Making up rain days

[Lee Homan]

I noticed in a some posts a month or so ago about how people made up rain days. One person said they only mow Monday-Thursday and use Friday for a make-up day other people said they use Saturdays for make-ups. My question is, is there a cut-off day when you decide that it has rained to much in a week for some yards to be made up? Say it rains Monday-Wednesday, would you start Thursday mowing the first part of the weeks schedule or would you skip it and make it up the following week? Does anybody have problems with customers that expect their yard to be mowed whether it rains or not?

 

[Charles]

I just work twice as fast to make up rain days. I do the yards that have to fastest growing and thickest grass on my priority list to get to first. I always work 6 days a week so I don't really have any makeup days. And too if you have few to many yards and there is a drought then you have even less to do. I would rather have more than I can do than less than I can do any day. None Of my customer want theirs cut when it is wet much less than when it is raining. Hey I get there when I get there. If someone calls me and tells me its getting high then they go to the top. The most rain we get is 1 or 2 days than it is out of here. When we get showers it doesnt take long for the hot sun to dry things out so you may lose 1/2 a day.

 

[thelawnguy]

Take today for instance. Its raining just enough to make cleanups more a hassle than its worth, so Ill do tomorrow what I had for today, etc. Mowing will be the same way. The next week, some lawns will be mowed six days instead of seven. Since we usually get some rain every week, I try to schedule six-seven hours a day, that way if it rains I will work longer hours the next day to catch up, maybe put some lawns off a day, if there are several days rain I will just skip the slower-growing ones until the next scheduled day.<p>I had originally tried the four-day scheduling routine but it never worked out too well, cant predict with much accuracy when its going to rain. I always got stuck mowing on Sat when the folks are home with the stopwatch and binoculars monitoring my every move, the shorter days/all week schedule seems to work better.<p>Its to the point now I need to mow parts of the lawns to be able to clean up, most likely start mowing some lawns on a schedule next week. The absolute earliest I can remember mowing around here, central CT.<p>Bill

 

[GrassMaster]

Hello:<p>This is a tough call & there is no way to make everybody happy.<p>If it rained Mon.- Wed. Then Thursday we would start Mon. work & we would go as hard as we could until caught up. Most cases we got caught up by Friday, very rare did we work Saturdays.<p>What helped us the most is we did no weekly cuts scheduled for Friday, this alone saved us a lot of problems, we scheduled no work on Sat. unless Emergency like big party or death in family. We only worked 8 hours a day normally. This way if we got behind we had time to play with.<p>Other things that helped us was we try to get most customers to do the 10 day cut if possible. This really worked out great for us & if they had to have 7 day cuts, they payed dearly for it, because of the problems of cutting every week.<p>I don't know about others but when I tried to work the guys more than 8 hours a day productivity really went down.<p>----------<br>GrassMaster - Home: www.lawnservicing.com<br>My Start Up Page www.lawnservicing.com/startup/

 

[Lee Homan]

So GrassMaster correct me if I'm wrong, you would start your Monday yards on Thursday and go like crazy to make up the whole week by Friday, and if you didn't you would skip Fridays yards and do them the following week. The problem I see with this method if it is the way I'm perceiving it is that the Friday customers get really upset if their yard is not mowed for the weekend, especially if the weather is nice they want to know why your not over mowing their yard. Also if you have contract customers that get mowed every week they have to be accomadated somehow. I thought about telling customers that if it rained 2-3 days in a row and their yard fell on one of those days that it would be picked up the following week. I know the grass would probably be higher and take longer to mow but it seems better than driving yourself crazy worrying about getting all those yards caught up especially if your a one man operation like me. I could see if it were one day of rain than it wouldn't be as hard to catch up. Just my thoughts. All comments welcome.

 

[thelawnguy]

Lee,<p>He stated he didnt schedule on Fridays so there are no Friday customers to worry about. If you did have fri customers yes, they would get more than their share of skipped weeks.<p>I think the main point is, unless you like working seven days and by flashlight at night you really need to leave a little slack in your schedule. Hey, if it doesnt rain, go out and trim that hedge, or, if its really several days of rain, service the equipment, trim some bushes, whatever.<p>You will never keep 100% of your customers 100% happy 100% of the time, and the sooner folks in this business figure that out and stop reaching for unattainable goals the sooner smiles will reappear on faces and blood pressure readings will return to normal. Theres always going to be the clown who thinks his lawn is the only one that didnt get mowed because of a weeks rain. They'll get over it. If not, hey, thats why you dont depend on only one customer for your livelihood.<p>Bill

 

[GrassMaster]

Hello Lee:<p>We would never schedule weekly cuts on Friday, my Fridays would be for a very select few call ins & our 10 day - 2 week people & most of the time we would go & get those killer bushes or hedges on our other accounts on Fridays. <p>We never skiped anybody that had regular accounts with us. The people that we did schedule for Fridays could be carried over. When rain was a problem. <p>You might not be able to do this where you are at, because it depends on the type of grass that is in your area & the required frequency of cutting.<p>We were very lucky all of our grass was centipede. It's a piece of cake to maintain. Well maybe one Zoysia & one Bermuda lawn in 5 years.<p>----------<br>GrassMaster - Home: www.lawnservicing.com<br>My Start Up Page www.lawnservicing.com/startup/

 

[cjcland]

i just wish it would rain...........they are now letting people water only one day a week <p>----------<br>CJC Landscape Management<br>Winter Haven, Florida

 

[Charles]

Thats what I was trying to say. I just move everyone up a day or 2. I tell my customers up front. That i will rarely come the same day every week. Because of the weather and breakdowns. Sometimes I come a day early or a day or 2 late. Thats just the way this business is

 

[GroundKprs]

Just be sure your customers know to give you 2 week advance notice of special events, especially residentials. That way, if you have employee, equipment, or weather problems, you know which mowings are necessary, and just do your best with the rest.<p>The idea of no Friday mowings is best, almost back to that myself. Kind of hard to do for some guys though, if you are mostly just cutting.<p>----------<br>Jim<br>North central Indiana