Snow is some bull-malarky

[Definitive Dave]

Had to plow up for the first time this year today and im heading out to salt some properties now.
Its good money but a tremendous pain in the ass and hard on the trucks.
We will only plow for full service clients that have us do everything all year (mowing, fert, pruning, edging and mulching, etc.)

Other guys on here plow?
Do you love it or hate it?

 

[Stump Shot]

Shovel it, blow it, plow it, groom it and ride on it really really fast. So it's a love/hate scenario.

 

[Redfin]

I only hate it when my rig isnt cooperating.

 

[Lone Wolf]

Had to plow up for the first time this year today and im heading out to salt some properties now.
Its good money but a tremendous pain in the ass and hard on the trucks.
We will only plow for full service clients that have us do everything all year (mowing, fert, pruning, edging and mulching, etc.)

Other guys on here plow?
Do you love it or hate it?

Well it ain't that much fun. And if you do it just for you own property it feels like you did it all for nothing after it melts. It sure does brake machines. Something always gets broken every winter around here. Not something i look forward to.

 

[Stump Shot]

Loved it yesterday when running the snow blower for a bit and the wind changed direction, pooooof right in the face.

 

[Definitive Dave]

Worst winter I remember probably a dozen years back I had a 15 passenger van with 10 other guys pulling a trailer with twelve 24 inch snowblowers and we did huge apartment complexes - all of the sidewalks.
Good contracts but miserable that night in continous blowing snow.
By 3 am all of us were soaked to the bone and coated in ice with only half the sites cleared but the weather let up so we went to wal mart which was deserted.
Bought a box of trash bags and 11 full outfits of clothes. We all changed right in the ahoe department of walmart amd carrier sacks of wet clothes and a huge stack of tags up to the register.
Cashier and manager laughed the whole time they rang me up.
Finished the night just in time to have breakfast around sunrise.

Tons of funny snow removal stories.

A guy got chemical burns on his asscheeks one year.

Another time an afghan freedom fighter told my wife i was the nicest man in america.

Now i can barely climb onto the flatbed to load the saltspreader for small jobs

 

[exSW]

Hate it. Township road bisects my property. Private business has ingress/egress through the property on the west side of road. My house and barn is right in the middle. I spent more time unburying myself than anything else. Apparently if its not in their way its not in the way.

 

[dall]

Hate it. Township road bisects my property. Private business has ingress/egress through the property on the west side of road. My house and barn is right in the middle. I spent more time unburying myself than anything else. Apparently if its not in their way its not in the way.

your a little nicer about it than id be if they blocked my driveway and wasnt a county or state road truck doing it they would find the road packed with snow and ice the next time they came through even if i had to clear my yard of snow but then again i can be a *a-hole like that

 

[exSW]

your a little nicer about it than id be if they blocked my driveway and wasnt a county or state road truck doing it they would find the road packed with snow and ice the next time they came through even if i had to clear my yard of snow but then again i can be a *a-hole like that

It's not so much the blocking it's where they put the snow piles. In the shade so they're there till April. There's a damn creek right there.
It's also a case of the employees don't want to do it in the first place. The way to get out of a job seems to be just be *s-wordty at it. I did limit their access.

 

[Stump Shot]

@Definitive Dave "Another time an afghan freedom fighter told my wife i was the nicest man in America."

So you're nicer than the Taliban???

 

[huskihl]

Plowed 30-50 driveways from the time I was 19 for 20 years. Now I do 5 including mine. Money was ok, but the salt eats the truck up. I still have the truck, a 95 Chevy 1 ton dually flatbed. 70k miles. Frame shot. Transmission shot. Tcase shot. 6.5L turbo diesel still runs though

 

[Big1066ih]

Plow state road 7pm-3am for the town, then got 15-20 driveways I do to make some extra cash. It's definitely a love hate for me. This time of year is a big hate, almost got everything froze in so it'll be getting better.

 

[Big1066ih]

Haven't got the first two rounds cleaned up and third round blows in, screw it I'm gonna ride it out on the couch

 

[Definitive Dave]

so far just the one snowfall here, I am counting my blessings

 

[Ryan Browne]

I just do my own driveway and sometimes my neighbor's. I have a good time doing it most of the time. It'd be better if my tractors had cabs. I mostly use my 30 HP New Holland with a back blade. If it's real deep or I need to move banks, I'll use my Kubota with a loader.

The New Holland is really fun, though. I let the driveway get a nice layer of packed snow. I put chains on the front tires of the tractor, which has industrial tires. Industrial tires aren't great for traction on snow, so with chains on the front only I get to the bottom of the drive, crank the wheel and mash the go pedal (it's hydrostatic), and do really fun power slides to turn around. Does great donuts too, with the front tires grabbing decently and the backs spinning out. Makes a cold wet chore a lot more fun.

 

[Definitive Dave]

I did a donut on the ice last year in my F350/plow/saltbox, luckily I only had to replace a client's freestanding mailbox and not the brand new fence that ended up about 3" from the plow.
I was backing out of a long winding driveway when it happened.

 

[Ryan Browne]

I did a donut on the ice last year in my F350/plow/saltbox, luckily I only had to replace a client's freestanding mailbox and not the brand new fence that ended up about 3" from the plow.
I was backing out of a long winding driveway when it happened.

Luckily I don't have anything expensive to replace if I mess up my donuts.

Plowing for clients must be a whole nother ballgame. Between my tractor and blade I've got about $6000 into my plow setup. I'm willing to wager that you've got a bit more invested in a truck with a plow and a salt spreader... Of course you probably stay warmer.

Here's my FIL on my snow machine.

 

[Jimmy in NC]

Contract snow removal work sucks. Doing it with marginal equipment sucks worse. We have to make it to March 15th 2017 and we are done with a 5 year contract for NCDOT. No more.

 

[Four Paws]

I'm up to 3 drives this winter.

 

[Mastermind]

Another time an afghan freedom fighter told my wife i was the nicest man in america.

It's true.