I know there's not a sub forum for snow removal but there are a lot of guys on here who are experienced with snow and ice operations. I'm wondering how pricing is usually calculated for residential driveways. I tend to just pull a number out of thin air when looking at a driveway on a sunny fall day with no snow or ice in sight and then I'm kicking myself all winter because I'm not charging enough for the headaches of a driveway, or I didn't realize quite how much sand it would take. Any input from anyone who sets pricing for things like this?
The last time I priced plowing was at a bar in Vegas many years ago. She was wayy too hi................wait a minute....
Very funny Vetech. Now go back to doing "machinist stuff" with your wife.
Sounds kinky. IDE be all in if I wasn’t so dam old. Even the thought of dominoes is tiring now days.
There's that opening in Millcreek township to repair plow trucks..... https://www.erienewsnow.com/story/51701846/why-roads-in-millcreek-might-not-get-plowed Come up here next month and you'll......you'll....wait for it....."clean up"...... The state uses Mack heavy spec triaxles, with wing plows and sanders. I think Millcreek does the same, and still has an Oshkosh with snowblower.....
20 per hour. I’ve been self employed too long……it costs triple that for me to get out of bed.
I meant for you to work here like you do now, as a contractor, which they indicated they will have to do. Snow can be profitable....and fun....
Seriously, don't plow driveways. There is no money in it, partly because of the "headaches of a driveway" you mentioned, and partly because nobody is going to pay you to plow and salt it every time there is a half inch on it.
I'm sure the market is very different in Wisconsin to Vermont. I used to plow in wealthy part of CT and did very well plowing and sanding driveways.
Two of my wife's cousins started plowing for hire at different times over the last 20 years. Both figured out real fast that commercial contracts are where the money is. Residential customers basically want the highest level of service for a bargain basement price. Insurance premiums eat up all the profit. Neither of them plow for hire anymore. By the time the figured out how to make money, we had successive winters with minimal snow so there was no money to be made.
We quit the plowing business a few years ago, and even then most of the work was commercial, but I can tell you the trick to making money on driveways is to have a whole bunch of them close together, like, next door to each other . If it takes you ten minutes to get from one job to the next you're going to spend half your time not making money.
Exactly. My area has a plentiful supply of guys that hang a plow on the front of their mighty 4x4 pickup and think they are making bank when they drive around the county for 8 hours for $300. Let them have the driveways . . .
Well there isn't a lot of other work I can do in the winter so that's why I do it. I try to price the difficult driveways accordingly but I'm trying to come up with a better way to figure out pricing other than going off what competitors are charging. Mainly for sanding is what I need to figure out a formula for pricing. My policy is not to plow for less than 3" unless they specifically ask for it.
Probably some of the same wealthy people that have second or third or fourth houses here in VT that I plow for!
If I didn't already have the truck for other reasons I wouldn't do it. It doesn't really cost that much extra to own the plow, though it does put extra wear and tear on the truck. For commercial I would need a loader with a pusher and it's definitely not worth investing in that if it'll only be busy for a few months of the year.
I definitely do that as much as possible. Sometimes I weed out the ones on the fringes, and ones that don't pay promptly without being reminded.
Last year I had about 20 driveways plus 3 small parking lots. $1200 every time it snowed and it usually took between 8 and 14 hours depending on the depth and type of snow. Hourly it isn't much different than I make with my other equipment.
I need to try to figure out average sand usage rates based on the length of a driveway. Someone asked me for a price for sanding a 4/10 mile long driveway. I'm guessing it'll take 2-4 yards of sand depending on how icy or not it is. But I don't want to give him a price and then spend more on sand than I charge.
We do driveways by the storm, and sanding is the same. There are a few customers that have been with us since the 70s, and I think they have a yearly rate, but sanding is always by the trip, and you have to call for sanding. Our plowing is mostly residential, so I can do a driveway in a short time. We have a mix of contracts, and by the storm for businesses. Some want sand in the contract, and some want to call for it. A lot of the bigger malls want all salt, no sand. Salt is actually cheaper, as a plastic spreader on the back of a 3/4 ton pickup, can do an entire mall parking lot with one load. We buy salt in bulk and have a salt shed to store it. They tried to carry salt in pails for shoveling, but it was always chunky, and wouldn't go through the walk behind spreader. We also have crews of shovelers. In storms they work along side of the Bobcats, at the malls I think they go out every morning and check business walkways, and salt or calcium them if needed. They each have a 4x4 with a lift tailgate. Bags of salt, and calcium, walk behind spreaders and a snow blower, as well as scoops, and shovels. I think they all come out in a storm, and they take turns to do the morning checks. The guy that is my laybourer in the summer is on one of the crews, and says he can come in on non storm day, and make his rounds, and be back home in a couple hours. Trouble is, these guys are getting older, and non of the younger guys want to be up at 3am to do this stuff.
One thing we have found from years of doing it, and it would probably be more so if you do a lot of sanding. Some type of broadcast spreader used lest sand or salt than doing it by hand. Example, the local train station platform. They would not allow vehicles on the platform unless we would agree to have a call in observer on the union payroll, everytime we went on site. It had to be walk behind snowblowers, and shovels. A bag of salt, and a shovel, or just dumping the bag of salt around used to take 22 bags of salt per trip. Plus or minus. A $200 walk behind broadcast spreader. Like a beefed up version of a lawn seed spreader, could do the same job with 12 bags. Same as shoveling sand out of a truck vs a sander on a truck
I don't do salt, sidewalks or shoveling. I have a tailgate sander for sanding, no throwing sand around with a shovel. On smaller driveways I've traditionally just charged the same amount for sanding as I do for plowing. But on longer driveways (I have a few that are 1/10 to 4/10 mile long), if it's very icy, the amount of sand used adds up to more cost than I would charge for plowing. In some cases the customers want full coverage of sand. That takes a lot.
I guess by residential, I should have said urban. Most driveways we do are not too long, and don't take much sand. We run stainless steel fisher sanders on ton trucks. I think at one point someone played with the settings, timed it, and weighed the truck on the scales. I think they have it nailed down to weight and time per setting. I think a single wide driveway 30 feet long is like $25 for sand. We dan't have to buy sand either, it's a byproduct of some of our crushing and screening operations. It's a round rock sand, our quarry stuff has to be manufactured, and would be too expensive. The salt mine is only a couple hours away, and we buy it in bulk, and mix it with the sand in the late fall
A lot of times I say we have this machine, or we bought this, or we do this. I say this as an employee. I've been with the company since 1998, I'm and operator, truck driver, grade foreman. I don't estimate, but I am aware of some costs. I delivered 15 metric tons so 16 and a half tons of salt sand to a customer. He is about 15 min away from our shop, and has a building for it. he takes 3 loads a week once the season is in full swing. $950.00. Maybe they give him a better deal when he buys more, I don't know, but like $2850 a week for sand. And he doesn't do streets, just driveways and small parking lots
That's alot if sand. We usually used under a yard a mile at the DOT
Yes, roads take a lot less. Private driveways need a lot more coverage than roads.
Last winter I had a GC pick me up for his plowing contracts, he was doing pricing per square foot of driveway measured by google earth and then he had a minimum for like $40 and a max of $150 for residential. I think he didn't do min or max on commercial lots. If I recall he was doing 4 pennies per square foot. Said he was making money at it, but not a lot. Last I heard he sold the plow trucks and sanders this summer.
That seems $$$ but I'm not in that business. Just thinking even a small driveway, like 2500 sq ft would be near $80. So probably $1000+ for a winter. Per driveway. For maybe 10-15 mins of work per time. Do 20 driveways in a night after work and that pays off the truck in a couple years.
I only went out 4 times last year, so that $80 driveway would've only made $320. Also gotta factor in the travel time between driveways. My route was 14 Driveways and it would take me about 5.5 hours to do them all. So I guess with travel time I was averaging about 24 min per.
We had something like 25 snow events last winter.
If you count all the times we get flurries and the town and state trucks go out chasing snowflakes then we probably had the same. My minimum is 3" so I rarely plow that many times in a winter.
Is there a lot of clean up when winter is over ?
Doug, I guess I forgot to respond to your question. It depends a lot on the type of snow we get and if the ground is frozen when we plow. But yes, usually the lawn guys are pretty busy in the spring cleaning up gravel off lawns and fixing divots and ruts.
Update: I told him it would be $300 for sanding the driveway if it needed full coverage. Unsalted sand has been $27-35/yard this winter before tax, delivery or pick-up costs. Salt is $135/ton if I go pick it up. I ended up using over 3 yards of salted sand on the 4/10 mile long driveway and it probably took me 1-1/4 hours including travel to sand it. I'm glad I didn't tell him it would cost less than $300. The bonus is there's a nice view at the top of the driveway.