# New to this...



## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

Hello!

I have a landscaping business and bought a Boss V Plow for my truck last year. I subcontract through a much larger landscaping company for plowing. Last year wasn’t great for snow in the Indianapolis area but I figured it’s because I just bought a plow haha. It pays well considering I subcontract.

I received an email from a large snow contractor that covers multiple states. They wanted to know if I was interested in a property of theirs. It’s an old mall. Not all of it has to be plowed. This is what I know:

It has 565,000 square feet. 8400 linear feet of driveway miles. This covers about 1/2 of the entire parking lot. So lots of places to push the snow off to. 1 1/2”-2” trigger and every 2” after per push contract. No sidewalks. 3 tight loading docks.

The equipment that they want are:

A backhoe or loader with push box
A pickup truck with 9’ plow and salt spreader
A skid steer with push box or a pickup with 9’ plow
Salt storage ie shipping container

Pay
1 1/2”-2” $980 per lot clearing 
Salt lot $1,024 for each lot salting

They said 5-6 tons of salt per time. Not sure if that is correct.

With delivery salt is roughly $95 a ton here. Backhoes are not available. A 4 yard loader is $6700 a month. 2skid steers are $2800 a month. 2 push boxes and a salt spreader are $9000.

I will never be afraid to look into the opportunity that a job can bring my business. Even if it’s as large as this, just need more people. It just seems to be low on price for my area.

They said 18-24 salt spreads per season. Salt is new for me. I know that’s where the money is but with those numbers we’d make about $500 for each time we spread salt. That doesn’t add up to me.

I appreciate any insight that I can get. Thank you for your time.

Jared


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## dieselss (Jan 3, 2008)

Whats the name of the national ?


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## jonniesmooth (Dec 5, 2008)

Don't do it. Your going to sign up to pay how much for equipment, that you may never use?
And how many people do you have? And they have how many hours in a skid or loader? Never mind years.
If you are new to this game, you need to start slow.
Are you prepared to bank roll this national company for 90-120 days, if they pay you at all?


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## BossPlow2010 (Sep 29, 2010)

One pick up truck to salt 565,000 sq fit of parking lot?
No quick cubes?...

I’d turn it down, 12 acres is a decent amount of pavement with only 1 truck and no experience.


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## jonniesmooth (Dec 5, 2008)

BossPlow2010 said:


> One pick up truck to salt 565,000 sq fit of parking lot?
> No quick cubes?...
> 
> I'd turn it down, 12 acres is a decent amount of pavement with only 1 truck and no experience.


He doesn't even qualify to bid unless he comes up with a loader and a pusher and at least another truck.


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## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

dieselss said:


> Whats the name of the national ?


Snow and ice management company


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## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

jonniesmooth said:


> Don't do it. Your going to sign up to pay how much for equipment, that you may never use?
> And how many people do you have? And they have how many hours in a skid or loader? Never mind years.
> If you are new to this game, you need to start slow.
> Are you prepared to bank roll this national company for 90-120 days, if they pay you at all?


It all seemed like such high cost for such little reward. Even salting was bad money. Was that the correct amount of salt for the area though?


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## Randall Ave (Oct 29, 2014)

Id run away, did you get a copy of the contract with your insurance requirments, and how you would be paid.


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## BossPlow2010 (Sep 29, 2010)

Interesting, ISO 9001 and SIMA...


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## CCSnow (Jan 25, 2016)

Jaredabubba said:


> Hello!
> 
> I have a landscaping business and bought a Boss V Plow for my truck last year. I subcontract through a much larger landscaping company for plowing. Last year wasn't great for snow in the Indianapolis area but I figured it's because I just bought a plow haha. It pays well considering I subcontract.
> 
> ...


Indy on average gets 20 inches of snow so 20/2 is 10 x 980 is $9800 in pushing. Not worth spending $6700 a month on a single machine for 4+ months, price doesn't include a pusher, will cost you $27k. 1 skid steer is $1400 a month so 6k for 4 months. 6 tons of salt for 20 saltings is 120 tons at $85 a ton is around 10k and they will pay you 21k. You are already losing 20k and we have not even factored in the cost of insurance, push boxes, salter, shipping containers, or even labor. I wouldn't walk I would run.


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## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

Randall Ave said:


> Id run away, did you get a copy of the contract with your insurance requirments, and how you would be paid.


I did. It's nothing higher than what I have now. Not sure. I haven't gotten to the part about receiving payment.


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## Fourteen Contracting Inc. (Jul 5, 2019)

Yes, I'd say 5-6 tonnes is the correct amount. Figure you'll want to put 800 pounds per acre. You're doing 13 acres so 800 x 13=10400 then divide that by 2200 (pounds in a ton) and you get 4.73.


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## CCSnow (Jan 25, 2016)

Jaredabubba said:


> It all seemed like such high cost for such little reward. Even salting was bad money. Was that the correct amount of salt for the area though?


Most figure 800lbs an acre so 12 acres is about 5 tons.


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## Kinport (Jan 9, 2020)

This is common practice for large property managers. They get a contract for snow removal on a piece of real estate and then seek a local contractor to handle the actual removal, offering to pay a fraction of what they’re being paid. This is incredibly hard on the local contractor(you, in this situation). 
You have two options
1) Run away. You said yourself the numbers don’t add up. Even if everything went well, it looks like profit would be slim. Not worth the risk in my book.

2) negotiate a better price with them. Understand that the first offer is their lowball offer. It’s laughable and sorta insulting. Go to the site in question, spend some time there and come up with a price you need to be able to make money. Take that number back to them and tell them “this is what I need to make it work”. If they are in a pinch, which I’m assuming they are if they’re contacting you this late in the season, they will raise prices to just ensure the property gets covered.

Understand that national service providers as a whole have a terrible reputation for slow pay/no pay. They can be hard to work with, your contact for the property is usually in another state and has no understanding of the local conditions, and many of them require mounds of paperwork/documentation, and will use any mistake in that process to withhold pay. Not all are this way, but many are.


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## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

Kinport said:


> This is common practice for large property managers. They get a contract for snow removal on a piece of real estate and then seek a local contractor to handle the actual removal, offering to pay a fraction of what they're being paid. This is incredibly hard on the local contractor(you, in this situation).
> You have two options
> 1) Run away. You said yourself the numbers don't add up. Even if everything went well, it looks like profit would be slim. Not worth the risk in my book.
> 
> ...


That makes sense. What would be fair?


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## Ajlawn1 (Aug 20, 2009)

Fourteen Contracting Inc. said:


> 2200 (pounds in a ton)


When did this start...?


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## jonniesmooth (Dec 5, 2008)

Ajlawn1 said:


> When did this start...?


The salt was covid positive?
Covid math?
Metric salt?


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## BossPlow2010 (Sep 29, 2010)

jonniesmooth said:


> The salt was covid positive?
> Covid math?
> Metric salt?


Yes


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## Kinport (Jan 9, 2020)

Jaredabubba said:


> That makes sense. What would be fair?


I couldn't even venture to guess without being there to see how the lot lays out and how hard/easy a push it would be.



Jaredabubba said:


> It has 565,000 square feet. 8400 linear feet of driveway miles.


I'm not sure what you mean when you say "8400 lineal feet of driveway miles"- what does that mean?


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## Fourteen Contracting Inc. (Jul 5, 2019)

Ajlawn1 said:


> When did this start...?





jonniesmooth said:


> The salt was covid positive?
> Covid math?
> Metric salt?


My bad, I had metric tonnes in there, not US tons.


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## Chas0218 (Dec 3, 2020)

Kinport said:


> I couldn't even venture to guess without being there to see how the lot lays out and how hard/easy a push it would be.
> 
> I'm not sure what you mean when you say "8400 lineal feet of driveway miles"- what does that mean?


I'm just guessing but on top of the large parking lot there is 8400 feet of 2 lane road that he will be needing to clean out as well? I mean that's over 1 and 1/2 miles of roadway that will need to get cleared on top of the huge parking lot.


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## jonniesmooth (Dec 5, 2008)

Did anyone mention that we are well into DECEMBER and they are looking for a contractor?
This is a huge red flag for us ( guys who have been around for awhile).


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## Kinport (Jan 9, 2020)

If he does decide to pursue this, which I don’t think he should, that would be my angle for getting the prices up. Letting the NSP know I would be happy to do it and we could start immediately, assuming they paid us our price and accepted MY contract.

but your right. Huge red flag.


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## Kinport (Jan 9, 2020)

Chas0218 said:


> I'm just guessing but on top of the large parking lot there is 8400 feet of 2 lane road that he will be needing to clean out as well? I mean that's over 1 and 1/2 miles of roadway that will need to get cleared on top of the huge parking lot.


makes sense, I'll guess we'll have to wait for OP to clarify


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## BossPlow2010 (Sep 29, 2010)

jonniesmooth said:


> Did anyone mention that we are well into DECEMBER and they are looking for a contractor?
> This is a huge red flag for us ( guys who have been around for awhile).


They may be looking for a contract starting Jan 1, that's not too uncommon as everyone's fiscal year is different.


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## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

Since I'm newer to this I didn't know what kind of pricing is fair. I spent a decent amount of time going online and researching pricing. I found that plowing was low and salting was about average from what I could find. But that's also across the country. Not necessarily in my area. Here is a picture of the property. It's fairly flat. The 3 loading bays are tight but overall just a big property.


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## BossPlow2010 (Sep 29, 2010)

Jaredabubba said:


> Since I'm newer to this I didn't know what kind of pricing is fair. I spent a decent amount of time going online and researching pricing. I found that plowing was low and salting was about average from what I could find. But that's also across the country. Not necessarily in my area. Here is a picture of the property. It's fairly flat. The 3 loading bays are tight but overall just a big property.
> View attachment 209465


Next time, blur out names of places and streets.

you never know who's viewing this thread, and you already mentioned the name of the contract holder and what they require.


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## Ajlawn1 (Aug 20, 2009)

Jaredabubba said:


> Since I'm newer to this I didn't know what kind of pricing is fair. I spent a decent amount of time going online and researching pricing. I found that plowing was low and salting was about average from what I could find. But that's also across the country. Not necessarily in my area. Here is a picture of the property. It's fairly flat. The 3 loading bays are tight but overall just a big property.
> View attachment 209465


Wait so what is this 8400' of runners? So is there a different price for lanes/runners?


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## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

BossPlow2010 said:


> Next time, blur out names of places and streets.
> 
> you never know who's viewing this thread, and you already mentioned the name of the contract holder and what they require.


That's my bad. Thank you.


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## Jaredabubba (Dec 3, 2020)

Ajlawn1 said:


> Wait so what is this 8400' of runners? So is there a different price for lanes/runners?


Possibly. I don't really know how they got their numbers. I just don't know what are realistic numbers.


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## Ajlawn1 (Aug 20, 2009)

Jaredabubba said:


> Possibly. I don't really know how they got their numbers. I just don't know what are realistic numbers.


So they sent you this picture with the purple highlighted area and the x's and you have no idea what it's for?


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