I recently moved from Columbus, OH up here to Hudson, WI. Winters up here should be much colder and with more snow, so I have been toying with the idea of getting a snow plow for this winter.

With the high cost of the plow($5,000+) as well as other stuff to make my non-snow-plow-prep handle it better(airbags!) I would need to make sure that I would be able to pay off such a considerable investment in two years at the most.

Looking on the internet, it appears that rates for plowing snow are easily high enough to cover costs. My concern would be getting enough work to stay busy enough to make it worthwhile. I also have very little experience plowing and would need to have someone teach me a few things before I could get comfortable doing it on my own.

Any ideas on how I would get started? Is it even worth it?

Thanks!

 

Beware:

The rates are high for a reason --- and it is not just a matter of capacity utilization.

Snow plowing kills trucks --- 50,000 miles of plowing will do in a gasser and make it into a fixer upper.

Often, plow trucks also salt -- with the salter causing severe corrosion in the back.

Talk to people in the biz... you will find that the rates are not nearly as lucrative as you think.

Lots of competitors that undercut price and don't care about full costs.

 

A few things:

1. Buy a used plow, now is kind of a bad time to be looking, but they're out there. For a beginner I would suggest a straight blade, you got enough to think about beside trying to angle wings correctly.

2. There will be some arguements, but here goes. I'd get a Fisher plow, reasons? Cheaper due to quantity out there. The trip edge flips under the plow and works awesome to sheer off icy high points, mounts are easy to come by or buy new. Blizzards are nice but higher priced, Myers I don't like, good for a guy who just does his house, they flip the mold board forward when they catch and that makes for poor ability to stack. Boss straights are a step up from a myers but again are costly. Don't get a Snow Dog, anything poly, sno wax, basically anything light or cheap looking. You want some heft. weight is good.

3. Work with it in some top soil, learn how to manuver the blade, and start to think about how you want to plow your customer, scout the account, discuss with the customer where you can put the snow. Make a game plan and drive it before it snows, make sure you can make all the manuvers you want to make, envision the banks and make sure you can swing the plow without driving into the imaginary snowbanks.

4. Customers are fickle and will switch if they think last years guy did a poor job plowing or repairing the lawn (residential complains about this more than commercial, but business park customers always complain) so getting residentials are not very hard, comercial accounts are usually on a contract and you need to be on top of it, nose around and get someone to give up what the current contract is, bid the same price, most guys think they did a good job and can push for more money the next year, you come in at the same price and they might just shake it up.

5. Do residentials for a year to learn blade control, first few plows be aware of where the grass is and lift the blade slightly just before it and push the pile into the yard, leave about 2" above the grass for 3 plows or so, let that get iced over, after that don't lift the plow and it will ride right up onto the ice and shove the snow deep and you can stack it without worry of lots of spring fixing of lawns. If you get a melt, start over.

in 3 years look to move into a V-plow setup. I'm a total Boss man (4) and I can work at least 30% faster than any one with a straight blade, end of the day I can get 2 or 3 extra residentials and get home to kick the wife and hug the dog before I have to go back out for afternoon commercial clean outs.

Be ready to get up at 3am, and for customers to call and ask you to come NOW and clean out their driveway after a late morning snow storm. Have a backup plan to get your customers covered if your sick or want to take off for a few days. NOONE is going to shovel if they paid you to plow. And by the way that's what they paid you to do, drive up to their car, drop the blade, back drag out to the street, maybe go back up to do a 2nd pass, and shove it up into THEIR yard (neighbors love one another, but they don't love thy neighbors snow in their yard) they DID NOT pay for you to shovel their walk, their sidewalk, or on the side of their cars. You get extra money for getting out of that nice warm cab!!!! Roof raking also can make you some extra money.

Lucrative, not really, but it pays the bills thru the cold months, and can be profitable if you work hard and have other stuff you can do between storms.

Don't put bags on unless you have to, get the springs from the snow plow package, have a shift kit installed, and don't abuse the truck. If you have stock hubs throw that light weight crap out and get some good hubs from superwinch, warn, or mile marker. Those solid bump stop deals, timbren or something, those are good too. they work like helper springs.

 

typical arguement, plowing doesn't kill trucks, crappy plowers kill trucks, kitting banks at 100mph is the leading killer of plow trucks, you take all that innertia and suddenly stop every part when it hammers the bank, yeah front ends, trannys, bent frames all will occur. I fire anyone I ever had that I caught hammering the bank to push the snow up, with any plow you can drive easily into the bank and with good blade control shove the snow easily 10-15 feet high, the bank is usually glazed over ice, the fresh snow will slide right up that, IF you know what your doing.

Back of the truck rots out? Stop being cheap and buying tailgate salters, even with a gate salter all you need to do is put a piece of 60mil rubber roofing over the back of the truck that drags on the ground about 2 inches. Also don't buy salt, buy calcium, and buy it at the end of the season when they want to get rid of it. Stockpile it for the summer and sell it at a profit to others in the fall and winter. Make an investment in a bed mounted salter, they go cheap in the spring when payments are due and they don't have the money.

Wash your truck, and wash it often. Install mudflaps that stick out of the wheel wells and go almost to the ground. This is Plow Truck and we're not here for fashion, we're here for functionality and working.

I've worked for and with my dad for 22 years, we still have a plow from 90 that works as a backup, We never sold a plow truck because it was trashed, we sold our old trucks because we could afford newer gear when others couldn't make the payments. A few of our competition still uses our old trucks.

Proper plowing is not detrimental to the life of the truck, if it shortens the life by 10k I'd be hard pressed to see it. Acting stupid and hammering on a truck will definitely shorten its life, do you put a chain from a 5 ton block to your truck and then drive forward at 20+mph and expect good things to happen?

 

While I somewhat agree with the previous poster about bad plowers are the main cause of death to these trucks, the simple weight of a plow DOES cause damage to the springs over time. As for the other recommendations he points out, they are all good precautions, however many in the business don't have dedicated plow trucks - they also use these trucks as their DD's during the summer and so don't want them to look like a plow truck. Remember, this is America, Land of the Lazy & Shallow.

 

90% of the plowers out there by your standard would qualify as "crappy".

 

We leave the plow on only when plowing (and between plows when its resting on the ground) all summer they are off as we use the trucks (some are DD, parts getters, but most are 5 yard dumps for our materials company) We re-arch the front springs after 2 years, and replace at 4 just so we don't break one while working it. I remove all the spray guards in the summer months for safety as well as aesthetics. We take care of our trucks, and they in turn take care of us.

As for 90% being "crappy", maybe you put it it that high, but any guy who knows his truck, knows what kind of damage being stupid will cause, and how much it costs in reapirs to be stupid will operate with more care. When your a kid and your too smart to be stupid, and you don't pay the bills for the parts you wreck, then you drive and plow like a moron. Again in over 22 years of working in the white I have never broken a mount, ripped a wing, hit a car or building ( I have had unattentive drivers drive across the plow blade and open a car like a sardine can), and a topper, I haven't hung the plow in a bank in 6 years. We had over 7 million Sq Ft of commercial and 72 residentials last year. rookies get 15/hr, 2+ yr vets get 24/hr. We had 3 plows out of 17 down each for under 2 days last season. We cleared enough to pay the help, ourselves, make all equipment payments and pay off 1 of the dumps, and that was in a bad year.

 

Here's a website that is like FTE..plenty of helpfull people if you just ask...

http://www.plowsite.com/

I would suggest looking into getting the right kind of insurance and working under a seasoned company to learn the ropes..

Good Luck!

 

Don't go for a $5k plow. I got a Myers that was used for 1 season for my last truck for $1,500 off craiglist.com. Yes Meyers is not the greatest, but I did my driveway and 10 of my friends for 1 year and paid for the plow and few months of truck payments. Then only did mine, and my friends who had a large stock of adult beverages on hand.

 

I had one on a 2002 F150 and it ruined the front end in a season. May have helped do in the transmission also. I bought it like that though so theres not much I can say about it. Half of it was probably me inexperience with a plow truck.

 

Don't put a plow on that beauty. Trucks in Columbus don't last. With a salt spreader on the back and a plow on the front its going to take a toll on your truck.

If you seriously want to plow, get a beater, or a rhino or bobcat. My good friend has a Rhino, he put a plow on it and he trailers it to neighborhoods and makes a quick 300 dollars when we get hit hard. He trailers the rhino to a neighborhood then just drives the rhino around to peoples houses saying "Ill plow your driveway right now for 30 bucks". Many of them say "sure".


Where are you in Columbus?

EDIT:I read your post wrong. You just moved FROM columbus. Duhhh.

 

typical arguement, plowing doesn't kill trucks, crappy plowers kill trucks, kitting banks at 100mph is the leading killer of plow trucks

Man this is so true. I have 5 sub contractors that work for me in the winter and they all drive like freakin maniacs. I swear I stay outta their way when they're working and pray they dont crash. Ironically I plow like grandma and I'm the only jackass outta the bunch that hit my truck (rock) luckily it wasn't too bad though. This may happen when you are up for more than 24hrs working. I still love it though. I hate the salt though, it causes hell on the truck...

 

Fisher Minute Mount II - 8' straight blade here. Can't wait to upgrade to an XV.


A huge improvement for 99-04 trucks is to add (if not already equipped) X-code front springs.

 

It was me or the plow that took out the springs, ball joints, shocks, and several other expensive parts. I know I'm not an expert at plowing, but I also know it cost a lot of money. Got it fixed, and someone totaled the truck 2 months later running into the back of it at around 40mph yakking on her call phone.

 

Your question is a loaded one, and while I could spend the next 4 hours typing an essay, I'm still not going to be able to instill all the knowledge you would need, but I'll list a few points.

Best advice, work for someone else for a year to see if you like it. I know it seems easy to hang a plow on a truck, but that's an extremely small piece of the winter services puzzle. You need hands on experience to learn the ropes, there's no substitute for experience.

Plows killing trucks? Hogwash. We just parted out a 77 chev that plowed and towed bobcats nearly it's whole life. Drivers kill trucks. Yes, hanging a plow on any truck will accelerate front end wear, but not to the point that your truck is "trashed at 50k". If one of my trucks were "trashed at 50k", my driver would be looking for a new job. ChargersFanInCO: I believe that your F150 had issues. 1/2 ton trucks are too light for plowing, and should not be used to plow anything more than a small driveway, they're just not made for it.

2 of my trucks are dedicated plow trucks, they sit in storage all summer. Yes, snow can be lucrative enough in the right market. Its taken me many years to find and retain a customer base that appreciates high quality work and are willing to pay for it. Unfortunately, 75% of customers out there will go with the low price, regardless of contractor reputation. Then of course they're unhappy with the service they receive and end up playing musical contractors every year. The Walmart mentality is very promininant in the snow business, and it's extremely difficult to break customers of it.

Spreading salt kills trucks? Again, hogwash. Driving around early in the morning in the crap is what does them in. Any plow truck that spends time on the roads early in the day when road crews are dumping excessive chemicals are going to have corrosion issues. My trucks that spread salt look no different than those that don't. Those that have posted they hate salting are either lacking experience, are in the wrong market, or haven't properly sold the service. I make more on salt, with 1/2 the manpower and equipment than I do plowing. Not to mention, car washes are way cheaper than front end components. I'll take an ice event over a plowable event any day of the week!

As for your front suspension if you do decide to put a plow on it; I'm a huge proponent of air bags. Spend the money and do it right. Timbrens result in a horendous ride on a Ford. Timbrens make Chevy's ride like Fords, and Fords ride like lumber wagons. Problem is they result in premature rebound unloaded, which makes the ride very harsh and unpredictable on rough roads. I've only upgraded the springs on my 05, simply because the air bags for 05 and up Fords only add 1k lbs capacity, and it runs a larger plow than it should (8611lp with some upgrades resulting in about 1200lbs hanging off the front). The 01 and 03 trucks have front air bags with no other spring upgrades, but the air bags on those trucks are 3k bags, and they're never run all the way full, they add way more capacity than whats needed on those 2.

BigRuth, I'm going to try to be gentle... Ok, no I'm not, your advice is assinine at best. Flag-downs and door knocking is a huge liability, and $300 a snowstorm won't pay for the equipment, much less the proper insurance.

Jrfish007: You have to spend it to make it. I spend an average of $6000 per plow, per truck, purchased new. I'm running blizzard plows with are the most efficient and reliable plows I've ever used. Efficiency is the biggest thing in commercial work. You simply cannot charge more money than what the customer is will to pay, so in order to make more money, you have to be more efficient. If a guy is subbing and getting paid by the hour, a Meyers is a good investment.

smlford: You forgot the standard warning with the link. There's a lot of morons on plowsite, you have to be smart enough over there to pull the good info out from within all the immature and bad advice given there.

This is a tough business with a high failure rate. It's also not as lucrative as it should be, because so many "plowers" treat it as a "side business" and aren't charging the rates they should. Very common amongst landscapers to charge only enough to cover their expenses through the winter, they do poor quality work, and are hard to compete with because we're not on an even playing field. Alot of these idiots are charging $40-$50/hour, where the professionals are up in the $150-$200 range.