Big 'ol American Lawns!

[cutntrim]

Reading about the property sizes you guys south of the 49th parallel cut amazes me. I routinely read about your 50,000ft and up residential lawns. A lot of you give your customers lawn sizes in number of acres and not square feet!

80% of the Canadian population lives within 200km of the U.S. border and the Golden Horseshoe region of Ontario (where I am) is the most densely populated in the country. We've got subdivisions here of $300,000+ homes on 2,500sq.ft. lots. That's LOT size mind you, not turf area.

Our average residential home has around 4,000ft of grass, I can only dream of cutting properties like a lot of you have. Who needs commercial clients when your residentials have more grass than do major corporations and shopping malls up here?!?

[awm]

well learned something . i would have thought it was the other way around.Canadas a big place

[summitgroundskeeping]

My lawn is about 15,000 sq feet. my house is close to 4,000sq feet, and it is only worth like ($230,000 maybe more or less forgot last apraisal figure). How do u make money? I mean can u charge for lawns that small?

[summitgroundskeeping]

of my clients lawns are larger than mine, like 18,000 sq feet. And thoes aren't even large lawns. Do you use anything bigger than a 21" or 36" mower? I bet all you need is weed whip a.k.a. trimmer.

[Eric ELM]

Now I know why they use 21" mowers up there. Their trailers are bigger than the lawns. We do have some small lawns around here, but I do not target them.

[little green guy]

We have all different sized lawns around here, my smallest lawn is about 1000 sq ft and my biggest is about 2.5 acres. The other company I work with has one residential that is 17 acres.

[cantoo]

Heck, we have snow 14 months a year here fellas..


We service properties from 2500 sq ft to our biggest at about 4 acres. Any bigger and they usually have their own equipment or people to do it.
It all depends on where you go, we have big and we have small, the same as you guys.

[landscaper3]

In the city we have small lawn (wouldnt even register on sqft) to out personal lawn at 15,000sqft located in Maine. We maintain residential homes from 2k to condos at 200,000plus sqft. Try add ons for your customers to make up the difference, trees, flower beds fences and other profitable methods. Thats where alot of companies make there biggest $$$$ is add ons!

[gene gls]

The bigger the lawn, the cheaper the customer is at paying. Out of 42 mowing accounts, I have 10 that are from 1 1/2 to 3 acres in size.

Gene

[Scag48]

I will totally back that last statement up. I find that the guys with big lawns will not pay as much for their lawn to get cut. It just costs too much a month for people around here. I thought I could make money with a bigger mower, hitting the larger properties, but for what you get paid per week, it just isn't enough. My 1 1/2 lawn pays $50 a cut. Yeah, I know, a little on the cheap side, but these people just won't pay. Sounds cheap for a weekly cut, but $200 a month for these people is just too much, so they don't hire you.

[65hoss]

Here is what I found to be true in a lot of cases dealing with larger lawns. Yes, many times the $$ per sq. ft may be less than a smaller lawn, but it where the difference is made is in time.

Many times I can do a larger lawn at about the same amount of time as a smaller lawn. Why? On smaller lawns (1/3 to 1/2 acre) you don't have as much open space to use the speed and you have much more turning and stopping. When I get on a larger lawn (3/4 to 1 acre) I can use the speed of the Z to its potential. Thus making up time.

So, lets say 1/3 acre lawn takes 25 minutes for $35 and 3/4 acre lawn takes 25 minutes for $50. For the same amount of time, which would you want?
I ran walkbehinds before the Lazer. These figures don't hold as true using w/b's. W/b's still don't have the speed in open areas that a Z has. To the people who question if a Z can actually help, here is the best answer I can give...

On smaller properties it will be as fast, if not a little faster, but when you hit bigger lawns you will excel greatly. You get the best of both worlds.