Hey guys! I`ve been on LS for a while now just looking around, gaining knowledge just like everyone else. Had a company for a while now, been working at it with my dad and I will be running everything in the upcoming season. He`s an engineer and his fair share work cut out for him. Im starting my Landscape Design course in about a week and hopefully that helps a lot with the business side of things, as well as the work aspect. Here`s a few shots of what we`ve been up to in the last little while. Any questions you have, feel free to ask.
I talk about it in my thread on plowsite, basically I'm trying to reduce down time but buying newer simpler, easier to fix equipment. My dad has always gotten new equipment every 4 years, I'm going to try to continue that as long as it makes sense financially.
I've gotten a good amount of new accounts this year for snow, commercial and the residentials that we bought this year for maintenance too. A couple of the commericials are very particular about the work being done efficiently and on time. So downtime needs to be kept to a minimum.
And the Kage just didn't suit my needs anymore so there was no point in having a $6k pusher around when I could have a simpler cheaper one.
I was worried about it too, because my route is pretty close together. In the manual it says not to leave idling for more than 5 mins. I don't have very many really small jobs, so its basically 30 mins to an hour, that its shut off so I don't really have a problem turning it on and off. If I turned it on and off every 10 mins it could be an issue.
The mileage is definitely better than my gasser, thats for sure, it is nothing amazing around town but the highway is very good, about 13L/100km. I wish it was in MPG. Pulling a 16 foot enclosed, with like 2500lb in it.
It looks like I will rained out or blown around for most of the week because of the remains of Hurricane Sandy coming our way, and its rained for the last 3 days I believe. So I'm glad its slowly winding down here, the wind will hopefully knock down the rest of the leaves. So I'm looking at clean ups, and one or two more cuts depending. My billing ends Nov 15th.
Been staying really busy with cleanups. The clean up I just finished took 13 hours to do by myself, I really wish I had a helper for that one. 3 hours to cut the grass there too, but thats my biggest account. Most of my resi's are done for cleanups and final cut, unless the weather changes drastically and the grass grows again. We've had a little frost but not much.
And my favorite part of the year, new money making toys.
The replacement for the Kage system, Avalanche 400 series with the backdrag edge. The Cummins is in the shop now getting its plow put on so pics later tomorrow probably.
I sold the Kage as a new, never-used unit because I wanted something a little simpler in design. I got dragged in to the marketing scheme of the Kage and bought it. I lost the account where it would be best utilized too. So it was a lot of unneccessary money that couldn't be well used, I didn't take much of a loss on it.
I'm trying to focus on minimizing downtime for this season because I'm looking at getting into a bit more work. The Avalanche is a little simpler and also doesn't stick out quite as far as the Kage. We drive the Bobcat from site to site so the Kage bounced alot when I took it down to the account where it was left all last winter.
Had the Tacoma torn apart for yesterday and today. I replaced the rack and pinion, tie rods, lower balljoints and struts. Some of it was a huge pain but I'm really glad I did it just for the experience. Air tools are awesome, I ended up having a seized high pressure line for the power steering and had to cut it off at the fitting. So I have to replace that but I got the old one out and I'll have another made.
Saying hi all the way from Argentina, i'm here visiting some family of a friend of mine, here for a couple more weeks. Nice to get away after a long season! I'll be back in the snow soon to work so i'm soaking this up! Posted via Mobile Device
I am back from my trip and I'm ready to work. Had to pick up some slack from my contractor who went away too, he dropped his truck off yesterday. We have 15-25 cm coming tonight and into tomorrow. So hopefully I can grab some more pictures. Also got a levelling kit put on the 6.7 Cummins.
Levelling kit in the Cummins, some new snowblowers, A new snowbucket for the Bobcat. Basically whats been happening with us over the winter! Any questions feel free to ask.
I like that red F-650! Is it a hooklift? Posted via Mobile Device
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