Been lurking around the site for awhile and appreciate everyone’s input on various topics I have read about. I am planning ahead for 2024 and wanted to get input from the group.
I started my business doing exclusively lawn care but added house washing 2 years ago. I have a Northstar softwash setup and portable pressure washer but I waste so much time mixing and lugging equipment around that I want to do either a skid of flat bed and move my lawn care equipment back to a trailer.
Attached is my current truck but I was curious for some of you that run skids is half ton pick up truck sufficient? I only do residential but would love to move into commercial. With the gas mileage on some of these newer trucks it is tempting because my current vehicle is a 2010 f350 with 125,000 miles but it is a v10 and I get maybe 8 mpg.
So here are the 3 main options I am considering. Keeping my current vehicle and buying a skid to build up myself. Move to a half ton pick up with a skid and to pull my lawn care stuff around. Third option is to either buy a new 3/4 ton truck with a flat bed or put a flatbed on my existing vehicle.
Get something big enough where you can move your lawn care equipment and also mount your power washing stuff in the vehicle so you don’t have to constantly move it in / out.
Have about 100-200’ of flexzilla and same for your pressure hose. Have them on reels.
Gone are the days of me dragging around a pressure washer or wfp.
Maybe have a landscaping trailer and separate PW trailer? If you want to do commercial you’ll probably need a decent sized water tank so that will be tough to fit on a skid.
That’s a lot of truck for what you’re doing, I couldn’t imagine the gas bill. That being said I see the new trucks have a whole bunch of issues, if I were to get one probably a Toyota Tundra.
The commercial guys on here can comment way better than me though, I’m just a tiny outfit with a 5x12 trailer and a few squeegees.
This is all i got. I’ve got a 525 gallon tank on the truck that feeds the machine on the trailer. I just bought a 16’ 14k trailer to build this winter to replace the green one. I’ll run it for a year, work out the kinks then winter of '24 I’ll tear it down and do the green powdercoat again
That’s the problem I see with most the regular truck flatbeds, hard to find much over an 8’ flatbed. I wish you could economically put a 10’ bed on them.
Keep the truck you have. You can build a suitable commercial oriented skid setup on it and still pull your landscape trailer. I do the same with an 8’ bed on a 3/4 ton and pull my 14’ wash trailer when needed for bigger jobs. The trailer weighs about 6-7k lbs. I have a separate 1/2 ton I pull a smaller landscape trailer with.
It somewhat depends on your business mix. Do you do more landscaping or washing? Having 2 separate trailers is always an option. The one reason I’ll always keep a trailer for my respective businesses is that if something happens to truck, easy to go rent one if needed for awhile and pull a trailer. With a truck based unit only for wash, you’re out of business something happens to truck. That said, I love not having to pull a trailer every day. Can get into a lot more places and just a lot easier all the way around. I look at my trailer as mainly for insurance and only occasionally needed if I’m going to be running multiple machines on a job.
Majority of my business has predominantly been mowing for years but hoping to be around 50/50 next year. Whatever vehicle I choose, I will wrap so that means I will at least have it for a few more years. Also, next year I will start to spend quite a bit more on washing and keep mowing business the same or even potentially downsize that.
yeah, i agree. You have to bump up to like a 550 for a 12’ bed. But i also use this truck to pull our 35’ camper. If i paired the camper with the 12’ bed it would be pretty tricky getting in to come of these campgrounds.
