For those using loaders and pusher boxes. Do you own the machines or do you lease/rent/etc? To be competitive in my market I will need this option and would like to be able to quote on some larger properties next year. Right now we use pickups and a Cat tracked tractor with a blower to blow back snow piles and banks in combination with a backhoe. I pay the Cat owner an hourly fee and charge my customers a little more. We cannot grow as large or as fast as I would like sticking to pickups only.
Ok the pushers are cheap all things considered. You can rent a loader or a backhoe for the winter at about half the cost of the summer rate. I own all my loaders and backhoes, the backhoes get used a lot for my summer work, however the loaders are harder to keep working all summer. This year I had to start leasing, because I didn't have enough summer work to justify another new loader. So I went to Hertz and rented a backhoe for the winter. The rental cost on the backhoe wasn't all that bad, compared to the summer rate. So maybe renting a loader or backhoe for the winter and buying a pusher is the way to go. Geoff
Geoff, As you can probably imagine, in my market there is no "winter rate". It's one rate all year round. And, we have trouble finding them to lease around here..... especially this winter.
We own all but one of our ProTechs and sub out the loaders from local excavators. This way the loader comes with an operator (not driver) who really knows what he is doing. We have the same thing, we'd have to have at least 3X as many trucks as we do, not to mention operators for the trucks too, to do the amount of work we do right now. And there is no way I want or can afford that many trucks and employees.
We own our Pro-Tech pushers and then we lease the loaders we are able to get a great winter rate and it keeps the ownership costs down but I hope in the future to own at least one loader. Just My two cents
