So does anyone do snowplowing or removal? If so what kind of places? (Commercial parking lots or driveways) What equipment do you use? (kind of trucks with plows?/equipment with snowbox or just bucket?) And if anyone has any pictures of their ventures in past storms or future storms post them up!:drinkup
I myself plow for the local township, ford single axle plow truck and 6 wheel drive 772BH John Deere grader with Vee plow and wing. We have 52 miles of roadway to cover, two trucks total plus the grader. I also plow a few drives ways as well, with my skid loader Bobcat 773, with bucket and an old pick up plow that I have fabricated to fit. Trbo
I have a shopping mall, 2 office buildings and a few pieces of equipment of the city. This year we've done good on the snow, but all my jobs are shut down because it's not worth it for us to work anymore. One job the general changed things around on us and instead of having 5 guys work through the winter, none of the guys will work till march. I guess it's not a bad thing, because now we can go through the equipment and fix it up.
I do residental.
I have two trucks running, an '01 F-350 SRW flatbed with Blizzard 810 plow that I do 80 to 100 driveway with in my neighborhood. I have an '02 F-550 set up with a Tarco stainless combination body that is hired out to a township to do streets. It has what used to be a 9' Viking plow on it that I expanded to 10 1/2'. The rear wheels were dragging in the windrow at 9'. I've got a 6' Erskine snowblower on my Cat 248 that I do sidewalks for the same town with. It has a 10' discharge chute, I blow the snow into tri-axle dumps to haul away, there is no room to deposit the snow along the sidewalks.
WOW, how long does it take to fill up a tri-axle, not very long i would say?
580Super L w/ 10ft power angle.
I'm jealous alot of you to the north have seen alot more snow than I have yet. The snows we've had here in central PA have all been 3 inches or less. The contractor I plow for we have several large commercial accounts and quite a few residential driveways. We have a cable company (Alcan Cable) that is a babysit account with mandatory haul out, we tie a pickup(05 GMC 2500/Western Plow) and a Case 580 with just bucket up there. We have the Frito Lay factory which is another babysit account, I go there myself in another Case 580 with just bucket and theres usually another pickup (01 GMC 2500/Western plow) there with me for awhile. Next door to Frito Lay is a trucking terminal/warehouse complex that I do with the backhoe when Im done at Frito but they are only 3 inches or more and when its completely done. We have a nursing home that is a babysit account in the middle of a storm and one pickup (94 GMC 2500/Western Plow/Fisher salt spreader). For the rest of commercial accounts theres 2 churches, a sub shop, a sign company, and an HVAC company. The rest are all driveways that are picked up when the storms over. I'll have to take some pictures next time I'm out which could be tomorrow if we get the snow they are calling for.
I wish i had a power angle on mine :cool2 I hate chasing windrows :cussing
Friend of mine had a contract for a shopping complex years ago. I ran this old 988, we also had a Michigan 75 and an assortment of trucks.
WOW That looks cold and if its like any of those old 988s I have run, half the time is spent keeping the windows from fogging up. I always kinda thought a front end loader with a shallow/extra wide bucket would work good in the snow, but if you get paid by the hour... no need to spend $$$ on a special custom bucket.
this is what ya need
thats pretty much my boss's theory....he's getting paid by the hour to have me there so it only makes sense to take longer. one of those box's would be nice tho when you just want to get done and go to sleep....if your on your 25th hour sorta thing
What is the white stuff in all those photos? Man, you guys to the north amaze me! We get a 1/4" of ice or snow here and our world almost stops. As a guy who never deals with snow other than the rare snowball to the face, i've got to ask a few questions: Q1: do most of the blades on the graders/ loaders, etc. have rubber tips/blades or std buckets? Is damage to pavements/manholes/valves/machines an issue? Q2: I noticed a lot of folks discussing parking/private contracts as well as some public jobs on different threads. For those public jobs, are you typically supplementing city forces with your crews? Or do a lot of towns not have snow equip. at all and most everything is contracted out? Q3: For removal work, both public and private, is it pretty much fair game to get the roads/parking/sidewalk areas clear and get the removed snow "just about anywhere" you can dump it, or do most entities have designated "snowpile" sites? Q4: w/o getting into details about how much folks make/charge, i'm curious. Is snow removal serious business to the north? We're pretty much year round down here, so it's interesting to watch how you guys' work changes with the seasons.
Very true, and this particular machine had the additional luxury of a window in the top of the cab with bad weatherstripping, so that whenever a little heat built up in the cab it would melt the snow and ice which would then rain inside.:crying
i refuse to plow snow by the hour. it's a seasonal contract, or per occurance. before we got our 16' snow pusher, we'd put a 544g into the target parking lot with 2 pickups/plows...take 4 hrs....on a seasonal contract...bought the 16' pusher, now it's 1.25 hrs. 1 pickup blade, loader/pusher. it's really not rocket science. that's when i switched ALL of my snow contracts to per push or seasonal...forget the hourly stuff.
Q1: Yes, most machines have blades on them. It get's the job done faster. Damage to manholes, curb, gate valves etc can be an issue. Q2: I plow for the town who is about 50/50 on snow equipment. They like to sub stuff out because in the summer they don't have to have guys and equipment sitting. Q3: It used to be we could dump snow into rivers and other bodies of water. Now all the tree huggers are concerned about it. One site I have to put hay bales around the snow piles. We haul all the snow to one section of the lot. What i don't get is any new development around here has to have a drainage system to contain all their own water. So why would it matter if you use salt near a resivoir if all the water is contained on site and used in the man made ponds. That by the way are made from solid ledge. Q4: I have a seasonal contract that ties up 2 loaders a backhoe 2 pickups a bobcat and a sander. That's worth $200,000. The other 2 places are by the inch. There's been years I've made $300,000 between all 3 places and theres been years I've made 1.3 million between all 3 places. The 2 places that are by the inch need all the snow removed to a place on site and stacked with an excavator. I will take a picture of the pile to show how much snow we move. I hope those answer your questions.
Tonka, the fill rate all depends on how much snow we have. Some times I can go 100 yards or more before filling a 22 yard truck, other times I can only go 50'. The blower reduces the volume of snow by six times, so it's really dense. The guys in the trucks report it feels like they are hauling a load of gravel rather than snow, it packs it that densely. It dumps out just fine too. I think there's a picture of the operation in the skid steer forum.
Yes! Railroad tracks tend to just suck also! Was plowing at frito lay one night and it was snowin like hell, I couldnt tell where the tracks recessed into the ground and WHAM!! jarred the hoe pretty good and blew both bucket hydraulic return lines.
I was subbing for a guy at a produce center. he had some cowboy in a brand new 966 flying across the parking lot. He hit the railroad tracks got thrown through the windshield and twisted the loader arms like a pretzel. The guy broke a few ribs and went to the hospital, he was lucky not to kill himself. Take it slow and steady that way when you do find recessed tracks or something you don't end up in front of the machine.
This will be my first year in 7 years that I haven't had to plow snow.. other than jobsites. But I spent 2 seasons in a Versatile 555 with a 14ft blade. Best invention for snow was me and my boss adapted a 10' blade for a dump truck to work on a tractor backhoe. With a 10' Arctic blade on a Case 580 Super L I plowed more snow in our parking lots than our road graders ever did. The Versatii
It was a crossing where they went down into the pavement, and I flattened my bucket out so it wouldnt catch goin across the crossing but to the left, regular track, to the right, the flat crossing....apparently i was too far to the left since the snow was too deep.
Looks like those Versatile's could push some major snow!
Yeah their alright for pushin snow. But our tractor backhoes with snow pushers did a little nicer job. The triple nickle is a bit awkward and ignorant to be shifting all night.
Headed out shortly for the current storm in the NE. I will take some pictures of the 580 pushin snow. So if anyone else in the NE is going out plowing for this storm....Take some pictures!
Plowing snow with the 580 during the storm. 2/12-2/13 Started plowing 2 pm tuesday afternoon, finished 7 am wednesday, freezing rain moved in at 7...went home showered, ate breakfast, took 2 hrs to plow my driveway and the rental house with the 4wheeler, and ate lunch. Around Lunch time the freezing rain turned back to snow, and it was coming down hard. Just when I thought I could get some shut eye boss calls at 1pm and says we gotta go back out. Was out till 6pm. Was a quick 2 days...
Snowplough Hello! At my work we are using more than one type of ploug. I hope their will be some pictures this time, i can`t really get it to work. Volvo L70C with V-shaped plough Valmet 6800 with a Holms plough, 2.40m wide Valtra T190, 3.20 wide "Holms" and Valmet 6800, 2.40 wide "Holms" Valtra 8950 with V-shaped "Svedala" plough Sometimes a V-shaped isn`t enough.. Almost all the machines one morning..
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Q1 Most trucks (small thru large) have steel cutting edges with some sort of trip mechanism. Asphalt gets pretty tough when its cold and you dont see things sticking up out of the road like you do in Florida, or probably TX. Around Rochester new york, loaders work very well in parking areas with rubber edged snow pushers. We use loaders(4) in the 2 - 3 yard range and have 14 to 16 foot wide pushers which carry up to 20 yards of snow. Up in the snow belt snow blowers are a must as the snow comes 2 to 3 feet at a time. Snow banks are 10'. No place to push it. Q2 Most towns do their own work, school might hire out, cities need help Q3 Roads get shoved to the side no matter who's driveway it is. Parking ares have designated snow pile areas and it is even designed into new projects. Q4 It is serious. We don't do much excavating from Dec thru march. Not to say that we spend the whole time plowing snow. We'll give the customer a minimum for the season and then work it off by the hour or the trip. Naturaly everybody wants their parking area clean when they roll out of bed so we charge about 20% more an hour than we do for summer daylight work
It all depends on the weather and what type of contract. Some people hire out by the snowfall and some gamable on have a set contract for the season. We have had more snow this year than in the past previous three so contract are feeling the crunch. Here in Toronto we have our own trucks and also contract out to hundreds of other pieces of equipment. I spent a few winters in a grader on my days off for one of the contractors. This year has been a banner year. Right now they are spending an additional $20 million to clean up from the snow. We have designated areas to dump it. Private contractors are on their own to find somewhere if they have to move it. Just my side, a guy who drives others stuff. I did just buy a Case 530 and hope to get it home tomorrow and start fixing it. I will be cleaning my building lot in cottage country in the spring. Up there I couldn't get anyone to show up, I guess cleaning up a 1 acre lot was not worth their while.
we run season contracts as much as possible. come on global warming!!!
how do you charge buy the sq ft of the parking lot, or do u charge by what it takes to do the lot by the hour and avg the snow fall for the year? Then come up with a season contract
Truthfully, I get good money for my seasonal, The average snowfall here is 40 inches, I figured it for 40 inches then doubled the price. I do have a blizzard clause, anything over 18 inches we get more money for. A lot of guys around here will give low ball prices to get he seasonals for either the landscape contract or just because they'll have money constantly coming in. I lost this contract to someone and I got it back in January when they couldn't provide the calcium for the walks. unless you have good money on a seasonal it can drag you down.
over the last 20 years, we have an average of 17 billable snow occurances a yr. we bid them with the intent we "might" have 25. it's worked great for us. we bill them over a 6 month period, customers love it, know exactly how much it will cost them for season, and can spread the payments out over 6 months and not get hit with any month where they have a hefty snow plow bill to contend with.
Has anyone worked "large Blades"? At O'hare the amount of hired equipment is about 200-300 peices not including the city's runway fleet. Theres too much diversity, if it can possibly move snow, it's used including bobcats,large hoes and gradalls. Aero Snow even has home built melters. Dounuts in a 475 Michegan with a 30' box gets old after 40hrs.
Biggest blade I have is an 18 foot pusher, and a double bucket.