If your business works with construction, you deal with a lot of heavy equipment. If you want advice on how to save money on your equipment, you should check out my posts. I plan to write about everything from hiring versus buying, to troubleshooting to reduce repairs, to handling repairs yourself. I also plan to write about other aspects of heavy machinery use such as safety. I ultimately hope that my ideas guide you toward creating a leaner, more productive, more efficient, less expensive, and more profitable business. My ideas are geared toward everyone from newbies to experts in the field of construction.
Snow plows in the northern half of the U.S. are a common sight in winter. If you move from the South to the North, and you bought property with a really long driveway, you may be wondering what to do when the first snowfall hits. There are three types of snow plows that can help you quickly clear tons of snow from your driveway.
Heavy Construction Type
This type of plow closely resembles a construction dump truck, but it is equipped with a front plow accessory and an angled side plow accessory. Usually these are used by the cities to clear snow and ice from the roads and push it into a bank form along the curbs. People who have lived in the North most of their lives tend to dislike this as it pushes a lot of street snow into driveways. However, you can hire a private plowing service that will use their heavy duty truck plows to clear your driveway and what the city plows pushed up against the foot your driveway. It only takes them about five minutes or less to do the job.
Pick-up Truck Mounted Type
If you happen to have a neighbor with a pick-up truck, and he/she also has a plow accessory for it, this qualifies as the "pick-up truck-mounted" type of snow plow. If you throw your neighbor a few bucks, he/she may just attach the plow accessory and clear your driveway for you. With this type of plow, it may take five to fifteen minutes longer than the heavy construction type of plow because the pick-up has to really push through the ice and snow and back out repeatedly to get all the snow moved.
Skid Steers
A skid steer is like a mini front-loader vehicle. It rolls around on track wheels and has a front-scooping plow accessory. These are actually quite popular in farm and ranch country in the Midwest and Great Plains states, but you may see them being used in winter just about anywhere. They have one advantage over the other two types of plows-- you can rent them from a local hardware rental store and drive them around your yard yourself. It may take you about twenty to forty minutes to remove snow if you do this yourself, not counting the time it takes to go to the rental store, sign and pay for the rented skid steer, and return home with it.
For more information on these snow plows and which you should use, talk to a company like Koenig Body & Equipment Inc.
Share