I received a call from an HOA board member last week. They’re looking to have all the curbs, sidewalks, and driveway aprons cleaned, noting that this hasn’t been done in about 15 years. According to my mapping, this involves roughly 1.5 miles of curbing and about 33,000 square feet of flatwork.
I’m confident in my pricing, given my knowledge of the local market. However, there’s a challenge: they don’t want me using any of the homeowners’ water. I looked into hauling water, but it’s not cost-effective, especially with my schedule and the lack of consecutive workdays in the neighborhood. Filling my own IBC totes is another option, but it would be inefficient and time-consuming.
I’ve calculated that offering to clean the homeowners’ driveways as well—using their water—would cost about $5K less than hauling in water without doing the driveways. This would also save significant time by keeping me on-site. I’m considering presenting this as a win/win/win scenario: the HOA saves money, homeowners get their driveways cleaned to match the rest of the concrete, and I benefit from improved efficiency.
I’ve reviewed similar posts and suggestions, especially @Racer“Anatomy of a Townhouse” but I’m open to any additional insights or ideas on how to approach this. I’ll be meeting with the board member in a couple of weeks to walk the project and see the scope, so I have some time to refine my game plan if they decide to proceed with the estimate.
That was going to be my last resort… I’ll need to check the hydrant locations during the walkthrough. I know that the county doesn’t rent out meters, so I’d need to purchase one (or figure out how to get one from somewhere), which costs $800 plus the tools to open the hydrant/etc, and then factor in the water usage. While it’s still cheaper than having water delivered, it’s would still be more expensive than the combined utility bills of all the homeowners.
65 gallon tank in the bed of truck.
Access to a trailer and as many ibc totes that I want.
Standard curbs, 90 degree barrier?, there are 3 islands that have some decorative pavers as well.
Only 3 hydrants spanning the entire neighborhood, entrance, exit, and middle… however looking into it further the original $800 was just for a meter… for a complete setup it looks like it’s closer to $3,000.
Photos are from 5ish years ago when they had some of the concrete fixed.
Call @Innocentbystander he could probably walk you through everything. I think I remember him stating he has done miles of curbs in towns in bad weather before. The man is a wealth of information.
If you have access to totes, you could stage them around the area. Fire companies around me can bring 2-3k water for about 180 donation. We use them for pool fills after building them. My buddy (owner of pool business) likes to ride in the truck. I always ask the driver if he gave him a lollipop and let him toot the big horn.
Are the hydrants city owned or neighborhood owned, in other words, does the hoa get the bill for all the water out of those 3 hydrants. Some large apartments setup like that.
What did the water department recommend you do when you told them you need to tap into hydrant. You can get hydrant meters all day long for less than $1000. They should have some guidelines exactly what you’ll need to tap into the hydrants.
In all honesty, you’re going to be there forever with your equipment. Can you not setup a tote in the back of your truck. I mean a 65gal tank, you’re going to be needing to fill every 10min. If, you have access to a trailer and more totes, and could get a tote to work off of on your truck, then you could just use a sludge pump to transfer over periodically to your rig. What we do when we have large farm fence projects.
Seriously, that’s a big project for probably anyone on here. I think you need to walk away at this time until you have more equipment and not spend a lot of time on it, unless you’re willing to spend about 15-20k on equipment if you get the job. Projects like that are a good way to buy a lot of equipment if you don’t need the money to live off and have the means or credit to get the equipment for the job… I’m guessing that’ll be about a 12K+ job. Good luck and keep us posted.
City owned hydrants. I need a hydrant wrench, a meter (they recommended a 1") that registers in gallons, with a backflow prevention device, and a support for it. The meter needs to be inspected by the engineering office before obtaining the permit. Permit is free and good until the end of the year. Monthly meter readings until the end of the year or until I tell them I’m done using it.
I’ve got a 3/4 ton, but it’s only a 6.5" bed and currently has a topper on it (again going back to lack of storage space and it doesn’t fit in the garage so to keep prying eyes away for the time being it’s all undercover) … I could shuffle things around to get a tote in there if thats what it comes down to. I also have access to a trailer and a source for free 275 gallon totes, but I’m not super comfortable with hauling that much water on a trailer and some of the streets in that neighborhood are one lane/one ways so parking will already be tight to begin with.
The largest drive/sidewalk/curb in the neighborhood would take 2 hours to clean, based off comparable areas that I’ve done in the past with my equipment… figure that puts me somewhere in the ballpark of 3-5 homes a day, 45 homes so figure 15 days on the long end to complete (barring nothing goes wrong). During our phone call she mentioned doing it in chunks and stringing it out over several months, which I’m not opposed to just based on the sheer size and my current availability for the remainder of the year. Money is not needed to live off and have a decent chunk already set aside to upgrade equipment with but was hoping to wait until next year to do so. Yup, estimate is at $13.5K after tax.
Thats kinda the route I’m trying to go with the “I’ll clean your driveways if you allow me access to your water” pitch… Hopefully I’ll get a better read and know more after the walk through.
Bit of a reach, but I don’t suppose you can just offer to pay some of the homeowners some water bill money in exchange for using their spigot for a bit.
Cleaning 45 drives. That’s got to be $4500. That’s nuts
You can get the meter setup you need for probably $200.
If you had a belt drive machine, you could just run a hose from trailer with totes on it.
3/4 ton you can haul a lot of stuff. If you could figure out how to get tote in truck bed, then work off of it When one on truck got empty, just use a sludge pump to transfer to truck tote from trailer, takes less than 10min.
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m no mathematician… but when I calculate what all of the surface area is and times it by rate, I’m ending up with a considerably lower number then factoring in hydrant use (I’m not sure where you are finding a meter for $200 I’m seeing $800 for just the meter and then the back flow and all the connections, closer to $1500-2K… but I also don’t really know what I’m looking at in terms of pieces/brands/etc) or having to haul in water, even with less area to clean.
I still say it’s cheaper to hand a homeowner $30 to use their water than burn up your time and resources on countless driveways.
You could even get a cheap water meter and check to see how much water you used and double the price, STILL a lot cheaper than doing a driveway which would run about $100 each.
Dang are you guys really only getting $100 a driveway?
Selfishly I also don’t want to only do the sidewalk and apron and not touch the drives… it’ll look like an incomplete job and I can’t stand the thought of that, especially if someone asks who did it and my name is thrown out there.
Because you’re looking at 2.5" equipment. Look at 3/4". You can buy the adaptor plate for 2.5" hydrant output to a 3/4" GHT for $43. Did just the setup like you need w/o the meter 2 weeks ago for an apartment project I’m on that has a master meter at street for less than $100 counting the adaptor plate. Google 3/4" water meter and there are a ton of them for less than $100…So your total cost would be less than 200 plus the wrench you need is about $40.
I’m running 3 - 8gpm machines on this project and I’m having to dump excess water at EOD. It’s keeping my tanks brimming full all day long and we’re not standing around. Getting better than 20gpm flow thru more than 200’ of hose. We’re running 3/4" hose from meter to general vicinity of where we’re working, putting a splitter and hooking the different rigs into splitter and all the rigs have 250’ of hose on them. At the hydrant with that 3/4" adaptor the flow is better than 30gpm at around 95psi.
All of this is subject to you having decent water capacity on your truck to operate off off. The other option that I use on a large estate that has crappy water but a mile of fence is I take a 2nd truck, put a spare tote in back of truck, it stays at house filling up. Every so often when it gets full, we bring out to operating rig and pump over with a sludge pump.
Or if you’re not pulling a trailer, can always rent a water trailer anywhere, think most hold about 500 gallons and they have a built in pump. Around here they’re about $600/week
What I would do is bid the job for what it’s worth, and then put a flyer or email out to everyone in there that you’re going to be cleaning the sidewalks and curbs for the neighborhood and offer a sweet deal to clean their drive while you’re already there. What we did on the townhouse project and a fair amount took us up on it. That alone could pay for an 8gpm machine.
But if you’d rather give away for free, have at it. But I can almost guarantee you won’t get project if you’re not competitive. Giving away 45 driveway cleanings just for water isn’t good math, so you’re right in that respect.
