Eric The Snowman

[pace lawn care]

Man am I glad it's you if you like the snow, cause I hate the cold! Here in south Arkansas it's 65 & in north Ar. it's 15. I love 75-80 myself. Good luck to all, be safe & Merry Christmas.

[Evan528]

i saw on the news all the snow chicago got. I thought of all the fun your havin Eric. Im jelous! The first storm is always fun!

[stick9]

There is a LOT of snow here, in Detroit, as well ... 7" fell at my house(Wayne County) ... but, in the county just north of here, they got between 12" and 16" ... MAN ... I won't even leave the house when more then 4 inches have fallen ... and MANNNNN IS IT COLLLLLLLDDDDDD ... with windchill, it's -20 degrees today .. tomorrows high is 8 degrees (who knows with windchill) ... ugh .. I can't WAIT to get out of Michigan.

StICK-nINe



[Edited by stick9 on 12-12-2000 at 06:04 PM]

[kmcutters]

I live near Battle Creek Michigan and we got about 15 inches of the snow.I cant wait to get my lawn biz going so I can make some money to buy a plow truck and make winter money too.



kmcutters

[Greenkeepers]

Stick-

How come your not plowing????

[cantoo]

This is only the second day I have missed at work because of snow in 15 years. I usually snowmobile in but didn't bother today, turns out they closed the plant anyway. We have a drift 5' high and 300 feet long across and down the length of our driveway. I don't do snow removal other than my own either. I have a neighbour with 100 hp tractor usually do the driveway. I also have a 28" walk behind that I play with. Time to do the books I guess.... yuck.

[Bob's Lawn Care]

Its a beautiful day here in Central New York. A nice sunny day, temps in the low 20's with 20-30 mph northwest winds gusting up to 50mph. The windchild is around -50 degrees. There is only a couple of inches of snow where I live but there is plenty more up north. Just enough to go snowmobiling, but more would be better.

It just doesnt get any better than that!

[cantoo]

We have a place in Florida, my Dad called this morning to ask how things are? He knows right well we are up to our a**es in it. I think he spends half his time there praying for bad weather up here. Last week he called while it was storming here, he was doing some cement work on the walkways.. just stopped for another cold drink and thought he should see how we are doing....

[TJLC]

My wife and I just got back from a trip to Cincinnati to visit. It was 18 deg when we left Cinti. It was 75 deg when we landed in Ft myers. We lived all our lives in Cinti until 2 1/2 years. That trip just made me sure of why we moved south. I'm sorry, but I don't know how or why we put up with that for so long. It's great to live in shorts and tee's all year long! 300 plus days of sunshine a yr. I'll take it.

[mowerconsultant]

Bobs lawn care,
Hey Bob, I live in Syracuse, and we have the same crappy weather here.
I wish it would just dump some snow and give these guys plowing some more work.
These little storms are not doing us any good we need a good dumping
Hey i ride up to tug hill all the time, and there is rumor they got like 18 inches today !!!
I am loading the sled up tonight !!!

[stick9]

Hey Greenkeepers ......

I don't plow .. never have, never will .. I can't stand the cold .. can't stand the snow .. I like to sleep at night and like to look at the people who are outside doing their driveways in the freezing cold .. and then I like to pay them to come and do mine ... perfect relationship.


Kinda ironic that I live in Michigan, 'eh?

StICK-ninE

[Vandora Lawn & Landscape]

Eric must be loving it. He's got a foot or more in Chicago!

[Eric ELM]

We got 13" here and I plowed 61 driveways twice and some 3 times. We had drifts 3 feet deep in some driveways and had 40 MPH wind with a chill factor of -40 degrees. It was 70 degrees in the cab of the truck though. :)

3 or more inches coming again tomorrow and more Friday. I think mother nature is making up for no snow at all in December 2 years ago.

[KirbysLawn]

How much is charged for a driveway? Just wondering?

Ray

[Eric ELM]

That question is about the same as asking, what do you charge to mow a lawn. It has a lot of variables in it. It all depends on how big it is, is it a push off or a back drag, is it a straight driveway, curved driveway, a circle driveway, or a combination of a circle and a straight driveway? A back drag driveway is a driveway that has a garage at the end of driveway and a push off driveway is one that you have to make a 90 degree turn to pull in a garage. All of mine are push offs, so they are much easier to do than a back drag. You simply push the snow straight ahead and is much easier than trying to drag the snow back from a garage and then go turn around and push it all out. It also depends on how deep the snow is, how much I charge.

I realize this is probably more than you wanted to know, but in case someone posts they charge $20 for a small single back drag and it takes them 15 minutes to do the job and get to the next driveway, you will be able to figure out a bigger push off is the best money makers. The driveways I do are all in an area of less than 1 mile and I average doing 10 driveways an hour when we have 5" or less. Each 3" of snow over 5" is an addtional $5.00 per plow, which covers me in case of a big down burst of snow like yesterday. You need some sort of blizzard clause when it comes to snow removal. Now to finally answer your question, the driveways I do, vary between $20 and $40 per plowing, not per snow storm, for 2" to 5" and each 3" per plowing is another $5.00 per plowing. It was snowing 2" per hour at times yesterday, so there was 8 or more inches on some of the last driveways I did towards the end of the first time around of plowing. By the time I started over on the first ones I had plowed, there was over 8" on them again. I hope I didn't confuse you, but I wanted to explain why there will be big differences in prices of driveways, just like there is in lawn mowing prices. You may get posts to this saying they charge $50 a driveway, but have to drive so far to the next one, they only can do 2 an hour. I'll take the 10 an hour setup anytime. End of long post. :)

[tpirobert]

Eric

Thanks for "long" post to Ray's question. I just got some lernin:) I don't own a plow and contractor buddy here said he would'nt buy one if he did'nt already own one. I'm in "mountains" of NC. I have thought of buying one to help get commercial mowing accounts, but I'm afraid it would get little use. Do you think having the plow has helped you get accounts?

[Eric ELM]

I know it has gotten me lawns. I got 3 driveways in a row about 14 years ago and the next spring one of them approached me and said, "you do a great job of plowing, if your lawn work is as good as your plowing, all 3 of us wants you to give us a price on mowing also." I've been mowing those 3 lawns for the past 13 years now. This is just one example.

If you want a better answer to your question, post on the snow forum. You can always get an older plow setup and give it a try to see if it is of value to you to plow.

[Eric ELM]

We now have around 24" on the ground. We have plowed 6 times in the past 7 days and we now have 3 more storms coming. We have 4 to 6" coming tonight into tomorrow and high winds along with this. We have have another storm coming Monday and another coming Wednesday and we are supposed to have very strong wind with these next 3 storms. We are running out of room to put this snow. It seems like every storm that comes along heads right at us and dumps more than they are expecting.

For you southern guys that wonder why I'm concerned about high winds, it drifts the driveways shut and the snow is now piled up around 3 feet on each side and 8 feet deep on the ends. The wind blows the snow across the driveways and fills them up with hard packed snow which is very hard to move.

I normally look forward to winter to get a break so I don't have to work so hard, but now I'm ready to go mowing for a break. In the last 2 years in December, I have plowed 1 time, so this year is making up for it. I realize I'm making money, but I'm tired.

[John DiMartino]

Hang in there Eric,your still young yet-only 57 and all.I wish i had sent out bills for 7 plows already!Ive been out twice only at commercials,since it was 2" only.Better get that Bobcat and move your banks back soon,the longer you wait the harder it is.

[cos]

Now that your back in from the cold, you are to type long posts like that.




:D

[BRL]

I don't ever want to see a :( while discussing the massive amounts of snow you are receiving. No matter how much it hurts, you put a :) because some of us are desperately awaiting our share of the white gold, and the :( might just put us over the edge. Good luck & get some sleep while you can.