Plowing / sanding pricing

I don't do salt, sidewalks or shoveling. I have a tailgate sander for sanding, no throwing sand around with a shovel. On smaller driveways I've traditionally just charged the same amount for sanding as I do for plowing. But on longer driveways (I have a few that are 1/10 to 4/10 mile long), if it's very icy, the amount of sand used adds up to more cost than I would charge for plowing. In some cases the customers want full coverage of sand. That takes a lot.

I guess by residential, I should have said urban. Most driveways we do are not too long, and don't take much sand. We run stainless steel fisher sanders on ton trucks. I think at one point someone played with the settings, timed it, and weighed the truck on the scales. I think they have it nailed down to weight and time per setting. I think a single wide driveway 30 feet long is like $25 for sand. We dan't have to buy sand either, it's a byproduct of some of our crushing and screening operations. It's a round rock sand, our quarry stuff has to be manufactured, and would be too expensive. The salt mine is only a couple hours away, and we buy it in bulk, and mix it with the sand in the late fall

A lot of times I say we have this machine, or we bought this, or we do this. I say this as an employee. I've been with the company since 1998, I'm and operator, truck driver, grade foreman. I don't estimate, but I am aware of some costs. I delivered 15 metric tons so 16 and a half tons of salt sand to a customer. He is about 15 min away from our shop, and has a building for it. he takes 3 loads a week once the season is in full swing. $950.00. Maybe they give him a better deal when he buys more, I don't know, but like $2850 a week for sand. And he doesn't do streets, just driveways and small parking lots

materthegreater said: I need to try to figure out average sand usage rates based on the length of a driveway. Someone asked me for a price for sanding a 4/10 mile long driveway. I'm guessing it'll take 2-4 yards of sand depending on how icy or not it is. But I don't want to give him a price and then spend more on sand than I charge. Click to expand... That's alot if sand. We usually used under a yard a mile at the DOT

IceHole said: That's alot if sand. We usually used under a yard a mile at the DOT Click to expand... Yes, roads take a lot less. Private driveways need a lot more coverage than roads.

Last winter I had a GC pick me up for his plowing contracts, he was doing pricing per square foot of driveway measured by google earth and then he had a minimum for like $40 and a max of $150 for residential. I think he didn't do min or max on commercial lots. If I recall he was doing 4 pennies per square foot. Said he was making money at it, but not a lot. Last I heard he sold the plow trucks and sanders this summer.

Hobs802 said: Last winter I had a GC pick me up for his plowing contracts, he was doing pricing per square foot of driveway measured by google earth and then he had a minimum for like $40 and a max of $150 for residential. I think he didn't do min or max on commercial lots. If I recall he was doing 4 pennies per square foot. Said he was making money at it, but not a lot. Last I heard he sold the plow trucks and sanders this summer. Click to expand... That seems $$$ but I'm not in that business. Just thinking even a small driveway, like 2500 sq ft would be near $80. So probably $1000+ for a winter. Per driveway. For maybe 10-15 mins of work per time. Do 20 driveways in a night after work and that pays off the truck in a couple years.

I only went out 4 times last year, so that $80 driveway would've only made $320. Also gotta factor in the travel time between driveways. My route was 14 Driveways and it would take me about 5.5 hours to do them all. So I guess with travel time I was averaging about 24 min per.

Hobs802 said: I only went out 4 times last year, so that $80 driveway would've only made $320. Also gotta factor in the travel time between driveways. My route was 14 Driveways and it would take me about 5.5 hours to do them all. So I guess with travel time I was averaging about 24 min per. Click to expand... We had something like 25 snow events last winter.

IceHole said: We had something like 25 snow events last winter. Click to expand... If you count all the times we get flurries and the town and state trucks go out chasing snowflakes then we probably had the same. My minimum is 3" so I rarely plow that many times in a winter.

Is there a lot of clean up when winter is over ?

Old Doug said: Is there a lot of clean up when winter is over ? Click to expand... Doug, I guess I forgot to respond to your question. It depends a lot on the type of snow we get and if the ground is frozen when we plow. But yes, usually the lawn guys are pretty busy in the spring cleaning up gravel off lawns and fixing divots and ruts.

materthegreater said: I need to try to figure out average sand usage rates based on the length of a driveway. Someone asked me for a price for sanding a 4/10 mile long driveway. I'm guessing it'll take 2-4 yards of sand depending on how icy or not it is. But I don't want to give him a price and then spend more on sand than I charge. Click to expand... Update: I told him it would be $300 for sanding the driveway if it needed full coverage. Unsalted sand has been $27-35/yard this winter before tax, delivery or pick-up costs. Salt is $135/ton if I go pick it up. I ended up using over 3 yards of salted sand on the 4/10 mile long driveway and it probably took me 1-1/4 hours including travel to sand it. I'm glad I didn't tell him it would cost less than $300. The bonus is there's a nice view at the top of the driveway.