Upcoming Snow season.... How are you preparing ?

[Dogplow Dodge]

Just as the title asks...


How, or what are you doing to prepare for the upcoming snow season ?

Equipment prep?

Selling yourself to prospective customers ?


Anything different than you've done in the past ?



TIA

[GSS LLC]

i made a new and improved mission statement. repainted and bedlined 4 of my plow trucks. went through them all and replaced anything needing replacing. and landed 4 more apartment complexes. this year is looking good so far. been a LOT of work though!

[MIDTOWNPC]

Reminding people that we don't over book. We are a prepared contractor and infact we local and live locally.

[truckitup]

Cold calling people, put out a few bids. no bits yet. Going though two of the plows. Got the salter running on the new truck. Still more to go. It never ends... LOL

[2COR517]

Making sure the batteries in the remote are fresh

[jmac5058]

Boating , fishing , camping and drinking. Not neccessarly in that order.

[Dogplow Dodge]

Originally Posted by truckitup

Cold calling people, put out a few bids. no bits yet. Going though two of the plows. Got the salter running on the new truck. Still more to go. It never ends... LOL

When you call people in the middle of the summer, what kind of responses do you get ?



"WTF.... are you crazy ?"

Ha Ha Ha Ha.... Go "F" yourself...

No way, man. I'm not signing any contract for the season. I paid big bucks last year, and not a damn thing was done on my property due to lack of snow....... Piss off, dude.




Kind of what I've gotten from time to time..

[Dogplow Dodge]

Originally Posted by GSS LLC

i made a new and improved mission statement. repainted and bedlined 4 of my plow trucks. went through them all and replaced anything needing replacing. and landed 4 more apartment complexes. this year is looking good so far. been a LOT of work though!

Great to hear. The apartment complexes..... seasonal, or by push ?


Can't get anyone who will do a seasonal.

[grandview]

Making sure all my customers have a link to my bank account so they can direct deposit their seasonal snowplowing checks

[truckitup]

LOL..

Got to bid on two jobs, the other 100 times is like what you said. WTF are you cazy? or I want it at 1/2 price due to last year winter

Lots of requests to change over to per push this year. They forgot about the winter of 2010/2011 when we got 130" of snow.

[grandview]

Originally Posted by truckitup

LOL..

Got to bid on two jobs, the other 100 times is like what you said. WTF are you cazy? or I want it at 1/2 price due to last year winter

Lots of requests to change over to per push this year. They forgot about the winter of 2010/2011 when we got 130" of snow.

Might be time to put a little chart in with your bid that showed the snow totals for the last few years.

[truckitup]

Already done that.


Last year was very warm with little snow (about “55 inches.) Our average Snow Fall is about 99”inches per year. I went back in history to look at how much snow fell the following year and this is what I found.

05/06 74 01/02 58 94/95 56 90/91 69 82/83 59
06/07 107 02/03 135 95/96 130 91/92 110 83/84 118

As you can see, the following year there was quite an increase in snow.

I remember some of those years of high snow spending allot of time in the truck plowing and cussing seasonial contracts, (I do perfer them) They do not care, they want cheap, cheap cheap... Got lots of lawn mowing contracts this year and lost$$$$ Win on one side lose on the other. It is all good.

[FISHERBOY]

Getting bids out, waiting on others ugh, making a list, checking it twice, finding out which plow&spreader is naughty or nice Still hav alot to do, service my bachkoe&skid steer, buy extra hydraulic lines, buy salt, need cutting edges , change connections on my dump for the tailgate spreader, thankfully i don;t need winter tires this season.

[Glenn Lawn Care]

I'm getting a new plow this week! Have talk with a few people that are interested. I'm also trying to get subed out.

[Dogplow Dodge]

I decided to "prepare" my truck by giving it its first real protection for the paint. When I bought this truck about a year ago, the P.O. hadn't waxed it at all. Since he had it painted about 5 years prior to selling it to me, I decided it deserved a good cleaning and paint protection, and hopefully if we get any snow this year, the snow just slides right off..

I used all Meguiar's products, and truth be told, this is the first time I'd ever used a machine polisher to clean a vehicles surface. Meguairs makes it way too easy, and the entire job took about 5 hours. I wasn't a Meguars user until I decided to do this, but I'm one now...

Here's what I did..

I went to HF and bought a polisher. http://www.harborfreight.com/power-t...der-92623.html I was going to buy a good one, but I figured, let me try the cheapo one first, then I can upgrade if I get decent results. I was extremely impressed with this cheapo tool, as it worked flawlessly and easily. The brushes smell kind of funny during use, but it caused me no issues.

I then ordered these Meguiar's supplies from Amazon:

(1) cutting buffer http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i04
(2) polishing buffer pad http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i05 (one for polish/ one for wax)
(1) backing plate for the tool http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i03
(1) bottle of compound http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i01
(1) bottle of polish http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i02
(1) bottle of synthetic wax http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00...ls_o00_s00_i00

Best $86 on polish (plus the cost of the polisher itself) I ever spent on learning how to do something myself.

With the low speed grinder, after cleaning the surface with a "green" mineral spirits to remove gunk, grime, sap and bird doo, I took the compound and red cutting foam pad, and went to town. Starting off with a slow speed, and gradually working up a notch or two, depending on how fuzzy the paint was, the results were almost immediate. It completely removed any grime, and left a very minimal covering of haze, which easily came off with a terry cloth. I then used the polish in the same manner, and finished it off with the wax...

Simply incredible how well.....and more importantly... how easily this stuff worked. I wish I had done this sooner, as there were a few spots of tree sap that must have embedded themselves in the paint, and cannot be removed. I'm good to go till next year....

Here's a few shots.. I photoshoped my business name off of the truck for personal reasons....










Continued...

[Dogplow Dodge]

a few more






All I can say is I'm truly amazed at what the proper tool and compounds can achieve.