# Looking for advice on lot sweeping



## CHPL (Oct 26, 2003)

Here's the situation. We've been contacted for a bid on maintaining the property at a large strip mall. We are able to quote for the lawn cutting, mulch, weed control and plowing. I already found someone for power washing and line painting. They want a price for weekly hand trash pick up based on 25 hours per week and emptying trash cans 3 times per week. They also want a price on sweeping across the front 3 times per week. It has not been done very well in my opinion. All the traffic islands are only cleaned on the store sides. The other sides have alot of debris. I feel that if we cleaned around the islands really well that we could maintain it. The reason that this job is interesting to us is for the regular income through the winter months. My sticking point is determining what would be an accpetable rate per hour for weekly trash pick up,emptying cans and cleaning across the front of the stores 3 times per week. I dont want to price to low or too high for picking up the loose trash. What kind of hourly rate is reasonable for this type of work? Also what type of rate would be charged to sweep across the front of a mall if equiped with a sweeper? The mall has a few anchor stores and probalby about 15-20 other stores in it. There are 12 trash cans to be emptied 3 times per week. i know all areas are different but I have nothing to quide me as too what's fair to charge. Any help is appreciated.


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## Duracutter (Oct 25, 2006)

CHPL;390129 said:


> Here's the situation. We've been contacted for a bid on maintaining the property at a large strip mall. We are able to quote for the lawn cutting, mulch, weed control and plowing. I already found someone for power washing and line painting. They want a price for weekly hand trash pick up based on 25 hours per week and emptying trash cans 3 times per week. They also want a price on sweeping across the front 3 times per week. It has not been done very well in my opinion. All the traffic islands are only cleaned on the store sides. The other sides have alot of debris. I feel that if we cleaned around the islands really well that we could maintain it. The reason that this job is interesting to us is for the regular income through the winter months. My sticking point is determining what would be an accpetable rate per hour for weekly trash pick up,emptying cans and cleaning across the front of the stores 3 times per week. I dont want to price to low or too high for picking up the loose trash. What kind of hourly rate is reasonable for this type of work? Also what type of rate would be charged to sweep across the front of a mall if equiped with a sweeper? The mall has a few anchor stores and probalby about 15-20 other stores in it. There are 12 trash cans to be emptied 3 times per week. i know all areas are different but I have nothing to quide me as too what's fair to charge. Any help is appreciated.


What type of sweeper do you plan on using? On the hourly rate, I'm not sure what's the going rate in your area but here I base my estimates on $70/hr per man hr. 2 manhours =$140. It all depends how the local economy is. If you have a lot of work you'll want to make as much as whatever it is you normally do but it seems to me this may be the first time you do this type of work. Without a proper sweeper it's very hard to maintain a mall, and garbage pick-up may require some type of vacuum for efficiency.


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## CHPL (Oct 26, 2003)

*sweeper*

I have no experience in the sweeper part of it, But I'm pretty confident that the lot is not being swept as specified. My thought's are that if I can sell them on an initial clean up around the lislands. Which in some areas have 3-4 inches of sand and gravel full of weeds coming out a foot or more. Along with all the other services the property should be profitable. My intenetions would be to get a multi year contract and then purchase a small truck mount unit. For landscaping/ maintencae type work the going rates in my area are 40-50 per man hour. IS that too high to charge for picking trash out of the weeds and woods around the property 25 hours per week? The lot is supposed to be swept 3 times per week and cans emptied 3 times also. Would that be better to price those two things together or seperate at different labor rates? Thanks for your input it is appreciated.


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## Northland (Oct 1, 2006)

Take what you would pay any employee to do the hand work and add what ever profit margin you feel would be acceptable on to that. Be it 30-40-50% or more. $40 or $50 an hour to do clean up over 25hrs a week is a lot of money in my opinion. However I am in podunk Fargo and you are in Jersey... The emptying of the trash cans I would bill out at the rate of 1hr labor and whatever your cost is to dispose of it plus your profit margin. I would figure out what your going houly rate for the equipment used to sweep will be and go by that for the sweeping. Dont forget to figure in cost for diposal of that as well if you dont have a place to dump it. 

Just my opinions here dont rail on me too hard.


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## bank32 (Dec 16, 2005)

If you need a hand in pricing it out, give me a call. I live in philly, pricing in maket will be close. My cell # is (267)716-6982 Al. Also I have a schwarze PV2 truck mount sweeper that I been thinking about selling.


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