# First Commercial Bid!



## sgoalie23 (Jun 20, 2004)

This will be the first commercial bid we will be making. I will be attaching a diagram to explain what the property looks like. Salt and sand are not an isue. My questions are as follows. How would you set up a price; by hour? per inch? every four inches? These are the things that i need help with. There will be two trucks a F350 with a Boss 8'2" V and a F550 with 9' boss with wings. How long would you expect this to take? I would greatly appreciate advise ASAP.

Thank you,
Brian


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## Mick (May 19, 2001)

The attachment just came through as four lines of gobblygook.

Question - How much experience do you have plowing snow?


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## jcesar (Sep 14, 2006)

not sure if it is your end or mine, but cant get the diagram to come up. just shows a bunch of ... not sure what it shows!!!


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## sgoalie23 (Jun 20, 2004)

*here it is.*

....................


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## grandview (Oct 9, 2005)

What kind of place is this? Is it a storage place or office buildings any more info?


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## sgoalie23 (Jun 20, 2004)

Mick said:


> The attachment just came through as four lines of gobblygook.
> 
> Question - How much experience do you have plowing snow?


Mick, it might not seem like a lot but this will be my third winter season. I currently have 58 residential accounts, and one small strip mall.


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## sgoalie23 (Jun 20, 2004)

grandview said:


> What kind of place is this? Is it a storage place or office buildings any more info?


Bingo, it's a storage place. What info would you need?


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## grandview (Oct 9, 2005)

If its all fenced in you'll see how fast the corners fill up.I'm not sure how much snow you get ,but you may need a loader to more the snow. Also a lot of those places sell outside storage so need to find that out also.A nice Vplow would work great for a place like that.


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## Mick (May 19, 2001)

For billing, I'd figure two hours of "truck time". With the equipment you have, I'd say it will actually take something less than an hour. (I'm using "truck time" to mean if you were using a 3/4 ton with an 8' plow.) Next I'd offer a seasonal contract, then you can plow it as you deem best for the conditions at the time. You have plenty of places to stack snow and with a little planning, those two trucks should work well together.

I asked how if you had any experience because if you said this was your first season, my answer would have been very different and, at least, more simplistic. Your profile shows 19 yrs old and you could have been pushing with your Dad for the last ten years or you could be thinking about getting a truck and your first plow; although that could be true at any age. But with three years of pushing, you should have some idea of what you're getting into.

Edit - I saw Grandview's point about outside storage, which would skew my response. I never see anything stored outside of those storage places. I took it to mean those measurements with no lane obstacles


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## grandview (Oct 9, 2005)

In our area we have a lot of these with outside storage and they park boats and trailers in them so sometimes you only have one area to put the snow.


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## sgoalie23 (Jun 20, 2004)

There are no obstacles what so ever outside of the buildings themselves. Also, cars, boats, trailers are not parked outside either. Any thoughts of price for a seasonal contract would be much appreciated, or any thoughts about other pricing is welcomed as well.


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## PLCI (Nov 8, 2004)

What kind of roofs to they have? There may be quite a bit of cleanup work after the sun hits those roofs and melts. do they have gutters? Be careful from a liability standpoint you may have alot of people juming in and out of the backs of pickups and trucks. Make sure your contract has a strong indemnification clause. Any shoveling in front of the doors?

For a one year $13,000 - $14,000 based of 92,000 sf. Any thing over 80" loader work & deicing extra. My 2 cents do a per storm the firat year, keep good records the approach them with a multi year. We get alot of requests for one year seaonal contracts. And I let them know I will be bidding this based off a heavy snow winter. I am not willing to take any losses when snofwall totals excede 100" so I bid the one years high. About 70% of theose contracts go multi year (with a CPI increase every year)

[email protected]


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## sgoalie23 (Jun 20, 2004)

Gentlemen, thank you for the replies. I was thinking along the lines of $7,000 to $8,000 for a seasonal contract. Does that sound about right for South West Connecticut? PLCI, you have been most helpful, even though you are in Maine which definitely gets more snow, you have given me a basis to synthesize a bid. Any other input is more than welcomed.

Fothe Landscaping


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## LLM Ann Arbor (Sep 18, 2006)

I plow a fenced in mini storage place just like that and it takes up to three hours with a 7.5 stock blade. Generally about 2 and a little better. They are tricky to plow. Youll gain much experience on this one. Watch out for the amazing number of yellow protection poles. lol

Now I am a sub for this one and dont know what they get. Id love too, but I have to believe your bid is a tad high. Not too much but Id probably bid mine out at 250 a push.

Id probably get undercut too.....these days. Actually the guy I sub for is subbing these from another guy...lol On a lengthy multi year deal.

Plow only? Id probably be in the 5000 dollar range. Thats going off a 20 event season.

Or 250 up to 3" With incrementals.


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## itsgottobegreen (Mar 31, 2004)

Personally I wouldn't plow storage units. They are a complete pain. Those doors bent real easy if you push any snow into them. There is never any place to put the snow. You can't just plow it off the sides. You got to push it to the end. If I had to plow one, I would only plow it with a skid loader with a push box.


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