Snow clearing with blade and bobcat??

[Haggis]

Just a question to throw out there as I am considering.

Can you make money putting your personal Bobcat to work plowing snow with blade on front of truck? Have deceided to make a career move and am looking to be self employed - is this an option?

What do these guys charge - anyone on here making a living at this? Any advice appreciated.

 

[rmksledder]

my cousin has his own bobcat and does little land scaping and in the winter has contracts with like dealerships and banks to clear thier lots. he started this when he was barley out of high school and seems to be doing well

 

[Haggis]

my cousin has his own bobcat and does little land scaping and in the winter has contracts with like dealerships and banks to clear thier lots. he started this when he was barley out of high school and seems to be doing well

Does he remove the snow also or just pile? I was thinking of putting a blade on the front of my truck also - anyone have that set up for commercial or residential use?

 

[rmksledder]

Does he remove the snow also or just pile? I was thinking of putting a blade on the front of my truck also - anyone have that set up for commercial or residential use?

im sure he removes the smalller areas he only has a 18' walled trailer. were you thinking of bladeing with the truck and then hauling with the bobcat or just using the truck?

 

[Haggis]

Little of both I guess - the bobcat is nice but it is a small er unit 40hp and 60inch bucket - see it more for sidewalks and loading trailer with truck and blade fro larger parking lots.

Is this business your cousins only income?

 

[mudboy]

Hope you very mechanically inclined and can do all your own repairs. Had a few friends that have tried this and it is very time consuming as certain contrcts have a time period like before 8 am everything has to be cleaned. And if something does brake you will need to have it fixed asap

 

[rmksledder]

Little of both I guess - the bobcat is nice but it is a small er unit 40hp and 60inch bucket - see it more for sidewalks and loading trailer with truck and blade fro larger parking lots.
Is this business your cousins only income?

he used to be a heavy duty mechanic but his diabeties got bad pulling wrenches so he got into this right now it is his only income he says its nice that he can work when he wants with the contracts

 

[Cyle]

This is what my dads pretty much does in the winter and i've done a bit to. The bad part is, your working at night, pretty much any lot they won't want you there during the day. If you got monthly contracts your ok, but by the hour is can be rough if you got no snow. A truck with a blade does not work well by itself for cleaning a lot, it can't get packed stuff. A bobcat works much better, and the two combined work well to. For reference had KFC contracts for the past 15 years until this year, each lot is worth about $200/month, just charged same for all they are quite a bit different in size but balance out. Pending on the size of bobcat, it's worth between 60-100 an hour.

The problem is, say you got 20 lots at 200/month each. That's not great money, but the problem is if it snows your working probably 15 hours strait to clean them all.

As far as repairs, as long as you know a bit you can figure out most things. They really don't break down to much. But it's like vehicles, the newer they are the more crap that breaks and the less room there is to fix it!