A property manager is not buying snow removal. They are buying a lot that is clear and safe at seven in the morning on the worst day of the year, and a record showing it was.
Plowing is the easy part. The claim comes from the refreeze.
Snow gets moved and everybody can see that it happened. Ice is different. It forms overnight on a lot that was plowed clean at four in the afternoon, after meltwater ran across it and the temperature dropped, and nobody sees it at all until somebody goes down on it in the dark.
That is where the liability actually sits, and it is why we treat ice as its own job rather than as something that happens incidentally to clearing snow. De-icing and sanding, on the lots and on the walks.
What gets cleared
- Parking lots and drives
- Sidewalks and walkways
- Entries, steps and building approaches — the pinch points between the lot and the door
- De-icing and sanding
- Stacking, relocation and hauling when the lot runs out of room
That last one stops being theoretical around February. A lot with nowhere left to put snow loses parking spaces every storm, and by the time it is a problem it is a bigger job than it would have been in December.
What we will tell you about timing, and what we will not
On a normal storm, commercial properties are cleared before the business day starts. That is the commitment, and it is the one that matters — a lot that is clear at ten in the morning was not clear when your people arrived.
On a big storm, anybody promising you the same thing is guessing. When two feet comes down overnight across two counties, every contractor in the valley is behind. The honest answer is that properties get cleared in priority order, and that you will hear from us about where you are in it rather than standing at a window wondering.
We would rather tell you that in September than in January.
In January, nothing else is competing for the equipment
A snow-only contractor has one season to earn a year from, and every storm is a scramble for the same trucks.
Our equipment and crews are fully committed from March through November and not committed to anything else in the winter. The same operation that mows your common areas and maintains your irrigation is the one clearing your lot, and in January it is not being pulled in three directions.
Every push is a record
Date, time, what was cleared, what was applied. That record exists because it is how the work gets dispatched and billed, not because somebody remembered to write it down afterward.
If a claim is ever made against your property, the question the insurer asks is what was done and when. For most properties the answer is somebody's recollection. Here it is a record, and you can have it.
How contracts work
Two ways to set it up.
Seasonal. A set price for the season. Your property is on the route and the number does not move whether it is a light winter or a hard one. Most commercial and HOA properties go this way, because a predictable line in the budget is worth more than winning the bet on a mild year.
Per push. Billed by the visit. Better for properties that only need clearing occasionally, and for anyone who would rather take the weather risk themselves.
Either way, the contract is written to a trigger depth — the accumulation that puts your property on the route without anybody having to make a phone call. What that number should be depends on the property and on how much traffic it takes before the lot becomes a hazard.
Residential
We clear residential drives and walks on the same routes. Same trigger-depth arrangement, same seasonal-or-per-push choice.
The practical difference is scheduling: commercial lots and HOA common areas have to be open before the business day, so they are cleared first. A residential drive on the same route is usually done by mid-morning.
Contracts for this winter are being written now
Routes are built before the season starts, and they are built from the contracts that exist when the building happens. A contract signed in October is on the route when the first storm lands. A contract signed in December is fit into a route that is already full.
This is not a sales deadline — it is how the routing works. The properties that call after the first real storm are the ones we most often cannot take.
Request a Snow Contract or call 970-835-9661