrible. A regular cab would be better.

 

Don't plow to cheap, and do put money aside to replace parts, both on the truck and plow.

Stuff will wear out and break, always at the worst possible time.

Just like that pin I scheared off, 1 hour into the first big snow we had.
Fortunately I had a replacement over at our shop or I would have been out of action for several hours till the parts houses opened.
As it was, 40 minutes later I was plowing again.

Just before the second storm, I took the plow apart and patched several cracked parts on the lift linkage, that was 5 or 6 hours worth of cutting and welding in ouir shop.
If that had broken while I was plowing, I would have lost almost a day.

Replaced a couple loose U joints yesterday in the rear driveshft, not bad yet but probably would have come out if I was really torquing on the engine/driveline.

Snowing outside again right now, so here we go again.
Weather Channel is showing snow for the next 7 days here.