# Plowing a street price



## sven1277 (Jan 15, 2008)

An hoa we will be plowing the driveways for also wants a price for plowing the entire road. Generally, I don't need help with pricing but have never plowed a street. Here are the specs, 1100' long about 25-30' wide with a 90' by 90' cul-de-sac at the end. Also, it is up hill the entire length. The town will take it over next year, but for now need us to do it. Thanks for any input.


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## elite1msmith (Sep 10, 2007)

$125 big ones , plus salt -- and i wouldnt plow unless they let you salt


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## framer1901 (Dec 18, 2005)

How long does it take to drive a mile and a quarter while plowing? That's what it is 5 passes at the most, add 10 minutes to clean the cul de sac and entrance and drive down the road - You're there 20 minutes tops. Offer salt, suggest salt - if they don't want it, it becomes their issue.

To use, roads are just like any parking lot, bid it based on time and how much you need to make per hour.


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## mulcahy mowing (Jan 16, 2006)

I agree with framer1901 whats 20 minutes worth to you? that's how much you charge then, if you pre treat you wont have to worry about coming back so often as you would without it. I plow allot of roads it can be a pita coming back so often. salt is a must and pre treatment would be a great time saver and the end product will be so much nicer.


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## bribrius (May 5, 2007)

sven1277;589676 said:


> An hoa we will be plowing the driveways for also wants a price for plowing the entire road. Generally, I don't need help with pricing but have never plowed a street. Here are the specs, 1100' long about 25-30' wide with a 90' by 90' cul-de-sac at the end. Also, it is up hill the entire length. The town will take it over next year, but for now need us to do it. Thanks for any input.


i did a couple similiar. doesnt take that long framer is right you can move along at a pretty good clip.. unless............

i did run into a problem last year of running out of room. I had a couple like this. the walls on the sides started encroaching on the road. the snow windrows up and falls back down because the walls get too high. Pile at the end starts slowly moving up, and up.
the nice fast quick run down wasnt so quick anymore. now i found myself wishing i bid higher because I had to kitty corner the truck all the way down going side to side trying to push the frozen walls back or the snow up and over. I did this kitty corner bs a couple times in the later part of the season and if you have never done this i can tell you first hand it sucks, for you and your truck. toward the end of the season i was wishing i had a tractor and found myself going back and asking to raise my intital price (which they allowed on one). The town avoids this type of issue by going back and extending a wing plow to push the top half back but most of us doing these private roads dont have wing plows so it is what it is.
i think the key is what is on the sides of the road. if you can push down or not, how far off the road you can push, and HOW much snow you get because the quick run down can turn into a nightmare. That is a lot of snow to find room for when you have no room. Not that this would happen to you but i learned my lesson on considering a twenty minute job staying a twenty minute job and that quick and easy can change so look for unforeseen or what may not be obvious up front when consdering it. And yeah, salt and sand doesnt hurt because if you end up with walls on the sides they meltdown and refreeze, melt and refreeze, the area your doing your "run" down can turn into a ice rink.


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## storm king (Sep 17, 2008)

Is it just one house on the road or more than one


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## sven1277 (Jan 15, 2008)

There are 16 drives up and down the street that we also plow, plus the sidewalk on both sides


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## sven1277 (Jan 15, 2008)

/thanks for the insight bribius, the last couple of years have been pretty pathetic for snow fall totals. The drives and main sidewalk are priced for the season. I expect the street to require more attention during the season and wonder if I should price per push?


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## stillen (Dec 7, 2003)

if its all UP hill, couldn't you just start at the top instead of the bottom, Then it'd be all down hill...


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## cretebaby (Aug 23, 2008)

stillen;590259 said:


> if its all UP hill, couldn't you just start at the top instead of the bottom, Then it'd be all down hill...


how would you get to the top


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## stillen (Dec 7, 2003)

cretebaby;590269 said:


> how would you get to the top


Well, possibilities could be

1 leave truck at top before it snows, and then walk to truck when plowing is needed

2 drive truck to top in any 4 range low/high

3 drive up backside of road, then continue down the other .

its always easier plowing down..

;-)


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## cretebaby (Aug 23, 2008)

stillen;590278 said:


> Well, possibilities could be
> 
> 1 leave truck at top before it snows, and then walk to truck when plowing is needed
> 
> ...


wouldnt it be easier to just plow at 2" instead of 12" LOL


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## bribrius (May 5, 2007)

sven1277;590249 said:


> /thanks for the insight bribius, the last couple of years have been pretty pathetic for snow fall totals. The drives and main sidewalk are priced for the season. I expect the street to require more attention during the season and wonder if I should price per push?


The street will need more attention than the drives. Couple inches in a drive is okay but a couple inches in the street will make ice. Cars going up and down the street dont help they melt it and pack it down so you will be salting/sanding. 
up to you on per push. Thats what i do but you just said you didnt get much snowfall so........

but if the sidewalk only runs down one side of the street i would windrow whatever i could to the opposite side. trying to clean up the sidewalk will be easier, If your windrowing to the same side as the side walk your cleaning up the crap you pushed off the street when you go to do the walk. Not sure what you use on the walks but why make it harder than it has to be.
If sidewalks are on both sides i guess you have little for choices.

If you get so much snow on that hill that you cant drive up it and plow down then i would say your late in plowing the street. Of course if your on time in plowing the street and you have the ice under control as you should be then plowing a couple inches of snow up hill shouldnt be a problem anyway. As the snow melts the water runs down hill so you shouldnt have any ice on the hill if your clearing it and salting it as you should be..


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## QuadPlower (Jan 4, 2007)

I was waiting for some one to comment on "Also, it is up hill the entire length. "

It is actually down hill half the time. Just messing with ya.

Take your truck and drive up, down, up and down, with a stop watch on. You will be surprised at how short of a time it is. I would double it and multiply by your hourly rate. I would think there might be more wear on the cutting edges doing streets instead of parking lots or driveways.


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## storm king (Sep 17, 2008)

OK , let me get this straight 16 houses splitting the cost of one 1100ft. road ? What does it take to plow it about 10 min. 
If you hit each one of the 16 somewhere between 10 or 20 $ extra, well.... you do the math , sorta seems like a no brainer. 
Good luck , Storm King.


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## bribrius (May 5, 2007)

storm king;590881 said:


> OK , let me get this straight 16 houses splitting the cost of one 1100ft. road ? What does it take to plow it about 10 min.
> If you hit each one of the 16 somewhere between 10 or 20 $ extra, well.... you do the math , sorta seems like a no brainer.
> Good luck , Storm King.


you would think but some of these roads run weird. this eighty fieet could belong to this house, this ninety feet could belong to this house this 140 feet could belong to this house. or a may be a association or land trust which is a whole different pita. could be all a right of way to land on the other side that has a main road and the guy living there has it, possible utility easments could go through the road in places. Some have one owner but five different people have right of ways and each has to maintain there own part of the MAIN right of way. you would think it would be simple but ive seen some pretty complicated short roads. HAHA.
all things considered if it were me i would bid HIGH since i know the town is taking it over and i only have it for one year, and as he said, he already has the drives and walks. pretty unlikely they would look for someone else. Guess he is bidding to a hoa but i would be sure it was understood where the street started and stopped since some of these are screwy..


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## storm king (Sep 17, 2008)

Gotcha, most of the private roads where we plow are not so cut and dry either. 
But look at it this way the more right of ways ect.. ect.. the more pockets your reaching into .... at least thats the way I see it.

As far as who owns how much road ? we usually just bill accodingly. We also maintain the roads that are gravel , and when you get the few bad apples fighting over a fair price we just learned to let the roads wash out and go to hell over the summer and let the snow pile up in winter . 
They catch on pretty quick when they can't get in or out ,and sort of work it out without hardly any hassle to us price wise.

One thing I will have to admit... the driveways we have on the back of the mountain are not getting done with a truck , skidsteer, or 4 wheeler NO WAY . 
We like it but most normal people don't want anything to do with super steep \ non code cornforming truck trans busting ( stuck) ,atv with chains pushing 2 inches of snow going nowhere ( stuck) , skidsteer sliding through a house or off the mountain- side cliff (stuck or dead) , driveways that we luv so much, that greatly helped with price and competition so far.
Best Whishes,
Storm King


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