Snow & Ice Removal 2023

(continued from page 18) cost of insurance. If you only use your trucks in the summer, you need insurance for winter. I’d highly recommend an umbrella policy. What if, God forbid, you hit a gas meter on the side of the building and it starts a fire? If you don’t have a $5 million umbrella, you could lose everything. Know your insurance coverages and make sure you are protected.

Q: What’s a common mistake?

Not being prepared for performing service at the site. Know the property. Make sure you mark the property and put stakes up. When it’s a blanket of white out there, you can make a lot of mistakes and cause damage. For our clients, every property has a book with a color-coded site map (where to pile snow, where no to pile snow, fire hydrant markings, etc.). We stake all our sites and we still stake them every year even though we’ve been doing them for 20 years.

Q: Is a hand-shake good enough for an existing client?

I would have a written contract. I would never enter into a verbal contract for snow because that’s a great way not to get paid. If you don’t have a signed document—especially when we have two inches of snow and the next day it’s 40 degrees and melting. You did your job, but the response may be, “you weren’t here.” Be sure that the wording of the contract is very clear about service and payment.

Q: How about payment?

Have terms for your clients. Our terms in the winter are 15 days. We’re pretty firm about it. The pay for employees is usually double in the winter. Shovelers get $30 in winter, $18 for work in summer. Your workers will not want to wait for you to get paid so you need to get your clients to pay you promptly. You don’t want cash flow to become an issue. You also don’t want your accounts to age and the client can deny you payment. You have the leverage to collect payment with 15 day terms, especially when there is more snow in the forecast.

Q: Do you prefer commercial or residential snow ops?

We used to only do residential many years ago and then we learned sooner than later you need to do commercial. We do very little residential now—some clients demand that we do their snow because we do their landscape in the summer. I tell them I don’t want to do their snow—I’m doing it as a convenience. They know we’re going to show up. The biggest complaint from any client is when a firm doesn’t show up.

I consider HOA’s to be commercial—they’re the bread and butter in the summer and service in the winter. They often like to have the same company because if someone else does the snow, the summer firm might blame the snow company for damage to the grass. It is too easy for “finger pointing.”

Q: How have your operations changed over the years?

In 1979, when we had the big snow (21” and a record 89.7” for the season) it was basically pick up trucks doing the work. Since then, equipment has gotten much more powerful and sophisticated. Even the county plows are now massive and they can keep the roads clear. It seems that there were not a lot of snow events last winter—it was below normal but not by much. And, it doesn’t seem as bad because the equipment is so much better. We use front-end loaders and back plows, much bigger and more powerful than the equipment in ’79. They are more versatile, stronger, however, more expensive.

Q: What type of equipment do you recommend?

It depends on what type of service you do. Tailor your equipment to your contracts. It depends on what type of plowing you’re doing. I’m a huge fan of the back plow.

It’s essentially a box on the back of a truck that drags the snow out. It’s great for residential work. You wouldn’t need it for a parking lot, but it’s good for moving snow away from garages and loading docks. It’s amazing the efficiency — a guy can do double the work with a back plow. There are different manufacturers that make them.

If you are a smaller operation and the driver is also doing the shoveling, I’d recommend having at least one snow blower — one that someone could lift in and out of the truck (continued on page 16)