Opinions on price for church lot

[Mike Hughes]

http://albums.photopoint.com/j/View?u=1471628&a=11073115&p=38560600

Just curious what you folks feel a lot like this is worth, on a per push basis, for plowing only.

It is a church (no cars in lot). Double wide entry, and the lot itself is 197' by 165'. The picture makes it look a bit bigger then it really is. It has a wide, shared driveway coming in from the road (on left) and the lot is just a big rectangle.....wide open.

The guy that did the lot previously was doing it for $70 per push, which I feel is too low.


Mike Hughes
Everclear
Souderton, PA


By the way, the picture is actually 5 pictures stiched together to make a panoramic. I took all 5 pics from standing in one place with a digital camera, then used MGI PhotoSuite 4 software to stitch them together. It's cool because you can see the whole lot in one shot.

[Leroy]

Mike,

I was doing my church lot for $80.00 per push plus $15.00 for salt for about 4 50# bags. Sounds ridiculous but when it's your church what do you do? I have since gotten out of that commitment and recommended other plowers to the church. In reality it was about a $150.00 per push job (2-4"_) plus another $50.00 for salting. It's hard if you belong to the church so my advice is stay away if you're a member and if you're not, charge them likke a commercial job. Hope this helps.

[FIREMAN]

70.00 per push.....lol....way way too low..church or not...a lot of those dimensions here would fetch at least 150.00 per push (2-4) and up from there..no salting or walkway clean up included in that number...picture this...one of my accounts is a large office building/warehouse...on either side of building there is a driveway that is 25ft wide that runs the length of the building(about 75 ft) and behind it is a lot that is 100x 200..plowing lot 450.00 per push salting is 150.00 per event...I'm done plowing in 1 hr and can salt it in about 15 minutes...these prices were given to me when I was asked to take the account...I think they are fair for my market if not a bit generous to me last decent storm dumped about 18 inches here and I was pleased when I recieved payment in 3 days after billing for plowing 1350.00 and salting 2 x 300.00....I just wish they all paid so fast..lol...

I JUST READ THIS POST AND REALIZED IT IS FOREVER LONG..MY APOLOGIES FOR THOSE I HAVE BORED...

[HandyHaver]

Hey Mike,

Nice shot. I fool around with a digital also. They are very cool!! A parent who helps clear the lot at my kids school (& our church) came over our house new years eve to drop off his kid and saw the plow on my truck. Well to make a long story short, I told him that I have prior commitments but would help out after I get all my stuff done. If this is your church, it's a tuff call. If not I would say that's real cheap for our area. I got res. drives I get almost double that. We don't get alot of snow around here so make it worth your while. Good luck

Mark

[Leroy]

Your post was not to long. Better to here the whole deal or none at all. I agree with your pricing. Like I said, It's a tough proposition if it's your own church. I know it's hard to understand, but, how do you bill your church commercial prices? That's why I say if you can ,stay away from it. Good luck to all and I hope we all have a prosperous season!

[4 Saisons]

the other guy probably droppped the church because the price were too cheap...like LEROY first post.

[Mike Nelson]

We do a lot of work during the summer for churches(sealcoating,line striping,And sweeping).
Please remember you are in business to make money(I hope)and you are giving them a proffesional job.
We give them a top dollar price and then maybe 10 or 15 percent off that.Seems to work everytime.
Good Luck

[john r]

Mike, I'm a God fearing man. I think I do all the right things. A church is a business. Remember the church does not pay taxes, they get their electric, gas, water, sewer, and a..... what else, FOR FREE. (guess who pays for all of these freebeee's?). Thats right! What I think you should really do my friend is to plow for FREE! BTW any money the churh receives legally does not have to be reported to the IRS. Not a bad deal. Get the point?

[Mike Nelson]

John R
You are so right!Silly me.Monday morning I will have my secretary call my church to schedule their Free sealcoating this summer.....

[Chip]

Mike
I plow a church that also has a double wide entrance and lot size I guess almost similar in dimension. I charge $70 for an average storm and $125 for over 8 inches. Salting is extra. I know my price is low, I'm not a memberof the church, but I do get referals from them for lawn accounts. I can usually be in and out in 30 min. and go next door to my next account.

[Eric E.]

If you are a Christian, in the true meaning Of "The Word", then you should do it for free, if they preach a doctrine that is Bibically correct. If you are not a Bible believing Christian it doesn't matter in the long (eternal) run so charge them. I plow my church for free but many times another member beats me to it. He does it for free also. Last year they asked me to shovel the walks and charge them. I charged regular rates and when I got the checks I signed them back to the church.

Eric

If I am wrong in my belief than I just wasted alittle time. If you are wrong in your unbelief than you will have a lot of wasted time.

[PINEISLAND1]

With a lot like that, I would figure I'd probably kill an hour there. I try to stick in the $125/ hr. range, so off the top of my head, I'd say $125 up to 6 inches. I'd add extra for larger snowfalls, with my discretion whether I plow twice and bill twice at 6 inches, or once at the higher amount and push all the snow at once.

My business does not do freebies for anyone. My wife and I do however. So, if it was my church, and I wanted to help, then I would pay my business out of my pocket. Route the bills through the church, and then write a personal check to the church to pay it, or whatever portion of it you want.

That way the business stays profitable, the local plowers are not hurt by my "cheap" pricing, and if I want to claim my "donations" to my church as charitable contributions, I can.

[John DiMartino]

Church or not,the church wont fix your truck when it breaks,and the we live in the real world where we have to pay for all the free-bees the church gets.So i wouldnt have a hard time charging for that job,I used to do a lot for a church i used to go to,I did it for about 3/4 of what it was worth.They kept adding on to the lot though and wouldnt give me any more money,so I had to stop doing it.I found that i was frustrationg myself,spending time there,when i had good paying customers,that paid the same as the church but took 15 minutes to do as oppessed to 50 minutes.You end up rushing it and not doing a professional job,since it is costing you money to be there.In my market that lot would go for 165-200 a push up to 4" then id charge 35 an inch over 4".

[diggerman]

I'm with Eric,to a point,we do four churches our own we give a signifigant discount because we can and the rest are getting rates that are a little shy of full bore.Alot of what you charge this church depends on where your beliefs are but I know for a fact that my eternal salvation has absolutely no correlation to whether or not I plow a church lot for free, that depends on only one thing.

[PINEISLAND1]

I agree with Eric and Digger to a point, but remember-your business is not eligible for salvation, only you are. You still need to make wise business decisions, keep your christian business viable and profitable, and you owe it to your profession and other snowplowers to keep it at competitive rates.

Now if you feel the way Eric and I both do, that tithes are important and that includes your talents, then by all means pay the bill that your business send to the church out of your own pocket. Not only does that accomplish the same thing as doing it for free, but it is done in a way that probably very few people will ever even know about, and that is the real test of genuine "giving".

[OBRYANMAINT]

that price is in the ballpark for my area there are still other factors, relation ship to other accts,when it needs to be finished (many of the churches thatb i plow will not need to done until 9 or 10),amount and severity of storms in your area


if this church was in my town i would plow it for that the measurements make it only 30.000 sq/ft you should only spend 30 mins or so to do that

[John Allin]

MH -
In your market, $70 is way too low.

[cat320]

Mike If I was to price that lot it would be about $200-250 per storm up to 6" then would nock off some for going 6"-12" $180-230.Hard to tell from picture but then again everones area is different what I get here may be too much there and vs versa.

[iowastorm]

I'm glad to know there's hope for Digger. We bid our church this year (not the First Church of the Open Barstool)and ended up walking away from it because they expected such a low price. Gotta make your money and if you can cut them a break, then so be it.

[PINEISLAND1]

You guys out East really do charge much more than we can get away with in my area. I think that my $125/hr. estimates are usually on the high end here.

On a side note, we have a better time getting church jobs by bidding them seasonal. The way that churches budget and pay their bill, they seem very receptive to locking in their costs pre season. Most of the time we are considerably higher than the other contractors, but get the job anyways. I guess they like the idea of fixed costs, and they all are worried in the back of their minds of the "big" year that they will get caught paying more than they expected. Then we offer a small discount to prepay, and most of the time get one big check in November, which I appreciate.

[muddog]

The area i am from we have alot of small churches. I plowed my church and another church. My church i just wrote off as a tithe as it only took me 30-45 minutes to do. The other church it took 60-90 minutes to do(not one of the small ones). I give them a discount but i still have to make money. bottom line is do what you feel is right without risking your bussiness.

[Stephen]

I also do 2 churches, and both run private schools out of them. They expect premium service and yes, I do charge. I have to admit that sometimes it crosses my mind to feel guilty about charging a church, but then again I pay alot of money for insurance alone, to be able to cover the liabilities of doing this type of customer, insurance that they require. But I also do a fire house and a volunteer ambulance corps building and what about charging them? That's alot of feeling guilty if you think about it, but it is also alot of money out of my pocket to service all these accounts for free. I charge them too. My prices may be higher, but there is a reason they called my company. It is because they all know that their accounts will be taken care of the right way the first time, which is how i just signed the ambulance corps. You have to think about liabilities when pricing these places, especially when you have the die hards who go to Friday night bingo at the church or fire hall with a foot of snow on the ground. For some reason, they don't like to cancel bingo. My girlfriends mother is one of those die hards, and last week a lady was thought to be having a heart attack but wouldn't go to the hospital in the ambulance until after bingo. anyway i am getting off topic. But it is food for thought.

[john r]

If you decide to plow the lot for free you MAY be able to use it as a charitable deduction. But remember, tax deductions are only worth about 33% out of 100% cash value. So you are still out about 66%.

[Tommy10plows]

I never charged my church a dime to plow it. If it was a Saturday night or early Sunday storm, I got the walks open with the Jeep CJ, and made sure the parking lot was passable by the time the services started. Note that is "passable" not "perfect". If the snow built up I could get a Euclid loader in there, also no charge.

I never had a breakdown on the church property and never said a word to anyone about $$. It just got done. Let your conscience be your guide. To each their own.

[plowjockey]

Reading all of these posts, I realize just how many REALLY GOOD PEOPLE are on this site. My plow hat is off to all of you.

Bruce Barger
Barger Signs Services Div.

[GeoffDiamond]

We do one church, and they do get a deal. However I avoid accounts from non profits organaztions. The trouble is, they all talk, and when they find a Contractor that give a deal, everyone calls them. Then you could be stuck providing quality snow removel to low profit or no profit customers.

If you want to have good PR with the public, make a donation, do some work on a ball field or something. We set utility polls and ran wire at a ball field one year. We busted the job out in a day they had all the materials, I just had 4 guys on site and some equipment. We did it on a saturday, on a slow work week.

Just me $ 0.02

Geoff

[jaclawn]

I am not going to get in to the "gratis work" debate, but will say one thing about churches, having worked for several in the past.

For snow removal, many don't care what time they are plowed, excepting Sunday morning. IT is nice to have a church or two on the list to plow after everyone else is done. I have several commercial accounts that are closed on Sunday, so I can therefore get to the churches bright and early.

That in itself may warrant a little price break, you can still be working when others are headed home.

[Mike Hughes]

jaclawn,

I agree with that statement......but, funny, my first snow storm doing the job was on a sunday morning :)


Well, I did the job for $85. It took an hour and a half. I don't think I can do it too much faster.....I am a rookie, but I don't mess around.....

Thank you to everyone for your suggestions and comments.

[john r]

Do it for LESS,
Do it for FREE,
When someone slips and falls,
Who are they going to call?

When I went to fuel up I told the attendant "give me $10.00 for free, I'm going to plow a church parking lot". I bet you know what his answer was.


When I went to have my front end and automatic transmisson repaired I told the service manager "I plow church parking lots. Take $200.00 off the bill". I bet you know what his answer was.

I could only suspect they don't really care about salvation and about how many good people there are out there. Maybe I'm wrong but it seems to me that the only thing they care about is to charge you full price for their service.

(Maybe my insurance co will give me a break too and lower my premium).

[Edited by john r on 01-22-2001 at 08:06 AM]

[Deere John]

We do two churches that we are not affiliated with - ours has no parking lot. We give them a break on rates - and one kind turn deserves another. We have received many referrals from these churches, and to make things even better, we know about and attend all the turkey suppers and lunches. Plain, great-tasting grub. Works for us.

[john r]

To tell you the truth I did my church lot free for a couple of years. You know, some people who worked here really ripped me off good. I was always known to be a nice guy. Nice guys finish last and I'm sick of it! I'm not using this forum to hurt the church. All I'm saying is people want something for nothing and it costs money.

[snow control]

dont do anything for free. if you want to help out go to the soup kitchen and work for a day every once and a while

[DanG]

I plow one church near me, and it's treated as any other customer as far as billing and rates.
Takes me about an hr to plow and to do the steps coming up the hill.
I get $75 per push and they give me a tax exempt form so I don't have to charge them sales tax.

The only break they get is if it snows and they have services to do I'll change my route around to do them 1st.

But I also mow them in the summer, and they get a huge break on that, they should be paying double for the hill they're on.

I should post a pic of this place I think it's one of the steepest lawns around here and the driveway up to the church is steep too.

Dan

[Remsen1]

I have no experience with this, but would it be possible to do it for a minimal price up front but to ask for a reciept showing that you donated say... $100 per event which your business could claim on its taxes?

You can get some free advertising not only to church members, but by being visible. Since you can plow pretty much anytime you want, plow right in the middle of the day, so all the traffic sees you.

[Chuck Smith]

I had a church for 4 years. It was much larger than this one in the photo. My price was much higher than $70. The church was on a corner, in the center of town, and had a sidewalk along the road on two sides, in addition to the walks around the church. It had 2 stairwells that would often fill up when snow was blowing, and I mean 7' deep full!
They told me what they paid for the lot the previous year. I told them I would do it for the same amount. Then they asked how much more for all the walks, I told them walks are included. That was the first "break" I gave them. They signed the contract.

In those 4 years, each year, I plowed the lot once, on a 1 - 4" snowfall, and sent them a bill with the total - N/C. I plowed at least 30 times in 4 years, so doing it for free 4 times didn't kill me, and "gave back" to the church. Funny, they never thanked me, not that I was "looking" for it, but it would have been nice.

I lost the account, when they made a deal with the town. The town paved the whole lot (it was in bad shape), and would do the snow removal, and salting (they didn't want salt from me) for free, but the town designated it as "commuter parking" during the week. I can't blame the church or the town. They both benefitted from the deal.

I also never got any customers because I plowed the church. It was a good reference though, since it was right in the center of town, and you could clearly see the job I did. We also had the businesses on the other 3 corners too. Those 3 are what got me the church.

Sorry to ramble.....

~Chuck

[plowking35]

I do the church that we attend for free, I look at it as my monthly donation during the winter.Whats more I like doing it, it can wait till whenever, its wide open, and this morning it was fun to do.
We do another one that is affliated to our church in another town, and they get charged for our service, yet at a lower rate.
I do agree with the not doing work for non profits. We plow for 2 different NP and take a bath on both of them. But the benifits we get from them are much better. Free swimming and tickets to community events and so forth.
Dino

[Deere John]

Oh, and did I forget to mention the turkey suppers come with all kinds of home made pies. Pumpkin, raspberry, lemon marangue, cherry .....

[cat320]

Off the subject of snow but it kinda relates to what Dino was talking about.My friend was going down to seal coat our church parking lot for free and on his way down his tanker flipped over I saw the accident from the otherside of the highway and almost died when i saw the name on the tanker.A total lose on his part truck was totaled and sealer all over the highway belive it or not he walked away from it but I think it's only because he was driving a GMC Brigider.So for a freeby ,it ended up costing him more than what he would of made even if he charged them.It was not even his faut some one cut him off and he had to swerve to avoid hitting a car with a preggnet women.

[GeoffDiamond]

So did the state of Mass get some free seal coating that day?

Geoff

[cat320]

Belive it or not they cleaned it all up instead of spreading it over the road what a waste.My freind did get a big bill for there clean up efforts plus the state tow co. that had to move his truck I think he say about $8K for towing to state yard.

[BRIMOW525]

I have 2 church lots to do. One is close to the size that you said and they have no problem paying $360.00 for plowing , 20 ft of sidewalks, 10 min and 3 bags of solar salt. As a matter of fact they get mad because I leave and bill they a day or two later instead of getting one as soon as I'm done!! Just remember ... you can't take it with you!!

[yardsmith]

I am a born-again Christian, & yes I plow my church, & also the church I used to attend. No, I don't do them for free.
Yes, the Lord will take care of me if I decided to do them for free, but also remember that I Timothy 5:18 says
"Do not muzzle the ox while he is treading out the grain, & the laborer is worthy of his hire (wages)."
I give the churches a sizable discount, but still get enough for operating expenses. Gas is still 1.50 a gallon & up, & snowplowing is still hard on a truck. Anytime my church needs a roof fixed or new electric, they know it costs money. A discount is usually appropriate, & the church can reject the bids altogether if they like.
As mentioned above, my salvation has nothing to do with what I charge for work. It's all in what Christ has already done on the cross. Don't mix business & religion; then you'll become Apostolic (oops, sorry. I can say that, cuz my aunt & uncle are, & laugh about it).

[diggerman]

Ditto yardsmith and if your giving a price break to be part of your tithe then thats great, but if your doing it to make it to heaven or because you think God could use the money because He doesn't need your money and thats not what he's looking for.Im sure that this is an odd question for this forum because alot depends on your religous stand and your interpritation of scripture.

[awm]

Im curious ,what church gets utilities gas
and any of these things free.